City Cuts Rubbish to Landfill (despite increase in number of homes)

Cambridge City Council has cut the amount of rubbish it sends to landfill by more than 2,500 tonnes despite the number of homes increasing by around 1,500.

Figures show that in 2006/07 596kg of black bin waste was collected from each household making a total of 28,124 tonnes across the city. Last year 526kg of waste was collected from each home making a total of 25,595 tonnes – a reduction of 12 per cent.

Mike Pitt, your local ward Councillor and Cambridge City Executive Councillor for Environmental and Waste Services said:

"These figures are extremely encouraging. They relate directly to the effort made by residents to maximise their recycling and reduce the amount of waste they put in their black bins and gives the city council an enviable recycling record among councils across the county and the country generally."

"We have seen the amount of waste per household steadily falling over the last four years and we will continue to work to encourage recycling wherever we can."

This trend is exceptionally good news, especially in times of economic uncertainty and really shows that the people of Cambridge, if given the opportunity to recycle, clearly think it's worthwhile.

If you have something to dispose of and want to check to see if it's recyclable then there is always the Cambridge Recycling Directory which lists how to dispose of common items in a sustainable way.

Changes to the X9 (Cambridge - Ely - Chatteris - March) Bus Service

Stagecoach has informed the County Council that on the 30th May 2010 it will be varying the X9 Service. This Service currently departs at 16:45, this will be changing to 16:35 with subsequent departure times being 10 minutes earlier up until Stretham - timings between Stretham and Ely will remain the same.

The return journey from Ely to Cambridge will now be via The Gallery and Back Hill in Ely, not Lisle Lane and Broad Street.

Question at Council: Fixmystreet.com

COUNTY COUNCIL – 30 March 2010
Minute 76, Oral Questions
Question to the Cabinet Member for Highways and Access, Councillor M McGuire, from Councillor Shepherd.

Councillor Shepherd asked the Cabinet Member for Highways and Access, Councillor M McGuire, whether the Council could respond to highways problems reported by the public via the national website FixMyStreet. Responding, the Cabinet Member for Highways and Access noted that the Council operated its own webpages enabling the public to report highways problems. He agreed to send a written response relating to FixMyStreet.

Response from the Cabinet Member for Highways and Access, Councillor M McGuire

Currently the FixMyStreet website does not integrate with our own webpages, therefore to update FixMyStreet is a manual process requiring the Highways Team to do this (or a member of the public when they have received a response). Customers can report highway problems on either our own website or FixMyStreet (FixMyStreet then emails the Council with the submitted request).

However, with both systems we currently do not inform the customer once the problem has been fixed, or if it cannot be fixed.

In terms of the Council's website, a project is underway to address this, which will allow customers to report problems, be notified of progress and view what has already been reported. A further phase of development, dependent on funding availability and technical compatibility, will be to integrate this solution with FixMyStreet, so that website can also be updated.

New Form of Government

On the 11th May Nick Clegg made the following announcement:

"We are now going to form a new government. More importantly than anything else, we are going to form a new kind of government; I hope this is the start of a new kind of politics I have always believed in. Diverse, plural, where politicians with different points of view find a way to work together to provide the good government for the sake of the whole country deserves.

That was what we were asked to do by the people of Britain in the General Election last Thursday and that is what we will deliver."

As a Liberal Democrat I believe that the agreement between my party and the Conservatives is full of policies that I personally believe in and have been campaigning for for years. This agreement represents the best chance for us to put the policies we believe in into practice. I sincerely hope that this opportunity will not be allowed to slip through our fingers.

You can read the whole agreement document here.

Andy Pellew
County Councillor for King's Hedges

Guided Busway Problems Discussed in Cabinet

The Conservatives at Shirehall have again discussed the current stalemate on the Guided Busway. The meeting minutes are available here. The agenda and other items are available:

http://www2.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/db/council2.nsf/e0c624b01b2e9ade80256b14004eb73b/298394afce81eedb802577070046c665?OpenDocument

The Guided Busway starts at point 171.

You'll notice that in typical County-style point 172 excludes the press and public and count 173 presents a confidential report. It's disappointing, but perhaps understandable, that some legal issues need to be discussed in private.

Cabinet resolved to:

i) Note the progress that is being made towards sectional completion and the opening of the busway between Cambridge and St Ives and in particular, the current overall timescale from the contractor for addressing the notified defects;

ii) Confirm that the notified defects should be addressed satisfactorily before buses could run on the guideway and that whilst the maintenance track could follow the opening of the guideway, that could only be the case if a clear way forward to resolve the problems had been agreed.

iii) That a further update report should be received at the May Cabinet meeting

The one key point that I think all the Cambridge candidates in the recent election agreed on is that the money has been spent. Wisely or unwisely the money is gone. Julian Huppert joined us on the County Group calling for an independent enquiry into where the money has gone and the problems delivering the busway BUT the key point is that now we have a guideway, now we have buses, and now we need to get the service running as soon as possible while ensuring value for money for Cambridgeshire tax payers.

Election Result in King's Hedges

Just a quick update; the election result in King's Hedges was as follows:

Matthew Adams Conservative 813

Martin Booth Cambridge Socialists 92

Simon Brierley Liberal Democrats 1236

Alexandra Collis Green 274

Elizabeth Hughes Labour 986

Today is Polling Day!

Don't forget to vote today!

King's Hedges has two elections today: one for parliament where the Focus team hope we will elect Julian Huppert. Julian will make an outstanding MP, and follow in the footsteps of David Howarth.

For the City Council elections please elect another hard working local councillor for our ward. Simon Brierley hopes to replace Neale as our third City Councillor. He lives in Markham Close and has been active helping the team for several years.

New Election Leaflet

It's the final few days of the 2010 campaign and we've been delivering the above leaflet across the ward. If you'd like to access an electronic version it's available here (via The Straight Choice website).