A statement from Cllr Bethia Thomas, Leader of the Vale of White Horse District Council 

Published 12 December 2024

This year seems to have galloped by and I can hardly believe we are now so close to Christmas! As I think back on the last 12 months, it’s definitely been another very busy year for us all.

I’m proud to say, in spite of many challenges, we’ve collectively achieved a great deal and there are numerous highlights I will take away from 2024: from record numbers of visitors at our wonderful Abbey Meadow outdoor pool this summer, our continued investment in good quality leisure facilities, through to becoming social landlords again for the first time in over 20 years with the purchase of 18 homes, and our firm commitment to delivering affordable homes for our communities.

Our Community Hub has done a fantastic job to help residents with cost-of-living concerns including providing advice on free or affordable food and health and wellbeing support. Helping to prevent people from becoming homeless remains a very important focus, and one that’s making a big difference – last year our housing team prevented over 343 households in the district who were at risk of becoming homeless, from becoming homeless.

We continue to provide heartfelt sanctuary for Ukrainian households living in the Vale. Thank you to the many hosts who have opened your homes to those fleeing conflict and provided a stable, safe home.

For organisations and charities experiencing financial strain, our White Horse Community Lottery is a helping hand, which has so far this year generated over £27,000 for local good causes across our district.  

And we’ve certainly faced some dramatic storms impacting the district at the beginning and at the end of this year – following Storm Henk in January, we provided emergency response support including awarding grants for residents and businesses impacted by the terrible weather.  

With the storms in mind – and the ever-unpredictable weather we increasingly face, tackling the climate emergency continues to be at the heart of everything we do – and I’m pleased to say we’re making great strides in our ambitious goals to reach net zero. We‘ve secured several million pounds to install solar panels, insulation and air source heat pumps at several of our leisure centres, with this work completing next year. I’m also happy to say we’re now operating our first electric food waste truck which has been successfully doing its rounds since its arrival in the autumn – alongside two EV vans used by our parks and grounds maintenance team, with more planned. Thanks to the hard work of our residents, we remain one of the top areas in the country for recycling, but we know we can do more, and our emphasis is now on looking to how we can all reduce what we buy and reuse and repair what we have.

We’ve also provided more than £141,000 to community groups towards new insulation and low energy lighting at shared buildings, as well as EV chargers, a new electric bike scheme and a new repair café as well as nature recovery projects such as the regeneration of woodland – all thanks to our Climate Action Fund.

I couldn’t complete my Christmas message without highlighting our progress on our ground-breaking plan to meet our local communities’ need for housing, to tackle the climate emergency and protect what’s important to our residents. With the change in government, we’ve had to step up to the challenge of accelerating our timeline for our Joint Local Plan. I’m delighted to say, thanks to a huge amount of work by many dedicated people, we submitted the plan for government examination on 9 December. Among many other improvements for our communities, this plan will require developers to deliver more affordable homes on large new housing sites – all without increasing the total number being built.  

And watch this space for our new strategic vision for the council to take us up to 2028. We hope to have our new plan published in spring 2025.  Thanks is due to everyone who took the time to give us their valuable thoughts on our ideas for the Council Plan earlier this year.

As we head into our holiday break, if you (or anyone you know) need help or want to find out the details of our services over the Christmas period, including emergency support information, please head to our website. And if you’d like to book something to look forward to next year, I can thoroughly recommend checking out The Beacon Arts Centre’s spring season at www.beaconwantage.co.uk/whats-on

And finally, as ever, I’d like to express my heart-felt thanks to all our local volunteers, community groups and charities that have been working tirelessly to help vulnerable individuals and families. I also couldn’t go without thanking my Cabinet, all councillors and everyone at the council in helping us to deliver our high-quality support and services.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  

Cllr Bethia Thomas