Your guide for your
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City edition Thursday, February 1 - Wednesday, February 7, 2018
leisure guide for in and around Oxford
leisure time in & aroun
d Oxfordshire
e date in your diary...
Comedy marathon – 5 venues in 1 day and all for a good cause
Gary Ba rlow and Tim Fir Calenda th’s r Gi at the Ne rls w Theatre
Free
oxfordshireguardian.co.uk
Retiring leader shares his highs and lows
Adult care hit as house to close
Restored 1980s Cortina raises charity cash
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Backing for homeless plan as more counted rough sleeping By Owen Hughes
Activities also included a lesson where Year 10 pupils stepped up to teach the younger ones the basics of maths and shared their knowledge and experience. Picture: Paul Moylan
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Local knowledge
event celebrating the importance of maths in everyday life. The whole school came together in a special assembly for a ‘brain blaster’ puzzle challenge day.
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PUPILS in Oxford were busy crunching numbers and solving equations as they took part in a mathematics week. The youngsters at Rye St Anthony took part in the annual
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Professional photography
Making maths fun! AT +V
ROUGH sleeping in Oxford is at an all time high as the city council receives cross party support for the adoption of a new three-year strategy to reduce homelessness. A head count of 61 people rough sleeping in the city centre last year is almost double that recorded in 2016 when 33 were counted. At a meeting on Monday the council voted in favour of adopting the Housing and Homeless Strategy 2018-21 recommended after six weeks of public consultation. Plans include delivering affordable housing, bringing empty homes back into use, and partnering with volunteer and support groups. Councillor Mike Rowley, board member for housing, said: “The latest street count figures show the devastating impact of the housing crisis and the government’s austerity measures on the streets of our city. “We want to ensure that nobody has to sleep rough on the streets of Oxford.” He added that the council’s support for the strategy shows that they are “determined to tackle homelessness in Oxfordshire”. But Conor McKenzie, Liberal Democrat candidate for Carfax, said Labour on Oxford City Council “is all talk and no action” and their strategy is “little more than aspiration, backed
up by very few actual commitments”. The government Rough Sleeping Statistics England Autumn 2017 show a 15 per cent increase nationally and a 24 per cent increase in the South East but an 85 per cent in Oxford on the previous year. Mr McKenzie said: “The city council have a lot to answer for. “They have consistently tried to shift the blame on this matter, but what we can see is Oxford is far, far worse than the national and regional averages.” On the adopted strategy, Mr McKenzie said: “ ‘No second night out’ is a good model but it isn’t backed up by nearly enough resources, and neither the city council’s budget or even the strategy commits to them. “We have seen next to no advances in affordable house-building over the past five years here in Oxford, and going forward the Oxpens and Barton sites haven’t actually come with clear commitments to nearly enough affordable homes.” He added the Liberal Democrats are pushing for more funding for homeless support, would scrap “Labour’s punitive measures such as fi nes and removing sleeping bags”, and build more affordable housing. Oxford City Council was the fi rst in the county to be awarded a Gold Standard by a national homelessness prevention service in August last year.
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