PROVISION for the elderly is the biggest issue facing people in Oxfordshire in the run-up to the General Election.

I knock on doors and talk to elderly people in my ward and I often find they are completely isolated. They might have a carer going in once a week, or nobody going in.

Communities like Wood Farm have changed a lot. They are often very different from the areas the people who are now elderly grew up in.

There’s now a lot of student accommodation and multioccupancy, so people who have lived in the area for a long time can often be left without social networks.

They often don’t know their nextdoor neighbours.

Standard of care in the care homes in my ward is very good. My own mother was in one for 11 years and the care was excellent.

We have good sheltered housing and extra care housing as well in Oxford.

But this could be much more cost effective if it was run by the local authority rather than by private firms.

I want to see the local authorities provide a lot more in-house care provision.

We pay £19.50 an hour to care providers in the independent sector, but most of our care workers are earning the very basic minimum wage.

We could do it much more costeffectively in-house.

I often find families have to work so hard in order to have somewhere to live and to pay the bills that they don’t have the time they would like to be able to support the elderly pensioners.

Also, many families now can’t afford to live in parts of Oxford because they are too expensive.

Private rents are also very high here.

Families often have to move away and older people can sometimes be left behind.

We need to have more facilities available to these elderly people who live on their own.

For example, in Wood Farm there is to be a brand new doctors’ surgery, which will replace the single GP surgery that is there at the moment.

This will be doing lots of good things around the community.

Also, the Bullindgon Community Centre is employing a community worker who will be able to go out and talk to older people about what their needs are. This will make a real difference.

We need to find out what the needs of elderly people are and provide a lot more care provision for them in their own homes.

Many elderly people in my district are on pension credits.

When they look at their utility bills there’s a real fear about the economy. They are concerned about the bills they have to pay and about keeping warm.

We need to build more smaller properties and bungalows in the area, which elderly people can afford to move in to.

This would make a real difference to their lives.

Public transport is also an issue and we need to provide more of it in key areas.

For example, the bus route around the Wood Farm estate no longer operates. This means that older people often have to walk a long way to catch a bus.

There needs to be somewhere for elderly people to go during the day, and things for them to get involved in.