General

London Road and Headington Roundabout bus lanes

TonyOX3

In two earlier posts here and here I wrote about the County Council’s initial proposals for what was going to be the third phase of improvements to the London Road, covering the stretch from Bury Knowle park to the A40 Green Road roundabout.

Following public consultation and general unhappiness with the proposals, and presumably under pressure to come up with as cheap a scheme as possible, the County has now put revised plans out to consultation. The consultation is announced and the scheme briefly described on the County’s website here. Comments need to be submitted by Thursday 25 July.

I have abbreviated the Council’s announcement as follows:

Several difference [sic] options have been considered but have been rejected either because of the small benefit to bus users, the cost of the works, the impact on footways and cycle facilities or the opposition of local residents.

The new scheme addresses these issues. The main elements are:

  • short length of new bus lane on the A40 right up to the roundabout,
  • short length of road widening on the London Road near the roundabout,
  • moving the first inbound bus stop closer to the roundabout,
  • lengthening the last outbound bus stop on the London Road.

This scheme has significant advantages over the earlier options:

  • large savings in journey times for inbound buses and coaches,
  • cheaper,
  • avoids losing the cycleway on the north side footway and minimises the impact on trees,
  • traffic is able to pass buses waiting at the relocated first inbound bus stop.

Both the new inbound bus stop and the extended outbound bus stop will be made long enough to hold two buses and will be designated as Bus Stop Clearways. This means that general traffic should not be parked at the bus stops and buses will be able to pull up against the kerb.

This project forms part of a wider package of measures to improve transport choices along this route, including the Thornhill P&R expansion, the Oxonbike cycle hire scheme and a new bus service linking Headington’s hospitals with Water Eaton and Thornhill, due to begin in late September.

Once approved, construction should take place between January and June 2014. This should be followed immediately by the reconstruction of the existing inbound bus lane between Gladstone Road and Wharton Road. A strategy for maintenance of the remaining lengths of London Road is currently being reviewed.

The technical drawing showing the proposed changes is available from the County’s website and I have copied it here. If like me you find it difficult to analyse papers like this on a computer screen you will be interested to know that there will be a drop-in consultation from 4pm to 8pm on Thursday 18th July at Headington Quarry Village Hall (Jubilee Room – entrance in Margaret Road). County officers will be there to explain the scheme and take your comments.

Oxford’s political twitterscape

TonyOX3

This post came about through a casual twitter conversation with @OxfordCityTory about the various political accounts in and around Oxford. He claimed there were more than I thought so we compared notes. It turned out we both knew about the main ones; the difference was that he was counting University accounts which I have mostly ignored.
So for the benefit of anyone and everyone trying to pick their way through Oxford’s political twitterscape here’s my handy guide. It only covers collective accounts and the ‘corporate’ (i.e. non-personal) accounts of the two Oxford MPs. Many councillors tweet as individuals – you’ll find them among my “Politicos” list. As I focus on OX3 and Oxford City that list doesn’t include many District, County or national people or organisations apart from those with a close connection to the City.

There’s a lively political twitter community in Oxford. About 16 City Councillors are on twitter, most of them active and more than ready to respond, interact and debate with each other (you know who you are!) and with ordinary Joes like me. The same goes for the County Councillors I follow. In contrast these collective accounts are rather dull. I feel they exist because the organisations they represent think they should “do social media” without really understanding what do do or how it could (should?) be a key part of their communications. Which of them makes the best attempt? In my impartial and inevitably subjective view I give top place to @OxfordCityTory, which is why they head the list. Although there’s some logic behind the order in which the others appear don’t read too much into it – treat it as “in no particular order”!

Conservative

@OxfordCityTory (Oxford East constituency and/or City district) 
  • Identifies itself both as Oxford East Conservatives and Oxford City Conservatives. Part of Oxfordshire County Conservatives. Also incorporates Oxford West & Abingdon Conservative Association, Oxford University Conservative Association and Oxford Brookes Conservative Association. A moderately active account with over 1500 followers with whom it interacts.
  • www.facebook.com/OxfordEastConservatives and oxfordshireconservatives.com/main/

@nicolablackwood (Oxford West & Abingdon constituency)

  • Official account for Oxford West & Abingdon constituency’s MP. It has the highest number of followers (2884) of any of these accounts but only tweets intermittently. Account was silent from 16 May 2010, waking up again in April this year since when it has averaged about 7 tweets a month, all ‘corporate’ announcements in the third person linking to the website.
  • www.nicolablackwood.com/

@OurOxford (Oxford city)

  • An inactive account – last tweet was 1 July 2012. Neither twitter bio nor website identify account as Conservative either in words or branding, but website links redirect to:
  • www.ouroxford.org/

@OxConservatives (Oxford University)
  • Defunct account set up by OUCA. Only one tweet (25 Feb 2010).
Update 30 Jan 2013: A new account has sprung up. @OxonTories describe themselves as “Oxfordshire Conseravtives Campaign Twitter Feed – Campaigning across Oxfordshire in 2013”. Their bio links to www.oxfordshireconservatives.com

Green Party

@EastOxGreens (Oxford East constituency and/or City district)
  • A moderately active account with 669 followers. Most recent activity relates to the Save Temple Cowley Pool campaign.
  • www.oxford.greenparty.org.uk/

@greenoxford (Oxfordshire county)
  • A moderately active account with 635 followers, publicising Green Party activities in and around Oxford and Oxfordshire. Heavy on re-tweets of other Green sources, light on original content.
  • www.oxford.greenparty.org.uk/

Labour

@Oxford_Labour (Oxford city)
  • The Oxford & District Labour Party. Moderately active with 762 followers; no regular interaction with others.
  • oxfordlabour.org.uk/
  • Sporadically active account with 706 followers; the OU Labour Club’s account. Occasionally interacts with others. Website link on twitter bio is to OULC blog.
  • lleft.blogspot.co.uk/

    @OxfordUniLabour (Oxford University)
    • Appears to be an abandoned account for the OU Labour Club. Last tweet was 10 March 2011, but still has 1290 followers. Was quite active until then. Website link on twitter bio is to up-to-date OULC website.
    • oulc.org/

    @OxfordLabourMP (Oxford East constituency)
    • Official account run for Andrew Smith MP. Infrequent tweets of activity with occasional re-tweets but no interaction with its 303 followers.
    • www.AndrewSmithMP.org.uk

    @OxBrookesLabour (Oxford Brookes University)

    @OxUniLabWomen (Oxford University)
    • A sub-group of OULC. An inactive account with 132 followers: last tweet was 10 Dec 2011. Twitter bio says they are on facebook as Ladies in Red but I can’t find the account.
    • [Update 10 Feb 2013: This account has officially closed. A new account @OxUniWomenLab has opened in its place – see below.]
    • The replacement account for the one above. At 10 Feb 2013 it had 30 followers and had tweeted 25 times (including re-tweets) since starting on 27 January 2013.
    • oulc.org and facebook.com/groups/2202046408/

    LibDem

    @OxfordLibDems (Oxford City)
    • An account with 56 followers which only tweets once daily to link to paper.li news aggregation site “Oxford LibDems Daily”. No other contact details in twitter bio.

    @OxWab (Oxford West and Abingdon constituency)
    • This account started on 21 Aug 2012. It has only tweeted 15 times and has only 25 followers.
    • oxwablibdems.org.uk/en/

    Starbucks and the price of coffee beans

    TonyOX3

    Despite the Gore Vidal quote in my page header I’d really be interested to know why this simple solution to the Starbucks corporation tax issue wouldn’t work.

    This helpful article from Reuters explains three ways in which Starbucks eliminates profits from its UK operations and transfers them to low- or no-tax jurisdictions. Here’s one of them, a ruse involving so-called transfer pricing (the prices charged between different parts of the same company).

    Starbucks buys their coffee beans globally through their Swiss company SCTC (Starbucks Coffee Trading Company) based in Lausanne, Switzerland. The coffee is then sold to a roasting company in the Netherlands at an undisclosed price, from where their various national operations including the UK buy the beans at an undislosed (but I’m guessing large) mark-up. According to Reuters over the past three years the Dutch company generated an annual average turnover of 154m euros from which it earned annual average profits of 1.6m euros, or 1%, which implies Starbucks don’t want profits in the Netherlands either. The article goes on

    [Starbucks] declined to say what profit the Swiss coffee-buying unit makes, although … it was “moderately” profitable. Swiss law does not require the unit to publish accounts. Corporate profits are taxed at 24 percent in the UK and 25 percent in the Netherlands, whereas profits tied to international trade in commodities like coffee are taxed at rates as low as 5 percent in Switzerland.

    If a small business tried to do the same, say through setting up a shell company in the Channel Islands to ‘supply’ all their stock at a large mark-up, HMRC would, I imagine, just refuse to recognise the arrangement and demand that the company’s transfer prices were a fair reflection of costs. Why can’t they do the same with Starbucks?

    In fact HMRC have looked at this issue. Reuters says

    Starbucks was the subject of a UK customs inquiry in 2009 and 2010 into the company’s transfer pricing practices. This was “resolved without recourse to any further action or penalty”, a Starbucks spokesman said. HMRC declined to comment on the probe.

    So my question remains. Why doesn’t HMRC just refuse to accept Starbucks’ transfer pricing practices?