Dear Neighbours, My name is Christopher Cubby, and I am running to be the councillor for Abingdon South, so we can have our voices and our ward's concerns heard regarding the badly run council and hold them accountable for wasteful spending, slow services and bringing back common sense decision-making.

Full statement

The responsibilities of the Oxfordshire County Council are to provide an efficient service to improve our lives and not to create challenges for the residents of Oxfordshire.

I am 4th generation to call Abingdon my home. I grew up and went to school here, became a qualified plumber and now I run my family building company. I live in Abingdon with my wife and 10-month-old daughter. I enjoy travelling, my interests in current local and world affairs and socialising with my family and friends.

Recently, It has come to light that Oxfordshire County Council led by the Lib Dem and the Greens Coalition is sitting on roughly £260 million on unspent developers’ cash, raised from the section 106/CIL funding from all the new construction in Oxfordshire, which has been an alot! This development fund is to improve our infrastructure like roads, schools and healthcare facilities. This was unveiled by the Home Builders Federation's Freedom of Information request.

This fund could help with the flood defences project for Tithe Farm residents who, unfortunately, have suffered from another year of flooding. Another project would be to modernise our water treatment facilities to stop raw sewage going into our rivers. WHY ARE THEY NOT USING THIS MONEY FOR IMPROVEMENTS?

Every vote counts! Voting is your power, your opportunity to decide who represents your values and your vision, and I believe the majority of people believe it won’t change anything, but IT DOES!

For example:
⁃ In the last general election, only 59.7% of registered voters voted. Kier Starmer’s Labour Party won the election with 33.7% of that which equals to 1 of out 5 voted for labour, so 80% of the country didn’t vote for Labour. ARE YOU HAPPY WITH HOW THAT’S GOING?
⁃ The same happened with the Mayor of London elections in 2024 when Saqid Khan won. The turnout was 40% of registered voters and he won with 43.8% so 1 in 5 registered voters voted for him. LONDON IS NOT HAPPY WITH HOW THAT’S GOING!
⁃ In the last OCC election in 2021, Abingdon South turnout was only 38.6% (3345 votes out of 8712) and the Lib Dem candidate won with 52.9% (1769 votes) this resulted in again only 1 in 5 votes. ARE YOU HAPPY WITH HOW THAT’S GOING?

So why allow only a small number of voters to decide how to live YOUR LIFE?

As an independent, I will work with the other common sense councillors and groups at the council to have our say on the current and future county plans and against their war on motorists, local business, the countryside and YOUR wallet.
I will work hard to bring to light their hypocritical decisions and to stop them by putting local priorities over national and international unrealistic goals.
I will advocate to keep council taxes low and reduce the council bureaucracy, promote real-life education for our next generation and well-being, spending money fixing the roads and paths that are outside Oxford and not on money-raising programs like zero emission zones and traffic filters.
I can confirm I will bring the facts and figures.

This is a grassroots campaign which brings opportunity and productivity to Abingdon South.

I have travelled and lived in many destinations abroad which give me a wider outlook on life, however, home is where the heart is and that is in Abingdon.

Vote for Common Sense is voting for Christopher Cubby.

Any questions, please email me at ChrisatAbingdonSouth@gmail.com

Policies and Proposals.

Council Tax
Where is your council tax going? The Oxfordshire County Council have increased council tax again by the maximum amount of 4.99% over the last 4 years, if the amount is 5% or higher then they have to have a referendum to increase the council tax, unless the council issue a section 114 notice (bankruptcy). Oxfordshire County Council are sitting on roughly £260 million on unspent developers’ cash for improvements. WHY ARE WE BEING TAXED MORE EVERY YEAR WHEN THE COUNCIL SERVICES HAVE NOT IMPROVED?

All emergency or frontline personnel that fit the criteria, should not pay or receive heavily discounted council tax rates as a thank-you for their services to our county. Other crucial jobs like special needs children and adult care should receive these discounts as well.

Education
Oxford is renowned worldwide for its universities, however, some people are good at school and others like me are more practical, that is why I believe and propose entrepreneurship courses and classes to be added to the curriculum and youth services/projects. Many youth need help finding their passion and sometimes some guidance on how to do it. I will advocate for more apprenticeship places; learning a trade provides work for life.

When I was in primary school, once a year an influential person like an Olympic athlete or more often, just the local fire brigade would visit and tell their story. I believe this is important to idolise good role models and allow children to become ambitious. I propose setting up channels for this.

I also believe it is important to know our rich history, of Abingdon, of Oxfordshire and the United Kingdom as a whole and for a balanced view of it.

Social Care
Mental health is very important and CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) provides the well needed support, however, the backlog has got so dire, young people with expected problems are on a 2 year waiting list to be seen and assessed, furthermore, if the young person needs the support, they are being listed on another waiting list of upto 2 years for the treatment. These timeframe needs to improve for the wellbeing of the young person and their family. I purpose funding to bring the waiting lists down.

Roads and Transport
The current Oxford County Council led by the Lib Dems and Greens since 2021 has seen some of the most radical net zero plans in the country and if elected again, they will continue their war against the motorist and hit everyone’s wallet!

The LTZs (Low Traffic Zones) block through roads and concentrating the main roads, ZEZ (zero emission zone) if the car or motorbike isn’t electric then road user will be charged up to £10 a day, unless you’re a resident in the area and segregated the city into six areas with the traffic filters. Residents of Abingdon South will only be allowed 25 times a year to drive into Oxford resulting in fines, this privilege to install the traffic filter costs £2.7 million and the 6 filters are at Botley Road Bridge, South Oxford and East Oxford but not in the north/the Summertown area, WHY IS THAT? 20mph speed zone cost £8 million. ZEZ trail and expansion in Oxford cost £6.2 million. The finished Eynsham Park and Ride costs £51 million with no entrance built, furthermore, the Oxfordshire County Council has scrapped the bus lanes to Oxford, so the bus will sit in the same traffic as everyone else.

The Electric Vehicle mandate to restricts the sale of new fossil-fuelled cars from 2030 and the pressure to go fully electric is incredibly unrealistic and is crashing the car market nationally and internationally. Majority of EVs are brought for they are tax deductible, however, the depreciation of EVs is ludicrous, 3-year-old EVs with not many miles are as low as a third of their retail price. Furthermore, Electric vans are even less desired at only 0.5% of the total van market. BMW mini at Cowley spent £600 million including a £50 million grant from Oxfordshire County Council to transform the plant for EVs and now, the demand isn’t there to recoup the costs.

Environment
The current Oxfordshire County Council are Net Zero fanatics and also hypocrites. They are proving this with the behemoth Botley West solar farm project that spans across beautiful and important agricultural land from Cumnor to north of Woodstock. The proposed solar farm will have a capacity of 840 megawatts; however, DID YOU KNOW BOTLEY WEST HAS SECURED A GRID CONNECTION WITH THE NATIONAL GRID TO INCREASE THEIR SOLAR GENERATING CAPACITY UP TO 1900 MEGAWATTS BY 2030? Solar panels life Span are roughly 20-25 years, how and where will have the capacity to recycle the panels’, as it is labour intensive and hugely costly? Where will those solar panels be located? Solar panels do not belong in fields but on roofs, over large car parks and even to be installed on bodies of water like reservoirs.

Thames Water has gotten away with pumping raw sewage into our rivers for too long. They claim the reason for this is due to heavy rain/flooding and the treatment plant reaching their capacity so the raw sewage has to be release before it can be processed. I will facilitate a solution for the worst treatment station offenders and for Thames Water and Oxfordshire County Council to improvement our water treatment plant from the £260 million on unspent developers’ cash.

Waste Disposal
I propose replacing the general bins for new recycling/general waste bins throughout Abingdon. Why do we recycle at home, but the council bins are not separated?