Louise Upton Labour
City Council Walton Manor
1. What do you think have been the most effective actions your council has taken to deliver democracy locally during the Coronavirus pandemic?
We provided individual accommodation for all the homeless, we offered vaccinations to all our homeless and rough-sleeping citizens; we set up support hubs to deliver food and medicine, to check in on lonely people (this has meant that a lot more people see the council as relevant to them, and now how to engage with it); I chaired 2 of the 4 public meetings we set up for different communities in the city that we noticed had high rates of vaccine hesitancy (this has given us links to communities such as the Albanian and Polish that we did not have before); we dedicated a lot of officer time to pro-actively contact businesses and organisations to ensure that they claimed all the government help that was available, (again - this gave a lot of groups including charities like OXSRAD that run a disabled sports centre, a positive contact and involvement with the city council).
2. For each of these please describe briefly how they have contributed to local democratic participation, eg how/have the homeless had a say on how and where they have been housed and what they personally might do to help others?
See above
3. How have you worked together with local community and street support groups?
I was already in touch with all of the formal residents' associations and some of the WhatsApp/Googlegroups in the ward before the pandemic, but making sure that they were linked in to the city council's hubs was important. It has been wonderful to see so much volunteering, and people helping their neighbours without any need for council involvement!
4. To what extent has the pandemic led you to do/think about doing things differently as a locally elected representative to work/act democratically?
A little. It has always been part of what I do as a councillor to try and knock on every door in the ward once a year. That is the best way of picking up all those things that have been bothering people but that they have not had the time to write to me about. My co-ward councillor and I have always had a regular surgery twice a month and will continue to do so. I attend residents associations meetings (Norham Manor RA and Walton Manor RA), but in future, I will try to keep more in touch with the residents groups to sound them out about ideas and proposals, rather than just ask about problems.
5. Following the implementation of the 2019 Oxford Citizens’ Assembly into cabinet member’s responsibilities, how has this helped / will this help you to work on climate emergency measures?
The Citizens' Assembly has been a very powerful tool to ensure that difficult decisions that have involved committing officer time and considerable sums of money are made. Without the very strong steer from the Assembly's conclusions I think the city council would not have done so much so fast (eg installing the largest solar carport in the country, launching a programme of refitting our existing council homes with insulation and solar panels, restricting cars to 1 per house in new developments (even for 3 and 4-bedroom houses); switching the council's vehicles to electric etc).
City Council Walton Manor
1. What do you think have been the most effective actions your council has taken to deliver democracy locally during the Coronavirus pandemic?
We provided individual accommodation for all the homeless, we offered vaccinations to all our homeless and rough-sleeping citizens; we set up support hubs to deliver food and medicine, to check in on lonely people (this has meant that a lot more people see the council as relevant to them, and now how to engage with it); I chaired 2 of the 4 public meetings we set up for different communities in the city that we noticed had high rates of vaccine hesitancy (this has given us links to communities such as the Albanian and Polish that we did not have before); we dedicated a lot of officer time to pro-actively contact businesses and organisations to ensure that they claimed all the government help that was available, (again - this gave a lot of groups including charities like OXSRAD that run a disabled sports centre, a positive contact and involvement with the city council).
2. For each of these please describe briefly how they have contributed to local democratic participation, eg how/have the homeless had a say on how and where they have been housed and what they personally might do to help others?
See above
3. How have you worked together with local community and street support groups?
I was already in touch with all of the formal residents' associations and some of the WhatsApp/Googlegroups in the ward before the pandemic, but making sure that they were linked in to the city council's hubs was important. It has been wonderful to see so much volunteering, and people helping their neighbours without any need for council involvement!
4. To what extent has the pandemic led you to do/think about doing things differently as a locally elected representative to work/act democratically?
A little. It has always been part of what I do as a councillor to try and knock on every door in the ward once a year. That is the best way of picking up all those things that have been bothering people but that they have not had the time to write to me about. My co-ward councillor and I have always had a regular surgery twice a month and will continue to do so. I attend residents associations meetings (Norham Manor RA and Walton Manor RA), but in future, I will try to keep more in touch with the residents groups to sound them out about ideas and proposals, rather than just ask about problems.
5. Following the implementation of the 2019 Oxford Citizens’ Assembly into cabinet member’s responsibilities, how has this helped / will this help you to work on climate emergency measures?
The Citizens' Assembly has been a very powerful tool to ensure that difficult decisions that have involved committing officer time and considerable sums of money are made. Without the very strong steer from the Assembly's conclusions I think the city council would not have done so much so fast (eg installing the largest solar carport in the country, launching a programme of refitting our existing council homes with insulation and solar panels, restricting cars to 1 per house in new developments (even for 3 and 4-bedroom houses); switching the council's vehicles to electric etc).
