General Election result – Labour takes Banbury
Sean Woodcock is the new Labour MP for Banbury. In the General Election on 4th July, he beat Victoria Prentis, the previous MP and Attorney General in the Conservative government, by more than 3,000 votes.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SeanLWoodcock/
Website: https://seanwoodcock.uk/
New SAL editor needed
Love Steeple Aston life and all the community has to offer?
Interested in the idea of being involved in print media?
You could be the new editor of Steeple Aston Life!
After editing 40 editions of the magazine, Robert Scott is retiring as SAL editor next month. We will all miss his dedication and expertise and want to thank him for his wisdom and his sterling service.
This means the hunt is on for Robert’s replacement to join our team. This could be one person, or the job could be shared by two people as it was a few years ago.
Experience in the fields of writing, editing or publishing would be useful, but not essential. Lots of support will be provided by members of the committee and others.
If you’re interested, please first contact Robert as soon as possible on 01869 340356 or email editorsalife@gmail.com to find out more about what’s involved.
It’s a very rewarding job, providing a real connection with every aspect of village life. We’re sure you’ll love all the fun of being part of Steeple Aston’s communications.
The SAL Committee
Community Orchard holds first Big Green Event
Steeple Aston’s Community Orchard held a Family Open Day as part of The Great Big Green Week – a celebration of community action to tackle climate change and protect nature.
Village families were invited to come to the orchard in Water Lane on the afternoon of Saturday, 8th June, and plenty of them turned up to enjoy one of the few dry and sunny days so far this year.
The orchard, which opened in 2022 on land donated by former village resident Sarah Lucas ,is open to the public every day, but on this special day there were lots of activities laid on especially for children.
Nigel Francis, one of the organisers writes:
It was great to see so many families turn up to the orchard last weekend as we took part in the UK’s Big Green Week.
Children pond dipped, looked at the beehive, did painting and drawing. We also had a nature trail and a reading area along with seed planting,
Not forgetting tea and cakes for all!
Thank you again to all volunteers for helping and of course all the families who made the day so special.
To see lots of more Nigel’s lovely photos, go to the Photo Gallery. Click on the first photo to enlarge, then navigate using the arrows.
Garden visitors raise funds for charity
Six Steeple Aston gardens and the Church Allotments were open to the public on Sunday, 2nd June, raising well over £2,000 for charity.
Organiser Richard Preston reports:
On a sunny Sunday afternoon, visitors descended on Steeple Aston to view the six gardens and allotments open to the public under the National Garden Scheme (NGS)
For once this year, it was a pleasant, afternoon with the sun shining and temperatures close on 20 degrees centigrade. Nearly 300 paying visitors walked around the gardens and then visited the Village Hall for one of the, by now, famous teas served by a team of volunteers led, as ever by Barbara Brewer.
The outcome was a donation of £2,300 to the NGS which in turn supports so many worthwhile charities so thankyou to all who supported this event, by either walking around the gardens, helping at the village hall or making a cake.
For us gardeners and allotment holders, it focuses our mind on the garden, hoping to make it look as good as it possibly can and removing a few weeds that otherwise might have survived for a week or so longer.
For the visitors, it provides somewhere to go on a Sunday afternoon at little cost and encourages visitors to relax and take in the countryside. It also promotes our village which we might take for granted. One visitor actually enquired as to property availability here as she thought this was the perfect village. Everyone was so pleasant and helpful so what a wonderful place to live.
From all us gardeners and tea makers, thank you for your support and if you would like to be involved next year by opening your garden, give me a call on 01869 340512.
Thank-you and best wishes,
Richard, Daphne and all the open gardens in this wonderful village of Steeple Aston
Barbara Brewer, Chair of the Village Hall committee added, “On behalf of the Village Hall Committee a very big “Thank You” to all those who provided cakes, served teas, took money, washed and dried crockery and helped clear up at the end of the day to make this event such a great success.
“This year – as in previous years – we were able to make a generous contribution to aid Macmillan Nurses and other charities. This could not have happened without your help and generosity.”
For more photos from Nigel Francis, go to the Photo Gallery. Click on the first photo to enlarge, then navigate using the arrows.
We’re Banbury, not Bicester in constituency confusion
With the general election due on 4th July, villagers – and others – have been confused about which parliamentary constituency the voters of Steeple and Middle Aston are in.
Many presumed that we would be included in the newly created constituency of Bicester and Woodstock. Indeed, the Conservative group in the new constituency seem to think that’s the case as they’ve been leafletting the village promoting their candidate, Rupert Harrison.
However, the boundary map of the new constituencies shows that Steeple and Middle Aston remain in the Banbury constituency. The two villages are in the Deddington ward.
The new Banbury constituency includes just 60.4% of the old constituency’s population. It has lost Bicester to the new Bicester and Woodstock constituency but gained Chipping Norton and Charlbury and surrounding villages from the Witney constituency.
It looks like the election in this constituency will be more closely fought than usual, with every vote counting. The Banbury seat has elected a Conservative MP since 1922. But recent analysis of the new constituency makes it one of the most marginal seats in the United Kingdom. According to an analysis published by Politico in February, it’s among the most likely to change from being a Conservative seat to Labour. More recent surveys, for example the YouGov MRP survey reported on 4th June, have confirmed this analysis.
Victoria Prentis, the current Attorney General and North Oxfordshire MP since 2015, is standing again as the Consertive candidate for Banbury. The Labour candidate is Sean Woodcock, Leader of the Labour Group on Cherwell District Council. Liz Adams is the candidate for the Liberal Democrats. Nominations closed on Friday, 7 th June.
There are eight candidates in total. In alphabetical order, they are:
Liz Adams Liberal Democrat
Arron Baker Green Party
Cassi Bellingham Independent
Chris Nevile Climate Party
Victoria Prentis Conservative Party
Declan Soper Social Democratic Party
Paul Topley Reform UK
Sean Woodcock Labour Party
Voting will take place on Thursday, 4th July in Steeple Aston Village Hall. Counting will take place overnight, so the result will be announced on Friday, 5th July. For more information about registering to vote, proxy and postal voting etc, see the Cherwell website.
Conservatives elected in local voting
Villagers in Steeple and Middle Aston had two votes to cast in the local elections on May 2nd. They were voting for one councillor for Cherwell District Council and for the Police and Crime Commissioner for the Thames Valley.
In both cases the Tories prevailed. In the Deddington ward of Cherwell District Council, David Rogers, a former chairman of Deddington Parish Council, won the seat for the first time. He replaces Bryn Williams who didn’t stand again this year.
Mr Rogers won 1,244 votes beating Labour’s Annette Murphy by 303 votes. The turnout was 38 per cent.
However, across the rest of Cherwell District the picture was quite different with the Conservatives losing nine seats in all. The council remains with no overall control, but the Liberal Democrats strengthened their position. They took seven wards from the Conservatives and are now the biggest party with 17 seats. Labour and the Greens gained one seat each.
There are 48 seats on the council in total and the political make-up of the council is now as follows: Conservative – 11, Green – 4, Independent – 3, Labour – 13 and Liberal Democrat – 17.
Conservative Matthew Barber was re-elected as the Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner. He won 144,092 votes across Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire. He had a narrow majority of 2,300 over Labour’s Tim Starkey, who finished second with 141,749. The turnout was 25 per cent.
Mr Barber promised to put more police officers on the streets and to prioritise tackling rape and sexual offences, domestic abuse, the night time economy, serious violence and abuse and exploitation.
See the full election results below:
Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner
Mathew David Barber, Conservative Candidate – More Police, Safer Streets 144,092
Tim Starkey, Labour and Co-operative Party; 141,749
Tim Bearder, Liberal Democrats 84,341
Ben Holden-Crowther, Police Officers for Thames Valley 46,853
Cherwell District Council – Deddington Ward
David Owen Rogers, Conservative, 1244
Annette Murphy, Labour, 941
James Hartley, Liberal Democrats, 357
Aaron James Bliss, Green, 296
Community Land Trust about to be set up
A Community Land Trust is going to be set up in the village following a public meeting on 10th April.
Julia Whybrew reports:
The meeting was organised to see if there is support for starting a Community Land Trust (CLT) here. It started with a brief description of what a CLT would involve:
- It would be a community led and not for profit organisation
- It would further housing, social and economic activities in the village
- The activities would be focussed around the provision of affordable, energy efficient housing for locals in need.
- But its activities will not be confined to housing. There will be wider objectives such as protecting green spaces and developing shared, renewable energy projects
- The CLT will be a legal entity which can draw on Government funding for local housing and raise money in its own right.
A CLT needs the money to become incorporated as a legal entity before it can start operating. The Parish Council and Dr Radcliffe’s Trust have agreed to put up £350 each if the meeting decided to go ahead with a CLT. There will be a nominal fee, either a £1 or £5 per household to become a member. It will be for the CLT board to decide the charge and the sooner we get incorporated the sooner the CLT can start work.
Someone reminded us about what happened when Cherwell District Council was left to allocate any new housing. CDC claim they took local connections into account when allocating houses in Coneygar Fields and Shepherd’s Hill. But they regard local connections as much wider than we do, so an important part of CLT activities will be to negotiate with Cherwell to tighten the definition of local.
One of the most successful CLTs in this area is at Hook Norton. Cathy Ryan, the chair of Hook Norton Community Land Trust, told us about what they have achieved at Hook Norton and which elements of their activities she saw as the most effective. Hook Norton CLT was set up in 2019. It has taken them till now to get their first house built. In the same period developers have built 250 houses there with the aim of maximising their profits; without any consultation with locals. The new homes have not helped the many locals who have been priced out of living where they were brought up.
Hook Norton CLT found some derelict and oddly shaped parcels of land owned by Cherwell District Council and negotiated with them to buy the sites. The CLT asked residents directly, and held workshops to find out what locals wanted. The main answer was that the heart would be lost from their village if there was no genuinely affordable and sustainable housing for locals. They also wanted things such as zero carbon construction, shared renewable energy generation, electric bikes for hire, electrical charging points and shared bookable facilities for visitors.
Hook Norton held a CLT open day to get comments before putting in for planning permission and Cathy told us she thought this had been very successful in obtaining local buy-in to the project. The Hook Norton CLT has built eight houses costing £3.7 million of which they raised all but £500,000 commercially. The difference was made up from local investors who are expecting a return on their investment which will vary according to how long the investors are prepared to tie up their money for. A huge thank you to Cathy for talking to us.
After Cathy’s talk we split into groups and discussed the advantages and possible pitfalls of setting up a CLT. The questions that came back from the groups included such issues as what does being a member of a CLT involve? The answer was that shareholders have no liability, but they would get a newsletter and be invited to the AGM where they can question policy and vote for their preferred board members and on policy issues.
At the end of the meeting there was a convincing show of hands in favour of setting up a CLT. So the CLT Steering Group will get our CLT incorporated, be in touch with those who came to the meeting and hold a membership drive.
Current members of the steering group are Martin Lipson, Paul Rogers, Alan Stubbersfield, Charlotte Powell and Julia. New members would be very welcome. If you would like to know more, but could not get to the meeting, please contact steepleastonclt@gmail.com