Public addresses, and questions of under 200 words, to the Leader or other Cabinet member received in accordance with Council Procedure Rules 11.4, 11.12, 11.13, and 11.14 relating to matters for decision on this agenda.

The request to speak accompanied by the full text of the address or question must be received by the Director of Law, Governance and Strategy by 5.00 pm on Friday 7 February 2025.

The briefing note will contain the text of addresses and questions submitted by the deadline, and written responses where available.

A total of 30 minutes is available for this item. Responses are included in this time. Up to five minutes is available for each public address and up to three minutes for each question

Address from Josie Procter – Support for Amendment to Budget on Playground in the City Centre

A few months back, you were kind enough to listen to me, on behalf of Oxplay, bringing you a petition on the subject of a playground in Oxford City centre.  I said that Oxford didn’t have much-needed play space for children, and that driving footfall to the city centre would be good for families, and good for businesses.

We’d taken the petition to County Council, who also supported it, and want to work with City on providing space for the playground.

The petition was put to a vote,  and you unanimously voted to support moving forward with a playground, knowing at the time there was no obvious funding source.

Now, no one expected the council to immediately magic up funds for a playground, but imagine our surprise when we saw no mention of any funds in the budget for even the smallest amount of development work…  If we are all agreed that we want to build a playground, and invest in a family friendly city centre, then we need to find a small amount of funding, along with officer time which we wouldn’t necessarily see in a budget, to inch it forward. We can only hope that Rachel Reeves’ announcement of a Growth Corridor will conjure up a magic money tree, and indeed population growth implies more children. But growth happens in decades and our children are growing up now. Before the impact of that growth commission becomes clear, we need to keep the project moving forward rather than stagnate for a year.

This is why I urge you to both to support the amendment on it and continue your work with the county council to make this a reality. Thank you.

Response from Councillor Ed Turner, Deputy Leader (Statutory) and Cabinet Member for Finance and Asset Management

Thank you for your address and for your ongoing support for a playground in the city centre.  You are quite right that the Council unanimously passed a motion on this, and I am happy to confirm that in the background lead members and officers have been looking at opportunities – clearly given the constrained nature of the city centre this is not a straightforward project.

Motions are different to setting a budget, because in a budget you need to make the necessary trade-offs to bring funding forward.  In addition, experience has taught us to be cautious about putting money in for projects which are not developed; what that means is that the City Council has to have the funds “at the ready”, and if they are not drawn down it means we will earn less interest on them than if they had been held back.

Nonetheless, having reviewed the position, you will note that our administration amendment today includes funding for work across the next two years on this, and we hope it will enable us to move the project forward.  I do not want to underestimate the challenge in finding a suitable site and gaining the necessary permissions, but this will, if needs be, allow us to invest in appropriate feasibility work.  Again, thank you for taking the time to raise this with us.