Last Sunday was Mothers Day – daffodils were given out to the mothers, grand mothers and GGMs in the congregation at Trinity. It was also Revd Richard’s last Sunday before a 4 month sabbatical. The one benefit of being a minister is that every few years you get an enforced sabbatical – or study leave.
21st March – yesterday already – was the first day of spring. (More importantly it was my mum’s birthday.)
The south part of town looks at its best at this time of year with the cherry trees in bloom.
Today there was a UK Budget and Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council had their first full meeting as Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council.
I did intend going to report on the town council meeting. Unfortunately I did not get back from work in time.
Hopefully somebody can let us know what happened.
…and to add to your Spring greetings, happy new year to your Iranian readers.
Was a fairly quiet council meeting last night, with the main business comprising reviewing the minutes of the various committees and receiving nominations for next years Mayor and Deputy Mayor.
Only two points came out of the minutes which sparked any real debate:
– the French market planned for the Easter weekend will now be extended to include the Thursday (5th)
– it was noted that the council had not blocked any funding proposals around a potential skate park in south Abingdon (as misleadingly reported in latest liberal newsletter) but that cllr Bowrings motion could not be discussed as it contravened standing orders (the legal rules the council has to follow). Because the motion concerned a large amount of public money it has to first be proposed to tge finance committee. For the record there has still been no motion submitted at the finance committee.
The mayoral debate is an important one as, with cllr Jones still being in hospital (and we all wish him a full and speedy recovery), the current administration is reliant on the Mayor’s casting vote in order to continue with the programme which the electorate asked us to deliver last May.
The candidates are:
Mayor: Monica Lovatt (con) Sam Bowring (lib)
Deputy: Andrew Todd (con) Angela Lawrence (lib)
I hope this helps – I’m sure someone else who was there will add a comment if I’ve missed anything
Thanks for the update Iain. Re your last para, it would be nice for the rest of us to think that a year down the line since the election, the 20 (?)hardworking, committed individuals who were elected could actually work together in a constructive manner to do what is best for the town, rather than relying on a numbers game. After all, the narrowness of the result meant that the winning party did not get a resounding mandate for their policies and the fact that the losing party came so close meant that there was a lot of support for theirs!
So how about some genuine, common-sense co-operation and compromise on all sides? From talking to many of you I know that you have the interests of the town at heart, so how about letting the party politics take a back seat fo the next 3 years?
the councillors were elected on political lines! – that’s the whole point. conservative councillors with conservative principles, liberals with liberal and labour ( are there any labour councillors?).
it’s kind of undemocratic if the public make their choice and then the councillors all decide to create a club of their own instead.
Hester while I agree in part you must remember that the council was on 4th May 2011, 21 lib dem others 0, on 6th May 2011 11 conservative, 9 lib dem, 1 labour – I’d say that was a fairly strong vote of no confidence in the previous administration and it’s only because it normally takes two elections to get a decent majority that Abingdon on Thames is so close.
Rudi I agree with you
Ian L – thanks for your regular updates
Hi Hester
I share tge sentiment behind your comment, and to be honest I think on a day to day basis, particularly in committee meetings there isn’t that much party politics and we do, by and large, work together to try and do tge best thing for Abingdon.
Tge challenge we have is really the one raised by Rudi. The different parties do have different priorities and as such we are each keen to be able to vote through aspects of our programme where we aren’t able to reach agreement. Our perspective is that the electorate chose a conservative administration and as such we have a duty to deliver that. Had they voted for a coalition, which is not currently the case, I would of course agree with you.
As usual sorry about typos – I must figure out a way to enlarge the keyboard so I can type ‘the’ properly
Iain. I had better give you admin access so you can correct the typos. I right the mowst awful thinghs and still get a second chance.
Lol I think I just need smaller thumbs!
Thanks for the report Iain. On Faringdon Town Council councillors are independents and they get barely enough people to fill the seats available. I think they had 17 people standing for 16 seats. At least the local political parties find people willing to stand.
Thank goodness for independents. At least they vote according to their consciences and not have to join a party political rat pack. The debate in parliament is like a public school bun fight with politicians more interested in scoring party political points than having a sensible debate on important issues.
Iain – so let me get this right – Conservative councillors didn’t block a proposal for funding of a South Abingdon Skatepark but they did decide that such a proposal could not be discussed?
I can see where the confusion arose!
Regarding the Mayor – if the excuse for politicising the Mayor’s position this year is that the Conservatives are reliant on the Mayor’s casting vote, remind me what the reason was last year?