10 questions to decide the future of your county

Since 1974, Oxfordshire County Council had been run by the Conservatives, either outright or as a minority. As recently as 2009, the Conservatives had 51 seats; the second-placed Liberal Democrats had 10.

All that changed in 2021. A coalition of Liberal Democrats, Labour, and the Greens, called the 'Fair Deal Alliance', ousted the Conservatives. The alliance lasted until September 2023, when Labour left acrimoniously, launching a vote of no confidence against LibDem leader Liz Leffman. (Read about the build-up and how it played out.) Since then, the Liberal Democrats and Greens have been governing as a minority administration.

OCC’s responsibilities are many and complex: transport, social care, education. But it doesn’t have the budget or the freedom to do everything it might want. Many of the policies (and funding) are irrevocably intertwined with long-term agreements with central government, which of course has recently changed too. In short, if you wish to change direction of this particular oil tanker, it takes a long time to do so – longer than an actual oil tanker.

Is that oil tanker turning rapidly enough? Whichever way you’re politically inclined, look at the issues through the lens of a long Conservative leadership; a relatively recent left-leaning leadership with a tumultuous history; and a recent change in national Government.

Transport, believe it or not, was a consensus issue as little as three years ago. How times change.

On 12th July 2022, Oxfordshire’s councillors – of all parties – unanimously approved the Local Transport and Connectivity Plan. This plan included traffic reduction to free up space for buses and other ‘priority users’ through Traffic Filters, Zero Emissions Zone and Workplace Parking Levy. Known collectively as the ‘core schemes’, these were originally proposed by the Conservative-led County Council in January 2015, in partnership with the Labour-led City Council. Fast forwards to 2025, and the only things that the parties seem to agree on now are that (a) the potholes need fixing (which we’re not going to talk about); (b) the traffic needs sorting out (which we are).

The parties have very different approaches to tackling the traffic. The LibDems and the Greens are sticking with the core schemes for traffic reduction, and plan to introduce the Traffic Filters as soon as Network Rail finishes work on the Botley Road Bridge, currently scheduled for August 2026. The Conservatives have now turned against this approach, but have not as yet set out a replacement plan (which is, of course, the luxury of opposition).

Labour’s manifesto states that one of their six missions is to “stop the transport nightmare” – a strong start. Then you learn that “Labour are calling for plans for new controversial traffic filters (bus gates) to be halted”. But Labour is clearly very proud of the Citizens’ Assembly that it, in the words of the manifesto, “forced” upon the LibDem/Green administration, and will “end division” by “implementing the recommendations of the representative Citizens’ Assembly”. All straightforward so far – except the 20 recommendations of the Assembly go even further than the Traffic Filters, with a car-free city centre and designated bus roads. We’ll let you know if we get a clearer picture – or if you get an answer from a candidate, please email news@oxfordclarion.uk and we'll tell the world.

Which brings us to the Independent Oxford Alliance. Given their reputation as the motorists’ friend, you might be surprised that the IOA’s transport policy starts with a statement that “The best way to encourage less vehicular traffic and congestion in the city is to: provide effective alternatives to car travel.” The party is against all three Core Schemes, although these are the foundation of the Bus Service Improvement Plan. What they offer instead is “one-way systems to avoid bottlenecks in built up areas” (which we expect means one-way cut-throughs in residential streets); removing Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and bus gates; and increasing speed limits from 20mph to 30mph on main roads. This, they believe, will “improve traffic flow”, though the effect on air pollution and injuries might not be quite so harmonious.

At least everyone likes trains, right? Er… maybe not. At least one IOA candidate is railing against the Cowley Branch Line project despite its strong business support – questioning parking (not typically plentiful at a ‘metro’ station), saying it will require parking controls, and that tickets will cost £15 to £21 (which would push an Oxford–Littlemore return above the price of Oxford–Reading, so we doubt that).

Oxfordshire County Council's Children & Families department covers Social Care, Children & Family Centres, Funded Childcare, Fostering and more. Yet it is SEND that hits the headlines most frequently.

If you’re not the parent or carer of a child with SEND, you might ask why this matters to you. The funding crisis, of course, impacts on the money available for other council services; in the latest budget, an extra £1.1m was allocated to SEND.

But SEND provision affects every school-age child. The drive for ‘inclusion’ since the 1990s (providing SEND education in mainstream schools rather than special schools) was followed by a funding crunch in the ’00s and ’10s. Kids with SEND need more attention from school staff, but those staff are thinly spread. If the kids’ needs aren’t met, everyone in the class suffers.

Plus, of course, there is a fundamental matter of decency: every child matters. Oxfordshire’s track record on SEND is poor, with the council having been failed by Ofsted in 2023. (We covered the background in a long read in December.) The current administration says that, tortoise-like, it is making slow and steady progress – citing a reduced EHCP backlog, more small group support, and listening to the voices of young people.

Labour argues that the administration needs to move faster and that children are still waiting too long for a diagnosis. Reform does not appear to reference SEND in its policies on education (see page 11), and we have similarly struggled to find local Conservative statements on it. If this issue is important to you, ask your canvasser.

Adult social care is the biggest single part of the budget. Oxfordshire County Council’s approach is what it calls the ‘Oxfordshire Way’, the core of which is “supporting people to live well and independently within their communities” rather than being packed off to a residential home.

It is the statutory responsibility of the Council to provide and fund a package of care that meets a person’s assessed, eligible social care needs. To that end, adult social care encompasses assessment, in home equipment, some care (both in home and elsewhere), and safeguarding.

It is a large, complex and delicate area, and there is relatively little difference between the main parties on the direction of travel – which is just as well, given the potential impact on the budget, and the number of people this encompasses. We’ve chosen the question above to ascertain if your candidate understands the scale and impact of this department.

“Think global, act local” has been an axiom of environmental campaigns since the 1970s. Easy to say – but if climate action conflicts with economic growth locally, what should the council do? Or is there a way of achieving both?

Every action the council takes has an impact on the climate. How does it choose its suppliers? Does it prioritise road building or active travel, public or private transport? When dealing with waste disposal, does it prioritise things that release greenhouse gases (like landfill and incineration) or not (like recycling, and biochar)?

Once you’ve perused the leaflets and quizzed the candidates, if you’re still undecided who to vote for, consider checking out OxVote – Oxfordshire's own tactical voting site for the climate-minded.

Flooding is an occupational hazard in a flattish county crisscrossed by watercourses – particularly in the age of climate change. Four bodies are responsible for flood prevention and alleviation (if you don't count celestial bodies), and Oxfordshire County Council is the one responsible for fixing drainage and flooding issues on highways and roads across Oxfordshire. This includes blocked drains and gullies. (Ditches alongside roads are often the responsibility of the adjacent landowner.)

OCC is also responsible for coordinating the management of flood risk from surface water, groundwater and ordinary watercourses. This does not mean that they can or will undertake works to fix a flooding issue, but they can investigate to find the riparian owner (the landowner beside a watercourse) who is responsible, and advise on potential solutions.

It’s a complex issue, but one where would-be councillors in floodprone areas should be up to speed. Are your candidates au fait with who’s responsible, and aware of their party's line on blocked drains and gullies alongside roads? Ask them.

We took a detailed look at Oxfordshire floods in December.

It was perhaps not surprising that the conspiracy theorists who opposed Covid vaccines would light upon Oxford’s traffic filters as their next cause célèbre. But it had a real impact on the paid staff of Oxfordshire’s councils. In a December 2022 statement, OCC reported that “staff and councillors at both [city & county] councils have been subjected to abuse due to inaccurate information being circulated online about traffic filters”. (This abuse is the same reason the Clarion is anonymous.)

Transport changes can be electoral dynamite, and Oxfordshire is implementing several: 20mph speed limits, traffic filters, and of course Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. To what extent can the council guide the narrative on these changes and combat misinformation, and should they be operating differently? Is the County Council consulting too much, or not enough? Or should councillors simply take responsibility for delivering their manifesto commitments? The recent Citizens' Assembly on transport certainly thought more could be done: 94% supported extra efforts to “sell the vision”, and their recommendations included six ways to achieve this.

Supporting asylum seekers is a textbook example of collaboration between different agencies. As a member of the Oxfordshire Migration Partnership, the County Council works alongside the city and district councils, voluntary and community sector organisations, the NHS and Thames Valley Police “to ensure a warm welcome to everyone, regardless of how they arrived”. OCC says that, together with its partners, it has supported over 8,000 refugees and asylum seekers to access the services including help to find their own accommodation; gain employment; register with a GP and attend hospital appointments; get children into school; use libraries as places to learn English; and make new friends within communities.

Much of what we write about in the Clarion is local verging on parochial. But this is a chance for Oxfordshire to make its own contribution to global problems. Do you think our county should be a beacon of welcome – or should the council stick to the knitting?

Much of what the County Council spends is pre-ordained. Social care and SEND, to take the two big-ticket items, are not optional. But in transport it has much more freedom to act.

Almost all transport spending goes to roads, many outside Oxford. That includes £332m on the Didcot ‘HIF1’ Relief Road, £150m on the A40 to Witney, and £58.9m a year on potholes and bridge repairs. Only one cycling scheme topped even £10m, and that was scaled down and eventually dropped. Of course, it’s not just a matter of how much you spend but also how you spend it, and Oxfordshire has been slow to adopt the protected cycle tracks increasingly found in other cities.

Will the parties change this? Here, we can ‘follow the money’ and be guided by recent County and City budgets as well as their declared policies.

The LibDem/Green coalition have steadily been making progress on walking and cycling. In the most recent budget they included a £1.8m fund for active travel in rural areas, in addition to Government and developer-funded projects. But their four-year stint has not seen many new cycleways built either in Oxford or around the county.

Labour’s focus is on Oxford, its councillor stronghold. They won budget amendments two years running to invest £8m in improving the streetscapes of East Oxford (the 'Mini-Holland' project), which will also include cycling and walking infrastructure, as well as seed funding for ‘Greenway’ cycle routes out of Oxford. On the flipside, they have said they will “open Crowell Road” to private motor vehicles, reversing the current Low Traffic Neighbourhood.

A Conservative budget amendment sought to “remove one-off revenue funding for discretionary active travel measures”, including the £1.8m above. Their previous administration had funded cycleways (admittedly of varying quality) on Botley Road and around Headington, while Boris Johnson was strongly associated with cycling, but their current policy is closer to the Sunak/Badenoch era.

The IOA's transport policy says “cycle lanes will be maintained”, but also that “lost parking spaces will, where possible, be restored”, suggesting cycle lanes on streets like Iffley Road will become parking bays. They also say that off-road routes will be investigated. The IOA proposed a City budget amendment against extra winter gritting of pavements and cycle paths (which was defeated by other parties), while various independent city councillors were the only ones voting against a motion to improve the walkability of the city.

Let’s say you live in Abingdon. (Maybe you do.) There are three competing visions for the shape of your future council. Which one appeals to you?

Vision 1 is a single Oxfordshire council, replacing both county and district councils. On paper, this gives the biggest savings; it’s the easiest to set up; and ‘Oxfordshire’ is an easily understood concept. But larger councils can be unresponsive.

Vision 2 is that you’ll become part of a new council for southern Oxfordshire (and a bit of rural Berkshire), while Oxford and the northern county form their own council. As a resident of a town whose economy is closely tied up with Oxford’s, would you find this a step in the wrong direction? Or perhaps it could provide a respite from Oxford’s incessant need for more houses?

And Vision 3 is that you become part of Oxford, absorbed into a ‘Greater Oxford Council’ together with Kidlington, Eynsham, Wheatley and more, while the rural areas go their own way. Will this make Oxford the economic powerhouse it deserves to be, or simply subsume the outer settlements into a sprawl?

There are differences even within parties on the right road to take. Council reorganisation sounds abstruse, but it could have a big impact on how Oxfordshire develops.

As we laid out in our introduction, the course of this administration has not been plain sailing.

What could have been achieved had the LibDem/Lab/Green alliance held? How would you feel about a Conservative/Reform/IOA alliance running the council? Or a LibDem/Green pact once more? Could Lab/Reform/independent even be on the cards?

It's a question worth asking if any party's policy is a dealbreaker for you, because from where we sit in Clarion Towers, it is unlikely that any one party will get a thumping majority. So you’re not just voting for the policies of your preferred party, but also of their likely fellow travellers.

Ah, the art of the political leaflet. A chance for politicians to smile at the camera, point at potholes, criticise others for “pet projects”, and, hopefully, not break any electoral laws. (And a chance for the Oxford Mail to fulminate about “fake newspapers”. We’re saying nothing.)

A successful leaflet works on an emotional as well as a factual level. It should convince you that their candidate has your interests at heart, and the other guy doesn’t. That’s why you’ll see phrases like “pet projects” and “wasting money” bandied around, seeking to convince you that the candidate will divert all spending to the common sense causes that you, of course, believe in.

Often the facts don’t bear close examination. Leaflets for these county council elections might criticise decisions taken by district councils, or by central Government, or even set in train by a previous council of their own party. No matter. Deliberately vague wording can convey the emotional charge without being strictly inaccurate.

And did we say “break electoral laws”? By law, electoral literature must have an imprint – a formal mark identifying it to a political party. Anything with an imprint can be traced, and anything that is illegal or libellous has consequences. Meanwhile, the amount each candidate is allowed to spend during an election is limited, to give all parties (and independents) an equal chance.

It’s fair to say that some campaigners have played fast and loose with these rules in recent years. Leaflets have appeared on Oxford doorsteps in the last month without any such imprint. Not all candidates have been as fastidious as they should be in filling in the ‘returns’ that list their spending.

So be an informed voter. Ask who’s bankrolling the leaflets pushed through your door. Give due weight to any anonymous briefings you might receive. And that, of course, includes the Clarion. We trust you will treat us with the scepticism that all political reporting merits!