> ‘APPALLING’ STATE OF PAVEMENTS – ‘Labour apathy and Green Party incapacity’
St Clement’s Ward pavements must be the worst maintained in Oxford – a disgrace that must be put right, says Lib-Dem campaigner Graham Jones. ‘You couldn’t find a better illustration of Labour’s apathy and complacency,’ he says, ‘and of the Green Party’s limited capacity to influence decision-making in the City.’
Moreover, says Graham, it’s ironic, and a further cause for Labour’s shame, that some parts of St Clement’s ward have some of the poorest housing in Oxford – housing the very people that Gordon Brown’s Labour Party was set up to champion.
‘Lack of pavement repairs in this ward is a scandal,’ says Graham. ‘Currently there is a £24 million backlog of minor street and pavement repairs but the Conservatives on the County Council are only paying the City Council £1 million a year. So it will take a generation for Labour and the Tories between them to catch up.
‘In the meantime, the small group of Green Party councillors, including the two representing St Clement’s ward, are effectively powerless to influence this situation.
‘Luckily there will be a chance to elect a Liberal Democrat councillor for the ward on May 6. If the Lib-Dems can take over the Town Hall from listless Labour (something the Green Party can’t do), the scandal of street repairs will get the attention Labour has failed to give it.’
