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Let us know your thoughts on the issues discussed above

Ken Stevens
No mention seems to have been made of the possibility (yet again!) of a 3rd Reading Bridge and its impact on South Oxfordshire (bearing in mind that the Reading Independent Transport Commission reports soon). A bridge on its own would have an adverse impact on our traffic levels by becoming an extra M4/M40 link. A new road would be needed for this purpose and could act as a north/south Henley bypass.No New Road? Then No New Bridge!

mark stevenson
As the Green candidate I was disappointed to be sidelined from the main discussion, I appreciate the reasons why this happens but it is based on the past and this election is about the future. Much of the debate continued the rather negative campaigning of the Conservative and Lib Dem candidates, who both seem to want to stop things and think that they each have a stronger voice than the other to do so. Interestingly the few positive statements showed that all candidates had listened to my contributions during the hustings in Dorchester.Lock Keepers cottages: success was achieved by working with others. Exactly. My contribution was made some time ago through discussions with our local representative on the River Users Group. As a party we are keen to support the kind of social presence that lock keepers exemplify. Other examples would be park keepers and bus conductors.Post Offices: thousands have already been closed and under current conditions more will be. We can fight for individual post offices, but that doesn't solve the problem. We need to question the values that are driving these reforms and to give greater significance to the social values that benefit from small local post offices.Traffic in Henley: the only way of improving this is to reduce the traffic. We need to look at alternatives both nationally and locally. My own experience as a parish councillor is that local people and their parish and town councils have the best understanding of the problem and often some good ideas for solving them. The recent Sustainable Communities Act (which started as a private members bill, supported by the Greens) provides a framework that will give communities far more power to tackle these issues. But we also have a national travel policy that prioritises pedestrians, cycle and public transport. Businesses need transport plans that will enable their staff to get to work more easily and with less stress. We need to work together to produce real alternatives to the one-person-in-a-car model taht has been promoted for decades.Fuel costs: listen to the recording! Labour's plan to go begging to OPEC for more oil is ridiculous, oil is becoming scarcer, demand continues to rise and the free market will have its way. We have to reduce oil dependency, now. And that is a consideration in all our policy making. Health: local services need to be more in the control of local communities. We would put in place the structures to enable this. It links to accessibility and transport and planning.