Barton Link Road UPDATE

Mark Bhagwandin your Conservative candidate working for you all year round

TimeforChangeIs Labour on your side?

Dear Residents,

I want to thank everyone who I have met so far on the doorstep and

who have contacted me with issues that needed resolving, for taking the

time to do so. Despite the fact that I am not yet your Councillor, I have

managed to resolve some issues and ensure action is taken on others. I

will continue to work with you in the coming months as I have done for

the last three years to ensure our voice is heard in Headington Hill and

Northway.

Thank you to everyone who completed the residents’ survey. It was very

interesting to see in the surveys that many people had no idea who their

local councillors are. Seven out of ten respondents said they did not think

their local representatives were doing a good job. It is not good enough

for candidates from any political party to show up only at election time

expecting to be voted back in simply because they belong to a particular

party. Local politics should be about community engagement and

representation all year round. Although I lost to Labour in 2014, resulting

in the ward now having two Labour councillors, I have stayed working

alongside you and have had the pleasure of getting to know many of you

quite well.

In the surveys, many of you raised the issue of speeding, which I have

raised with the Police and the county council and will I follow up to

ensure there is action. More than half of you were unhappy with the City

Council’s plans to go through rubbish to check you’ve recycled. I believe

there are better, less intrusive ways for us to encourage recycling. On

council tax and the cost of council services, nearly 70% of you said you

were not happy with the high cost of renting and living in the city. As

many of you know already and have seen in the press, I have taken a

stand against waste and high costs imposed by Oxford City Council on

taxpayers (Oxford has the 9th highest council tax in South East England).

We must come together on May 5 to change the status quo. Let us vote

for strong representation in the interest of this community and to oppose

the bullyism that has come to characterise the treatment of residents by

the Labour- dominated City Council. Lets vote for change.

Mark Bhagwandin

Under the Labour Administration at the City Council:

► Elderly pensioners at Plowman’s Tower who own their flats have been slapped with £50,000 bills to “improve” the tower. ► Beggars have been threatened with £100 fines.

► £30,000 of taxpayers money have been spent on expensive legal representation to fight Northway residents trying to stop a road being forcibly put through their community.

► Residents are being spied on to see what they put in their bins.

► Motorists are being spied on by a £30,000 City Council specialised vehicle to see if they are overstaying their time at the city’s car parks, like the ones in Headington.

► Nine top managers at the city council earn a total of more than £1M in salaries and pensions with the Chief Executive leading the way with £173,000.

► Oxford City Council has the highest council tax of all the district councils in Oxfordshire. Its double that of the other four Conservative controlled district councils.

Thank you to everyone who came out to the protest I and a few well known activists in Northway organised in December against

a link road being brought through Northway as a shortcut to the JR Hospital. The Labour City Council and the developers

continue to forcibly press ahead with the road despite the pleas and challenges from residents of Northway. They have ignored

peoples concerns about the danger of demolishing the fence to the A40, chopped down trees during the nesting season, and dug up the green space as helpless

residents look on. I want to make a few points clearNo one is opposed to new housing I have spoken to many people over this issue and I am yet to meet a single person who is opposed to new housing in Barton. No amount of calling people “nimbys” will change this fact. The Barton link road is not necessary for the new development. A road system already exists to allow access to and from Barton Park.

The link road will pose a significant safety risk The stretch of the A40 between Headington Roundabout and Cutteslowe Roundabout has accounted for at least 27 serious accidents in the last 10 years, 2 of them fatal. The removal of the trees and the metal fences means there is now the possibility of people, especially children using the playground, to get on to this dangerous A40 road. Does reducing speed to 50mph make the A40 safer? Well the 50mph limit didn’t prevent the pedestrian death on the A40 near Risinghurst just three years ago. On that stretch of road they actually closed off vehicular access to and from Risinghurst, across the A40. So on one section of the A40, they have closed off traffic crossing the road because it is too dangerous and on another section, equally dangerous, they are swiftly opening it up to vehicular traffic. It is inconsistent and ridiculous. I use the

A40 near Risinghurst regularly and often see people dicing with death running across the road. I hope we don’t see this situation at Northway now. Additionally, emergency vehicles speeding through the narrow and bending streets of Northway will pose a significant safety hazard. A speeding car on Saxon Way recently ran over a cat as it came around a bend, resulting in desperate residents scrawling “SLOW” across the road. Residents there are concerned about speeding vehicles. So what does the council recommend? Give them some more.

The absence of a Barton link road will not risk lives I seriously doubt residents of the current Barton area are dying because they can’t get to the hospital on time. Like so many other arguments used by Labour councillors this is a manufactured and spurious argument designed to make residents opposed to the road appear inconsiderate. The bullying tactics used against residents, the £30,000 of taxpayers money used to fight them and the constant ridiculing of voices raised in protest does not speak well of the Labour council in Oxford. They should be ashamed of themselves over the way they have treated residents on this issue.

December 5 protest against the Barton Link Road

The Labour Council sprang a Christmas surprise on flat owners at Plowman’s Tower and the other four city Tower Blocks. They would have to cough up over £50,000 to help pay for “improvements” . And the surprise came with a threat. If they didn’t pay up they would be taken to court. Imagine being a pensioner who bought a flat under the Right to Buy Scheme. The scheme was your only way to get on to the housing ladder then once you bought the flat the City Council springs a shock bill of £50,000 because it wants to improve the tower within which your flat is located. Such improvement would entail replacing perfectly acceptable double glazing windows with triple glazing. It’s an expensive upgrade but city councillors justified it saying it would save residents money on heating bills. The flat owners calculated the cost against benefits. Sure they would see a return on the investment (which they never asked for) in over 100 Years!

I have since been working with leaseholders and recently hosted a meeting which brought together leaseholders from all five Tower Blocks. That well attended meeting saw the launch of the Oxford Tower Block Leaseholders Association, OTLA. Its chairman is a flat owner

at Plowman’s Tower.

Many of these owners are pensioners who bought their flat under the Government’s Right to Buy Scheme. The council’s proposal for them to pay the charges over three years still means they would need to find over £1300 a month to pay the city council. In some cases the charges are about half the current value of the property. Whilst the need does exist for flat owners to contribute to repairs and reasonable upkeep of the towers, the city council must consider the ability of low income people to contribute to grand “improvement” projects costing millions of pounds before it rushes ahead with its exorbitant spending plans.

This is a deliberate attempt by Oxford Labour to undermine the Right to Buy scheme as news of the unfair charges are already ringing alarm bells for everyone thinking of buying flats in the tower blocks. It represents a direct contradiction of Government policy to encourage home ownership and those in charge at the city council should be ashamed of themselves for targeting homeowners and people who aspire to own their own homes.

Labour City Council Slaps Flat Owners at Plowman’s Tower with £50,000 bills

A new application has been made for a 55-Bed Care Home at Number 1 Pullens Lane. I was opposed to a similar application two years ago and after reading the new proposal I am still opposed to it.

My concerns are:

1. I believe this development will encroach on the Conservation Area and is therefore inappropriate for Pullens Lane.

2. There will inevitably be a significant increase in traffic as vehicles access the Care Home via Pullens Lane. This lane is narrow and not geared to take on additional vehicular traffic especially with the large number of students walking along it daily.

3. An assessment needs to be made about the ability of the creakingly old drainage infrastructure to take on the additional capacity which the 55-bed care home will bring.

I stand ready to support residents opposed to this new care home.

New Application for Care Home at Pullens Lane

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Promoted by Matthew Barber on behalf of Mark Bhagwanding and Oxford East

Conservatives, all of 8 Gorwell, Watlington, OX49 5QE.

Contact Mark...Email: mark.bhagwandin@oxfordshireconservatives.comPhone: 07834 405055

Facebook: Mark4oxford Twitter: @markb_gt

Promoted by Matthew Barber on behalf of Mark Bhagwanding and Oxford East

Conservatives, all of 8 Gorwell, Watlington, OX49 5QE.