Businesses are homeless too!

BUILDING housing on brownfield sites is all very well, but where are all the businesses going to live?

Mr Prescott boasts of meeting his target for building 60 per cent of new homes on brownfield sites. But in truth he has managed it only by displacing commercial development — for which there is no corresponding target — on to virgin sites.

The Government’s targets on ‘sustainable’ housing developments aren’t just a scam but a positive threat to the environment. While new homes are being built at what . . . would have been considered slum densities, there seems nothing to stop wasteful land use by commercial development.

Some of the great Oxford Street department stores are seven or eight storeys high, and highly efficient with space; yet these kinds of shops are increasingly being replaced with the likes of PC World: vast, single-storey tin sheds surrounded by acres of parking.”

Fuel Lobby’s protests - do they protest perhaps too much?

Fuel Lobby’s protests - do they protest perhaps too much?

There is something about the Fuel Lobby’s planned protests that makes it hard to extend our full sympathy. For one thing, the tactics employed by the fuel protesters are borrowed from the bolshie trade unionists of the 1970s, and will bring great inconvenience to the public and to business. For another, it is by no means clear why farmers and hauliers should feel especially aggrieved by Gordon Brown’s fuel tax regime. Most of the fuel used by farmers is red diesel, a concoction specially devised for them which is taxed at just six pence per litre. Hauliers do not enjoy a similar concession, but such is the damage wreaked on the roads and the nearby buildings by 44-ton lorries that it is doubtful whether their taxes cover the full cost to the public purse of their activities.

Moreover, there is something to be said for fuel taxes as an efficient way of raising revenue.

Re- launch of Oxford Fabian Society

Re- launch of Oxford Fabian Society

To all members of the Fabian Society in Oxford and Oxfordshire:

Meetings of the Fabian Society have been in abeyance for some years and our opportunity to discuss matters of wider political and social issues led by invited speakers, has not been possible, particularly in the absence of the University Fabian Society.
In discussions with the Dartmouth Street Headquarters of the Fabian Society, it was suggested that I explore the possibility of re-launching the Oxford and Oxfordshire Fabian Society. Accordingly the purpose of this message is to ascertain the degree of interest amongst Fabian Society (and possibly other interested) members in such a re-launch.
The points for consideration and views (based on past experience in the Oxford Fabian Society include:
a) Meetings to be held three times each year – in term time perhaps?

b) To invite a distinguished speaker to be met by only 5/6 members (as happened in the past) is both futile and insulting. One proposal would be to circulate members 1 to 2 months in advance and arrange any meeting based only on a firm commitment of attendance by at least 20 (?) members.

c) Venues – Oxford, Headington, Thame to incorporate the requirements of both the City and County members of the Fabian Society?

d) Some sort of small subscription might be necessary, preferably not involving a tedious bureaucratic collection system.

e) Communication with members would be by email and news would be posted on a dedicated page of Oxfordprospect.co.uk at http://www.oxfordprospect.co.uk/Fabian%20Society.htm I have also provided a Blog site at http://oxfordprospect.blogspot.com/ to enable members to discuss the issues that matter to them.

I would be grateful if you would let me know (by email) your views on this proposal and its attendant details to ascertain whether I should proceed further.

Yours fraternally

Nicholas A. Newman

Chair Greater Headington Labour Party

Editor: Oxfordprospect.co.uk & Headington Forum

Email: editor@oxfordprospect.co.uk

Cook's agent beats 40 rivals to represent party at by-election

Date is set for Cook by-election The first steps are to be taken towards holding a by-election in the seat left vacant by the death of Robin Cook.
Labour has been forced to tread constitutional by-ways because the Westminster parliament is in recess.
The contest will be signalled in the London Gazette on Friday and the writ will formally be moved next week.
Voters in the Livingston constituency, where the former foreign secretary had a majority of 13,000, will go to the polls on 29 September.
Labour is hoping for a bounce from its annual conference in Brighton that week.
The party will be represented by Mr Cook's former election agent, Jim Devine.
But the Nationalists are relying on disquiet over Iraq, as well as local Livingston controversies, to give them a boost.
Angela Constance will contest the seat for the SNP, while the Liberal Democrats have chosen Charles Dundas as their candidate and Steven Nimmo will fight for the SSP.
Mr Cook died last month after falling ill while hillwalking in the Scottish Highlands.
He resigned from Tony Blair's Cabinet in 2003 over the Iraq crisis.