Stuart From the Green Bus

Here is Stuart talking from the Green Bus on the occasion of the EU elections:

Witney Post Office

Here is another one of my letters to The Oxford Mail about our town and its services.

The queues snaking out of Witney post office must be the envy of every shop in town, Many Witney shops have closed for want of the very customers the post office no longer wishes to serve. Lots of customers means lots of costs, and the post

© Copyright P L Chadwick and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

office must reduce its costs to make itself attractive to private sector buyers. This is the sort of Mad Hatter management the current  government takes seriously. Not that reason rallies Brenda Churchill (the very embodiment of coalition government) and David Cameron to the cause of saving Witney post office (February 13). Naked Nimbyism does that.

When policy concocted at national level looks absurd at local level, perhaps it actually is absurd. The lesson might be to work the other way round: see what people want locally and then try to deliver this nationally. The concept may be old fashioned, but government really should be accountable to the people (the people in the post office queue, if you like) rather than to big business.

No icy pavements for 1000 years

Icy pavements (c) of Basher Eyre

Here is a letter I recently wrote to the Witney Gazette:

Sir, Almost exactly two years ago, the leader of Oxfordshire County Council announced in your pages (Gazette Letters, January 5, 2010) his solution to the problem of icy pavements in Witney:

“If every householder and every shopkeeper took some salt and a shovel and cleared the area of pavement in front of their home or shop, we might have regained some of the spirit that has kept this island free for 1,000 years.”

The problem has not been solved this winter. Witney’s pavements are more dangerous than ever. Oxfordshire County Council is not actually responsible for keeping this island free for 1,000 years; it is responsible for keeping Witney’s pavements clear of ice for the winter. The good folk of Witney have suffered enough from this council’s bizarre approach to transport in the town. What the council spent on its ill-advised Cogges Link Road proposal would have kept Witney’s pavements free from ice for at least 1,000 years.

Taming the floods

Looking downstream from Crawley Bridge. © Copyright Jonathan Billinger and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

I recently wrote to the Oxford Times to express concern for the lack of maintenance of our riverbanks. I thought I’d share these thoughts with you:

Sir – According to its local area operations manager (January 3), the Environment Agency is not responsible for maintaining the River Windrush to reduce the risk of flooding in Witney. The responsibility rests with the owners of the riverbank. This may come as a surprise to the Environment Agency, whose website declares that “managing flood risk is part of our job”, unless, of course, the Agency is not responsible for doing its job.

 The news will also surprise the owners of the riverbank, many of whom may not be equipped with bucket and spade to dredge their stretches of river. And many other residents of Witney will also be alarmed to discover that only the residents of the riverbank stand between them and the next flood. The negligence of any single riverbank creature imperils us all. Conservative doctrine happily overlooks the limitations of private interest and community spirit working together for the good of all. The next time David Cameron dons his green wellies to wade through the streets of Witney, even he may pause to consider the public purpose of public agencies.

 Stuart Macdonald

Green Party

Christmas lesson

On Friday 30 November, with a flick of the wrist, David Cameron turned on Witney’s Christmas lights and delighted us all: a week later, the Christmas tree outside the Corn Exchange blew down and its lights went out. “Weak infrastructure”, noted the wise man sweeping up the mess. A new tree this week alongside the war memorial, smaller than the last, an austerity tree more suited to Christmas Present – and quite a few Christmases Future.