Approved Council Motions 2025/26

Council meeting Thursday 11 December 2025

Proposer: Councillor Barlow Seconder: Councillor Casey-Rerhaye

Lead officer: Head of Development and Corporate Landlord

Emergency discretionary business rates relief scheme

That this Council, recognising the urgent financial pressures facing hospitality businesses in our district, resolves to:

1. Investigate an emergency discretionary business rates relief scheme for hospitality businesses (including pubs, restaurants, cafés, and small independent venues) operating within South Oxfordshire;
2. Prioritise support for genuinely independent and locally operated hospitality businesses, particularly those experiencing acute financial distress;
3. Task the Cabinet Member for Finance to report within three months with detailed recommendations and costings for the relief scheme;
4. Write to the Government and local MPs calling on them to review the business rates system and provide additional national support for the hospitality sector;
5. Engage directly with hospitality business owners in the district to gather evidence of hardship and ensure the scheme is accessible, targeted, and effective.

Council meeting Thursday 11 December 2025

Proposer: Councillor Barlow Seconder: Councillor Casey-Rerhaye

Lead officer: Head of Development and Corporate Landlord

Thames Water Resources Management Plan/SESRO

Council notes that in July 2025 a judicial review upheld the Secretary of State for the Environment’s decision to approve the proposed Thames Water Resources Management Plan which includes the South East Strategic Reservoir Option in Abingdon.

As a result, Thames Water has to have an Emergency Discharge facility in place, including the ability to empty the reservoir at a rate of 1 metre of height per day, possibly over a period of 3 to 4 weeks. This would put water back into the Thames at a rate of 75 m³/s just south of Abingdon, at Culham, c.3x greater than its normal flow.

Such a discharge could cause havoc along the Thames, endangering Life, residences, businesses, wildlife and the environment, yet there is no requirement for the reservoir operator to have an emergency plan before building the reservoir, only before filling it. Dealing with the emergency in the wider area will be the responsibility of the successor(s) to Oxfordshire County Council as the local emergency planning authority along with the emergency services.

This Council makes clear its deep concern that the successor to this institution (SODC) could be made responsible by default for safely managing such an emergency, leaving us with impossible decisions about which lives, homes and businesses to save in a crisis situation.

We therefore call on the Leader to write to the Secretary of State to request clarity on how such an emergency discharge would be managed and to provide a commitment that we will be provided with the resources to do so before any Development Consent Order is considered.

Update: The Leader wrote to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Council meeting Thursday 23 October 2025

Proposer: Councillor Filipova-Rivers Seconder: Councillor Casey-Rerhaye

Lead officer: Head of Communities

Fair Treatment for All Residents

This Council notes that:

• People across South Oxfordshire, like elsewhere in the UK, have endured successive crises in recent years: the Covid pandemic, the cost-of-living emergency, and chronic underfunding of public services by successive governments. These have caused significant economic pain, left many residents in precarious situations, and created a climate of uncertainty and fear.
• Peer-reviewed research also shows that rising inequality and hardship fuels support for far-right movements by eroding trust in institutions and creating fertile ground for scapegoating and division. (Income Inequality, Ethnonationalism, and Radical-Right Support, 2024)
• Against this backdrop, right wing media and organised far-right groups have wrongly blamed minority communities for these hardships to further their agendas, with dire consequences for those communities and for social cohesion more broadly. 
• Migration has increasingly been used as a wedge issue, exploited to divide communities and distract from the structural causes of economic hardship and inequality.
• Yet, along with other research the Migration Observatory (University of Oxford) “The Fiscal Impact of Immigration in the UK” (2024), which provides one of the most balanced evidence-based syntheses of the impact of migration, finds that:
  • Economy: Migration contributes positively to the UK economy by expanding the labour force, addressing skill shortages, and supporting productivity and growth, with little evidence of wage suppression for native workers.
  • Fiscal: Migrants’ net fiscal impact is generally small but positive. Recent migrants tend to contribute more in taxes than they receive in public services, helping to ease fiscal pressures linked to an ageing population.

This Council therefore resolves to:

1. Condemn intimidation, violence or harassment of minority groups who have made South Oxfordshire their home.
2. Continue to work with partners to ensure the safety and wellbeing of everyone in our communities, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation or other protected characteristics.
3. Recognise the impact to our communities if we allow misinformation and the fear, suspicion, intolerance and discrimination that it generates to persist unchallenged
4. Note and support the work the Oxfordshire Migration Partnership, which includes all Oxfordshire councils, Thames Valley Police, heath partners and voluntary and faith organisations, is doing to develop a Community Cohesion Action Plan aligned with upcoming updated LGA guidance on ‘Creating Cohesive Communities.’
5. Ask Cabinet to commit a budget line to the 2026/27 budget on further funding for community cohesion work, to increase support to our already closeknit communities, to show our commitment to this vital work.

Council meeting Thursday 23 October 2025

Proposer: Councillor Giles Seconder: Councillor Filipova-Rivers

Lead officer: Head of Communities

Motion: Protecting Privacy and Preventing Rogue State Surveillance

This Council notes:

• The recent announcement by the Government to introduce a mandatory Digital ID scheme for all UK residents, which risks criminalising millions of people, raises significant privacy and civil liberties concerns, could cost billions of pounds, and could lead to a Chinese-style ‘social credit’ system being introduced in the UK.
• The concerns raised by organisations such as Liberty, Amnesty and Big Brother Watch about the domestic use of surveillance equipment sourced from rogue states such as China and Russia, which brings significant data security, privacy and human rights risks.
• That embassies operated by rogue states, such as China and Russia, can be utilised to further their surveillance activity, including of South Oxfordshire residents, as well as dissidents and human rights activists.

This Council believes:

• The Government’s mandatory Digital ID scheme is an expensive measure that will undermine public trust, will do nothing to address the actual challenges facing residents in South Oxfordshire, and fails to protect our core British values of liberty, privacy and fairness.
• That South Oxfordshire residents should be able to access and move through public spaces without fear of unwarranted monitoring or intrusion from public bodies and rogue states, and that they have a right to privacy.
• Surveillance activity disproportionately targets and impacts vulnerable and marginalised groups, including women and members of the black community.

This Council therefore resolves to:

1. Formally oppose the Government’s mandatory Digital ID scheme.
2. Request the Leader write to the Home Secretary and the Minister for Digital Infrastructure expressing our opposition to the Government’s mandatory Digital ID system and calling for the plans to be scrapped.
3. Publish information annually on all CCTV deployed by the council, including the manufacturer, brand, product name, and model of such equipment.
4. Prohibit the potential future use by the council of facial recognition and biometric surveillance technologies, as well as any surveillance equipment linked to China or Russia.
5. Request the Leader write to the Home Secretary to call for the existing ban on the procurement of surveillance equipment from Russia to be extended to China, due to credible concerns over data security and potential espionage risks.

Council meeting Thursday 23 October 2025

Proposer: Councillor Bearder Seconder: Councillor Ramsdale

Lead officer: Head of Housing and Environment

This Council notes that:

• On Pettiwell, a small B road outside Garsington, Oxfordshire County Council has issued 627 Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) between October 2023 and April 2025, with £27,820 unpaid and only £12,002 paid.
• This is an extraordinarily high level of enforcement activity for a rural road and demonstrates a persistent problem of vehicles being left on double yellow lines and obstructing the carriageway.
• The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has confirmed that many of these vehicles are either destroyed, traded, or registered to untraceable owners, making enforcement extremely difficult.
• The DVLA offers local authorities the option of becoming a Devolved Power Partner (DPP), allowing councils to take enforcement action against untaxed vehicles, with no charges from the DVLA for adopting the powers.
• While Thames Valley Police already has these powers, enforcement in Oxfordshire is inconsistent, leaving many problem vehicles on our streets.
• The system is clearly failing residents, leaving vehicles abandoned, untaxed, and obstructing highways with little prospect of resolution under the current arrangements.

This Council believes that:

• The first duty of the District Council must be to our residents. Where national agencies fail to act effectively, councils should step in to protect communities.
• Adopting devolved powers from the DVLA would not replace their responsibilities but would give South Oxfordshire District Council the ability to act where enforcement is currently failing.
• Other councils in rural areas have already taken on these powers, and South Oxfordshire should not leave its residents at a disadvantage.

This Council therefore resolves to:

1. Request officers to begin the process of South Oxfordshire District Council applying to the DVLA to become a Devolved Power Partner, enabling the council to enforce against untaxed vehicles.
2. Request officers to prepare a report setting out the practical steps, resources, and communications needed to implement these powers, drawing on best practice from other local authorities already using them.
3. Establish a working arrangement with Oxfordshire County Council and Thames Valley Police to share intelligence and coordinate enforcement action on untaxed and abandoned vehicles.

Council meeting Thursday 17 July 2025

Proposer: Councillor Gordon-Creed Seconder: Councillor Sadler

Lead officer: Head of Policy and Programmes

This Council notes:

• South Oxfordshire District Council has declared a climate emergency and is committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions in its own operations by 2030 and in the district by 2045.
• The district has significant potential for renewable energy development, particularly solar, which must be harnessed in a way that delivers genuine benefits for local communities.
• Community energy organisations which are active across Oxfordshire, have demonstrated how local people can share in the benefits of renewable projects to help fund local net zero projects and reduce fuel poverty.
• Without such a requirement, local communities’ risk being excluded from the economic and social benefits of the clean energy transition.
• That the council has responded substantively to the current government working paper on this topic.

This Council believes:

• That new renewable energy infrastructure has the opportunity to contribute positively to the wellbeing and prosperity of the communities hosting them, and this opportunity should be harnessed.
• That the option for local shared ownership or benefit schemes should be offered by large-scale renewable developments to local communities.
• That South Oxfordshire has an opportunity to lead by example in supporting fair, community-led energy.

This Council therefore resolves to:

1. Request that the leader of the Council write to the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the Minister for Climate, and local MPs to express this Council’s support for Community Energy benefit options and urge legislative action.
2. Encourage all developers of large-scale renewable energy schemes in South Oxfordshire to engage with community energy groups and offer Community Energy benefit options to local communities.
3. Work with Oxfordshire County Council, neighbouring authorities and Community Energy Organisations to promote community-led energy and maximise local benefit from future renewable energy projects.