Author: Sonja Francis

THE popular Thame Market Fun Day is back in business and with its face painters, jugglers and stilt walkers, offers local community groups the opportunity to promote themselves.

Thame Market Traders are asking all local groups and charities to come and promote themselves on Thame Market Fun Day on Tuesday, July 27, 2010.

Chris Hurdman, the Secretary of the Thame Market Traders Cooperative, told ThameNews.Net: “Local groups and charities have been asking when they can we come and have another day on the market. So this is the day that anyone with something to promote can let the public know just what they do, want, or need!”

The market traders always set aside space every Tuesday for local groups and charities, and most weeks you can find such groups promoting themselves free of charge.

Recently funds have been raised for the Thame Youth Memorial, The Thame Wombles, and for the last couple of weeks Thame Bowls Club has been promoting themselves with great success.

Chris continued: “Thame market belongs to the people of Thame and we love the support we get from the community. We feel it is important that the community is able to feel part of the market and is able to make use of the footfall that it brings to Thame every Tuesday.”

Chris recently spoke at a House of Commons select committee extolling markets and their benefits to the local community and is passionate about keeping the markets in Oxfordshire alive and vibrant.

So get your thinking hats on and if you want to be part of the fun day and do something different this summer and want to promote your group or charity, then contact Chris Hurdman on 07966202494 or email chrishurdman@btinternet.com for an application form.

THE Green Party’s general election candidate for the Henley constituency, Mark Stevenson, has given his answers to questions posed by ThameNews.Net about local issues.

Mark Stevenson’s replies to a series of questions sent to all the Henley candidates, are as follows:

1. Do you think that the proposed 850 new homes earmarked for Thame by the South East Core Strategy will be good for the town, or not?

A: In my view the SE Plan was put together as a top down execise, leaving the District Council in the position of having to decide where to allocate the housing development being imposed. In response to a question I asked during the consultation, challenging the need for continuing massive development, it was clearly stated that the amount of housing was linked to supporting a target of 3% economic growth annually for the SE. However the recession and the increasing concern about whether this sort of growth is actually beneficial has made a nonsense of the 3% target. Given this situation it would be little more than luck if the 850 houses allocated to Thame were in fact exactly what Thame needed. Clearly we need to reform the planning system and increase the role of local councils in decision making.

I do not know enough about Thame’s current situation to advise further, I am not against development per se and lack of affordable housing in the area is clearly a problem. We do need more homes affordable for those of us whose income is no more than the national average. If I were to be elected I would then have both the time and the resources to address the question more fully.

2. What will you do to persuade the government (if your party forms or is part of a balanced government) to do something about the economic viability of market towns?

A: This is an issue that particularly concerns me. My own local market town is Wallingford. I formed a group that created the weekly Local Producers Market, this attracts hundreds of people every week and support a wide range of local food and craft producers. Indeed there are several new small businesses whose start-up was facilitated by the market. The success of the market towns is entwined with the development of strong local economies and this means supporting and developing small scale local enterprise. This includes rural and agricultural businesses that would have their local market town as an economic hub. The Greens have a package of financial and planning measures to support small business, together with policies to reduce bureaucracy and improve adice and training. I recently set up two free training courses for local businesses around the Dorchester on Thames area to help them reduce waste and improve energy efficiency, cutting costs in the process.

3. How will you ensure that Thame Community Hospital remains as such and that the promised future development of is services will good ahead, without losing the 12 beds currently available?

A: Greens believe that services should be as accessible and local as possible, we are against increasing privatisation of the NHS. My role as your MP would be to ensure that the PCT was properly aware of both the views and needs of local people, to present the case for retaining facilities and help explore ways in which this can be achieved. Furthermore, Greens regard the NHS as a public service, not a business. Although it must be run efficiently and effectively it should be properly funded by the public purse. We would use increased taxes on alcohol and tobacco to fund overall real growth in the NHS budget (current taxation on these does not reflect the huge demands made on NHS resources by people’s use of these drugs). Responsibility should be decentralised, enabling local control and decision making under national guidelines. This increased funding and decentralisation will help us to maintain services like Thame Community Hospital.

4. Thame is trying to ‘go green’ with several groups springing up, ie Greening Thame and Transitions Towns; What will you do to ensure that Thame and other market towns can move towards becoming a sustainable community?

A: I have encouraged and supported the development of the Transition Thame and District group. I am in regular contact with them. The extension of the transition town concept to include the area around Thame is important in developing sustainability and Thame’s role as a market town for the area. I also have strong links with Sustainable Wallingford and Transition Henley, as MP I would increase my liason role between these groups. Green policy to provide funding for increasing the energy efficiency of houses and the development of micro-generation would help these groups, but our whole approach to developing strong sustainable local economies would provide the backbone.

5. Some people in Thame are concerned about decisions being taken by their local councils without consultation, i.e the transfer of the town’s swimming pool from town council control to district council control, after the people of Thame campaigned for a pool and raised thousands of pounds for it?
What will you do to increase local democracy – if of course you agree that it is a good idea!

A: I think the problem here is one of local democracy not being properly exercised. The Town Council should, as a matter of principle, have consulted at least the representatives of the group that successfully campaigned and raised funds for the pool. I believe we need to encourage greater involvement in local democracy and ensure we elect people in whom we truly have confidence to work for our communities. The Greens would start by introducing proportional representation at all levels of government. We would de-centralise power so that local councils had a greater role in deciding on local issues and raising income to support their plans. We would enable local referenda on council decisions if called for by 20% of the electorate, petitions would then have real force. We would also enable recall of MPs and other representatives if demanded by 40% of the electorate. We would ensure far better education so that young people left school confident in participating in the political process. The curriculum for Citizenship will not be determined by central government but by an independent body (such as the Politics Association). This would include experience of the democratic process through being involved in the running of their own school community as well as understanding the history of and the politics and political structures of the local area and country.

6. What is your view on the future of education in this country?

A: Our vision is that every child should be able to attend a good, local, state-funded school; that learning is life-long and education should be at the heart of our communities, promoting social and emotional well-being, equality, inclusion and responsibility. Among other measures, we would spend

THE UKIP candidate for the Henley constituency has been the first to respond to questions put to him and the other election candidates by ThameNews.Net readers yesterday.

Along with all the other candidates, Laurence Hughes for UKIP was asked a series of questions about local issues. Here are the questions posed and Laurence Hughes’ answers:

1. Do you think that the proposed 850 new homes earmarked for Thame by the South East Core Strategy will be good for the town, or not?

A: I believe there is a need for a moderate number of affordable homes for local people, but 850 are far too many for a town like Thame and will alter its character altogether. Also any such decisions should be
taken through local democratic bodies and not by unelected quangos.

2. What will you do to persuade the government (if your party forms or is part of a balanced government) to do something about the economic viability of market towns?

A: First and foremost, to maintain economic viability I would push for a major reduction in bureaucracy and red-tape for local businesses and the removal of employers’ national insurance contributions (‘the tax
on jobs’) – these are all UKIP policies.

3. How will you ensure that Thame Community Hospital remains as such and that the promised future development of is services will good ahead, without losing the 12 beds currently available?

A: UKIP propose that health services be organised on a county basis under an elected County Health Board which will be answerable democratically to the needs and wishes of local communities.

4. Thame is trying to ‘go green’ with several groups springing up, ie Greening Thame and Transitions Towns; What will you do to ensure that Thame and other market towns can move towards becoming a sustainable community?

A: I would support any projects into sustainable and renewable ‘green’ projects, particularly those involving practical and cost-effective recycling and new, cleaner technologies. People should be given
incentives to be greener in their lifestyles, not be bullied into it by surveillance and threats from the authorities.

5. Some people in Thame are concerned about decisions being taken by their local councils without consultation, i.e the transfer of the town’s swimming pool from town council control to district council control, after the people of Thame campaigned for a pool and raised thousands of pounds for it?
What will you do to increase local democracy – if of course you agree that it is a good idea!

A: UKIP support independence and democracy – we want to restore and re-invigorate both national and local democracy. So we would push for all decisions affecting local communities to be taken as far as
possible by locally-elected bodies, according to the wishes and needs of local communities.

6. What is your view on the future of education in this country?

A: UKIP want a return to high-quality education with high standards; we would give schools, colleges and universities much greater freedom from central government interference so that they can get on with
their job of educating people. We would guarantee a grammar school in every major town. We would also encourage more young people to go into apprenticeships and technical training rather than have artificial
targets for them to gain low-quality university degrees in not very useful subjects.

7. Would your party (if it gets into power) reduce funding to Oxfordshire’s county and district councils for such things as social services and eduction?

A: We would not reduce funding for county or district bodies but would seek to make sure they give efficient and value-for-money services to the community and are accountable to the public in their activities.

8. Would your party (if it gets into power) cut funding for Thames Valley Police Force?

A: We would aim to increase funding and manpower for Thames Valley Police, on the condition that bureaucracy and form-filling are kept to a minimum, and the maximum number of officers are out on our streets, deterring and preventing crime, through a serious return to beat policing.