Housing and cost of living should be priorities for new Oxford council, says current leader
Conversations continue over who will run the council after last week’s election
With control of Oxford City Council still undecided following last week's local elections, current council leader Susan Brown has said housing, the cost of living and ensuring a smooth transition through local government reorganisation must remain key priorities.
Labour stayed the largest party on the council, winning 20 seats, however no party secured a majority, meaning discussions between political groups are continuing over who will ultimately run the authority.
Speaking after being re-elected in Churchill ward, Cllr Brown said Labour was “fairly pleased” with the result but disappointed to have narrowly missing out on further gains in Oxford.
“We were frustrated to lose a couple of seats, including a longstanding councillor in Alex Hollingsworth, and to come very close to winning another seat - we were just 26 votes short of winning Lye Valley," she said.
The election saw the Green Party increase its representation to 13 seats - the highest number it has ever held on Oxford City Council.
The Liberal Democrats retained their seats but made no gains, while no Conservative or Reform UK candidates were elected.
Negotiations between parties are ongoing, with the possibility of Labour continuing in minority control still being discussed.
Cllr Brown assured residents that they will work together to reach solutions regardless of the outcome.
“There’s a lot of agreement between the parties. There are some very key areas of differences, but I think for a lot of the programme that we’ve put forward there has been quite a degree of support anyway," she said.
“We will always seek to try and find consensus wherever we can because that’s the right thing to do for the people of Oxford.”
Cllr Brown said one of the council’s most urgent responsibilities would be managing the shift towards Oxfordshire’s planned local government reorganisation.
“We’re in a slightly strange position because of the fact that we actually have only two years of this council to run,” she said.
“One of the biggest priorities we have is making sure that the transition to the new council is a good one and making sure the people of Oxford don’t see any disruption to the services that they quite rightly should be expecting.”
Additionally, Cllr Brown said housing remained the biggest policy issue facing the city.
“The single most important thing to me consistently has been housing - building more affordable housing and trying to remove as many blockers as possible to build the housing that’s so desperately needed for people in Oxford,” she said.
Cllr Brown also highlighted the cost of living as a major concern for residents across the city.
“Anything that we can do to help local people with that cost of living, whether it’s making sure more people are able to get the Oxford Living Wage and encouraging employers to be inclusive in the way that they take people on, I think those are important issues for us.”