Liberal Democrats Query Buying Local in Oxfordshire (Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats)

Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats <info@oxfordshirelibdems.org.uk>

Liberal Democrats Query Buying Local in Oxfordshire

January 4, 2012 5:53 PM

At the recent Cabinet meeting on 20th December, Cllr. Zoé Patrick, Leader of the Opposition, questioned the County Council's Cabinet Member as to why the Common Hall Café are buying in their sandwiches from London instead of purchasing from a local company. This goes against the county's principle of supporting local businesses. Oxfordshire County Council has signed up to the Federation of Small Businesses' 'Keep Trade Local Campaign' - the Oxford part of which was launched back in November 2008.

Cllr. Patrick stated "This is certainly not consistent with that policy. It has also meant that there have been some days when there have been no sandwiches available in the café because they have not arrived from London."

The Cabinet Member responded saying that when they were originally looking for suppliers of ready-made sandwiches for the Common Hall Café they invited several companies to produce trial samples of their products including a local company, but only one company provided the necessary samples. However they are currently looking again at alternative suppliers so their first preference would be to use a local provider, if possible.

Cllr. Patrick asked a supplementary question as to whether the Cabinet Member would consider supplying sandwiches 'in house' which would then mean more reliability and keeping resources locally-based. The Cabinet Member replied that they would certainly consider this, as the café used to provide their own sandwiches in the past.

Cllr. Patrick commented further "It does not make sense to import sandwiches sold to staff and council members from London, when they could easily be either made 'in house' or given to a local business to provide. I hope that this will now be looked at seriously for the future. The current situation is neither green nor practical."