How much do you want a cleaner, healthier environment?

5/5/2021

It is unimaginable that anyone would wish for a dirtier one but, unfortunately, the devil is in the detail and, thanks to CoHSAT[1], we are able to drill down a little further into what tomorrow's candidates really think.

Essentially, CoHSAT designed a questionnaire that all of the candidates in tomorrow's elections in Oxfordshire were invited to complete. There were only 12 questions, all focused on making our communities more inviting places to live. Happily, all of our[2] candidates for the County Council have answered the questionnaire so the members of our extended "constituency" will be able to see what they said and make their own choices.

So here goes, this is how our candidates responded at the next level of detail:

There is more detail on the CoHSAT site if you wish to explore further. The following is a summary of how many candidates responded by party, which should demonstrate, to some extent, how the political groupings view the subject as a whole. This snapshot was taken today (5/5/2021).

Each blob represents a candidate in tomorrow's election. The blank blobs represent candidates who, for whatever reason, did not respond.

I have indicated in earlier blogs that I don't believe that significant improvements for Faringdon would be particularly difficult or expensive. But we do need to start with a Local Walking and Cycling Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) if we expect to find extra funding from central government et al.
We have a world class cycle park for teaching children to ride a bicycle, for example, but not too many safe routes to cycle on once they have become proficient.

We started a process in 2009 to try to remedy this with a plan and it received positive responses from the then council but foundered in the bureaucracy. The political landscape has shifted significantly since then and it would be appropriate to try again.

We do need an LCWIP to achieve this, though.

The physical landscape has also changed so we need to start ASAP to consult on a version of a "tube map" to set out our priorities, both for journeys within Faringdon and for those into wider Oxfordshire. Here are a few we prepared earlier together with a first pass at an actual map for implementing the vision.