Watchdog folds (From The Oxford Times)

Watchdog folds

6:50am Thursday 23rd June 2011 in Leader

On a rather sad note, we report the closure of a group which has spent half a century successfully promoting Oxford’s shops and standing up for consumers’ rights.

The Oxford Consumer Group, the oldest organisation of its kind in the country, had warned its survival depended on younger people joining, with many officers in their seventies and eighties.

The group, which in 1970 had 1,200 members and now has about 150, is folding at a time when trading standards and the Citizens Advice Bureau are facing reductions in funding.

The consumer movement, and Oxford in particular, owes a debt of gratitude to the group which has campaigned effectively over the years on a wide range of issues, from keeping open public toilets to food safety.