Laura Gordon

A 20's plenty sticker on a green wheelie bin

If you want to remind drivers that 20's plenty where people live, then get one of our stickers for your wheelie bin.

They're free to Oxfordshire residents. Apply here:
www.20splenty.org/oxon_wbs

Starmer urged to launch WW2-style war bond plan to plug defence £28bn black hole A defence trade body wants a bond-buying scheme to bolster defence innovations like counter-drone and sub-sea autonomous vehicles

Great to see @makeuk.bsky.social backing defence bonds. We need urgent funding to rearm.

Despite big talk from Labour and Tories, only the @libdems.org.uk have a plan.

Bonds would raise £20bn over two years and allow everyone to invest in our nation's defence.

inews.co.uk/news/britons...

Can you post something like

So I half agree but I do think there's a cumulative effect. If you use self service, you drive rather than get the bus, you work from home... It's really easy to get to a point where you just aren't interacting with people at all and, idk, get out of practice/it's really easy to stew?

Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage want Britain to blindly follow Trump into this illegal war, even though the President has no plan for what comes next.

There is nothing patriotic about outsourcing Britain’s foreign policy to Donald Trump.

Patriotic lectures from someone who makes their money talking down this country hit different when they are delivered from abroad.

You had me at Christmas Markets 🎄

I'll never look at Clip'n'climb in the same way again

NGL it's not what you want to see when you top out a new route 😬

I accidentally discovered a hidden Sudanese military base while rock climbing

And while we're here, immigration restrictions that prevent children from attending their father's funeral need to be changed yesterday.

‘Treat us fairly’: skilled workers face having their dream of settling in UK snatched away As government mulls doubling requirement to 10 years, the uncertainty is putting many who came to Britain to work under strain

This is heartbreaking. Treating people who've planned their lives around our word is wrong and the Home Office statement at the bottom is callous - completely failing to engage with the human stories, probably because they know their position cannot be justified.

Happy Holi - Liberal Democrats Photo shows a child covered in brightly-coloured powder paints during Holi celebrations.

Wishing everyone celebrating the festival of colours in the UK and across the world, a bright, happy and joyous Holi.

#HappyHoli

Let's not be too hasty but I'm starting to think Brexit might have been a mistake 🙃

Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey:

"Tax exiles like Isabel Oakeshott and washed up old footballers who mock ordinary people who stay in the UK and pay our taxes... As we protect them, it's only right for tax exiles to start paying taxes to fund our armed forces, just like the rest of us".

New flood wardens are sought to be the eyes and ears of their communities An appeal has been issued for volunteers to help their communities understand flood risks and responsibilities by becoming flood wardens.Oxfordshire County Council has extended its flood warden scheme...

New volunteer flood wardens are being recruited across Oxfordshire to help communities spot risks like blocked drains and support local flood preparedness.

Find out more ➡️ news.oxfordshire.gov.uk/new-flood-wa...

The best reason to transition away from fossil fuels is climate change, the second best reason is not being at the mercy of an economic crisis whenever there is a crisis in the middle east. The energy transition is a key investment in UK civil resilience.

Be a terrible shame if some of them have already spent 89 days in the UK this tax year and now get evacuated 👀

It's a strong look, you should go with it #helpful

NEW: The Lib Dems are demanding MPs get a vote on allowing the US to use UK air bases.

Leader Ed Davey says:

“No matter how the Prime Minister tries to redefine offensive as defensive, this is a slippery slope. He must not let Trump drag Britain into another prolonged war in the Middle East.”

As well as being cruel and pointless it's also obviously delusional. The Home Office is so slow to make asylum decisions that a review after 30 months would mean reviewing a decision that hasn't been made yet.

I went to the East West Rail design update to emphasize support for an underpass for cars, pedestrians and cyclists over a less-accessible bridge. There is another event tomorrow at the Bicester Methodist Church between 12pm and 5pm - please go down and have your say!

644 potholes fixed last week 13-19 February Repairs by district: 158 Cherwell, 77 City, 142 West, 161 south and 106 vale. 13 fixed within two hours of being reported, 138 fixed within 24 hours of being reported. 27 teams on the ground. 19 traditional repair crews, 4 dragon patching crews and 4 bobcat patching crews

Last week our teams repaired 644 potholes across Oxfordshire. The larger and more complex defects need specialist and longer-lasting repairs so we have 27 repair teams on the ground.

We're working to keep Oxfordshire moving. Need to report a pothole? fixmystreet.oxfordshire.gov.uk

I think the real q is that we know Oxford has built a lot of employment sites within the city boundaries - this is a longstanding source of frustration as the city builds jobs and pushes housing need onto the districts - but I'm not clear if Cambridge has also done this or just focused on houses

I don't know enough about Cambridge unfortunately but I'd be really interested in a deep dive. The fact that Oxford picks up in the last couple of years of the 2010s suggests that's not the only issue though

Unfortunately I can't find similar stats for employment land in as easy-to-access a format (at least not on my phone with a baby asleep on me) so we still don't know if it's a balance of use issue (ie Cambridge building more housing and less employment sites) or an overall build level issue

BUT also
2. five years of building a lot of homes seems to have set Cambridge up for future success, and five years really isn't that long in the scheme of things.

My tentative takeaways:
1. this stuff is locked in for a long time. 2011 might feel quite recent to those of us that aren't as young as we used to be. But it isn't really. A lot has happened since then!

Since then Oxford has outbuilt Cambridge, but not by enough to catch up.