The Craft Market – postponed from last week – took place yesterday. Most of the stalls were able to make the rebooking at short notice. There was rain early on but it soon cleared.
Break4Cake, with Christmas Stollen, and other continental cakes, was there.
The Mayor of Abingdon was also visiting.
There were also reindeer, but no sign of Father Christmas.
The Abingdon Lions have been taking him on a nightly journey round most of Abingdon. The journey will soon be complete. Then he will be allowed back home to prepare for his biggest night of the year.
Shame it was only on in the morning. I went especially to have a look around lunchtime and nothing there.
Yes there were some interesting crafts on display. Just to let people know that an Oxford resident is starting a petition on Charge.org to stop the cuts to homeless services He said, “it’s become clear to me that events can conspire in people’s lives to cause what seem like insurmountable difficulties – becoming ill, the breakdown of a relationship, the loss of a job – often culminating in the loss of a home. From then on things can just spiral downwards. I’ve also seen how the dedicated work of skilled specialists putting in the right kind of support can turn this spiral of decline around. Early intervention can prevent the problems from reaching crisis point in the first place with advice, advocacy and support to keep people in their homes. If that point is passed there are services to help with a place to live and the specialist support needed to begin recovery from mental health problems, or maybe drug or alcohol misuse. They are the key starting point for that journey back into the community, into work and most of all into a home. After all, home is the basis for stability for most of us.
It is for this reason that I have started a petition, to support the campaign of Homeless Voice Oxfordshire which aims to persuade Oxfordshire County Council not to impose a cut of 65% in its Housing Related Support budget. That’s on top of a 38% cut in 2014
I agree that homelessness is a huge concern, and a recent visit to Luther Street in Oxford confirmed that budget cuts will affect their service significantly. They predict more people (mainly single men who don’t qualify for the help that is targeted for children) literally camping in our parks. You used to have to travel a long way to see a shanty town, now we have them right here. To be fair I don’t think these decisions are in the gift of the County Council, who have had budget cuts imposed on them. The closing of the Children’s Centres, another valuable early intervention was discussed with the Director of Children’s Service at a recent conference I attended. He has to balance the books and therefore is prioritising Child Protection. There has been a huge increase in the amount of Child Protection work since Baby P in 2008 and Bullfinch this year, all expensive and money can only be spent once. If local authorities were allowed to raise more funds from the council tax that would provide a solution- in fact the political pensioners at the bus queue told me that an additional 60p per week on the average household council tax would fund the subsidised bus routes (another service threatened) and the children’s centres. If that’s correct it seems ludicrous that the council can’t raise our bills. I think the petition should go to Government, not the council.
Whilst ths is all true, I fear it irks that some council bosses are in the news getting 6 figure redundancy packages or what have you.
Is that 60p each, as well as the Big payouts?
Or they could save £10 to £30m on overheads by moving to a unitary system (range depends on what model they adopt)
There’s no restriction on local authorities raising local council tax, however if they want to raise it by more than 2% they need to have a public vote.