Planning applications: Arbury Road

This week there is one planning application in the ward to report. It is from the City Council and concerns "installation of of 9.88kwp solar photovoltaic panels to approximately 67m2 of the south-west facing roof slope" of the City Homes North office on Arbury Road. The reference number is 11/1227/FUL and you can see the detailed documents online too.

As normal you can get more information from the City Council website, and in case of difficulty contact the team.

In case you wonder why we didn't have a planning post last week: there weren't any applications in King's Hedges.

Remember, remember...

We are approaching November 5th and the City Council is once again hosting a bonfire and fireworks on Midsummer Common. The event is always good fun, and public displays tend to be both more spectacular and safer than private ones. The funfair opens from around 6pm, with a display by Wildfire Productions from 7pm to 7.20pm.

The main event are the fireworks and bonfire lighting at about 7.30pm.

The display does cause transport problems around Misummer Common, and this tends to have knock on effects up Milton Road. The police have used the eCops to pass on some of the details:

Victoria Avenue, Trafalgar Road, Trafalgar Street, Fair Street, New Square, Maids Causeway between Four Lamps Roundabout and just west of Brunswick Gardens, Jesus Lane and Kings Street between Four Lamps Roundabout and Manor Street, will be closed between 6.30pm and 8.30pm, as crowds build up.

There is also a one way system in the De Freville area north of the River. The River is also closed to traffic.

Full details of closures, and access arrangements are on the City Council website.

I hope as many people as possible enjoy the display.

(Finally a thanks to all the sponsors, listed on the website, for making the event possible.)

Your Views Count – Have Your Say on Bin Collections

Cambridge City Council is carrying out a survey asking residents for their views about bin collections.
The survey is part of a major project to review the routes that bin lorries take around the city. Using specialist software to re-map the routes taking traffic and other factors into account, the council aims to reduce the costs and carbon footprint of bin collections in the city.

Re-mapping the bin lorry routes means that some residents might see a change to their bin day in 2012.

Executive Councillor for Environment and Waste Services, Cllr Jean Swanson said, “The software will tell us where we could make savings, but we want to take residents’ views into account too. As well as finding out what people think about some of the options that the software may present, we are also asking what people think about things like incentives for recycling, and what services they would like to see.

I’d like to encourage as many Cambridge residents as possible to visit our website and take the survey.”

Residents can visit www.cambridge.gov.uk/binsurvey until November 5th to complete the survey.

A telephone survey of a representative sample of 1000 residents will also be conducted this week.

NO to 25% Pay Rise For Councillors ...

The number of signatures on the online-petition has now passed the 700 mark with at least 400 more people signing the paper version. Have you signed yet? The petition link is available here;

http://noto25percent.com

If you'd like to sign the paper-based petition the Liberal Democrats will be in the markets of Cambridge and Ely this Saturday if you can come and visit us.

We are encouraging people to download, circulate, and return the paper petition forms wherever they can. This is a cross-party effort supported by members of the Trade Unions, as well as Councillors from across the political spectrum; Labour, Green, UKIP, as well as Independents. There are two versions attached - one with our (Liberal Democrat) logo and one without.

Don't let them get away with it ... help us reverse this unjust pay rise.

Action on litter in King's Hedges

September marks the return to school and college, and the unwelcome increase of the litter problem between Campkin Road shops and Cambridge Regional College.

This is an issue that the City have been working hard on to try and deal with. The City Council has taken a multi-pronged approach. Working with CRC to educate pupils, and sending the enforcement team out with the power to issue £70 on the spot fines for those caught littering.

The second part is litter picking. The City Council teams pick daily in the affected area, and both Tesco and Ocean Dragon are also providing litter pickers. Ocean Dragon have agreed to pick between 1.30 and 2pm, and Tesco at 3pm. The hope is this will pick litter after the lunchtime rush which seems to be the time of the worst problem. The City has also used powers to clean up some of the gardens that were impacted by the litter dropped.

Alongside the picks and the enforcement powers the Council have also used some of the City Summer Bins along the route used by the students.

The City Council is monitoring this, but as always contact the team should there be any problems.

It is also worth noting that if you see a problem with litter when out and about in the City you can call the City Council on 01223 457000 to request a pick for the area. You can also use this to report flytip or graffiti.

Petition to stop the Tory 25% pay rise

The Conservative group on the county council is set to award themselves a 25% pay rise while cutting services and making staff redundant.

The LibDems oppose this.  Cuts were made to sort out the mess of the economy.

If you're as angry as us, please sign the petition at http://epetition.cambridgeshire.public-i.tv/epetition_core/view/remuneration asking them to reverse this decision, before December, when there will be a full council meeting.

'Make A Difference Day' Celebrating Community Service Volunteers

This year's 'Make A Difference Day' will highlight how volunteers can tackle loneliness and isolation at a special fair held at Cambridge Central Library on Saturday, October 29.

The Volunteer Recruitment fair is being held by Cambridgeshire County Council Library Service together with Volunteering Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

The free event will celebrate community service volunteers and will give people the opportunity to find out more about volunteering in their local area or opportunities in Cambridgeshire County Council and other organisations.

The event is being held in the Central Library, Cambridge from 10am to 2pm in the third floor conference room.

There will be staff on hand to talk to and more information can be found at;

http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/leisure/libraries/news/ 

or contact maggie.brown@cambridgeshire.gov.uk

Secondary School Application Deadline Approaches

Parents of children due to start secondary school in September 2012 are being reminded that the relevant forms must be completed and submitted by the end of this month.

The Secondary Application Form - and Supplementary Information Form if required - must be submitted to Cambridgeshire County Council by 31 October 2011.

Information and guidance about how to apply for a place is available in the Next Steps - Admission to Secondary School: a guide for parents 2012 - 2013 leaflet. This publication is available from Cambridgeshire County Council's website at: www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/admissions, where parents will also be able to access the online application facility, or download a paper copy of the Secondary Application Form

If parents submit their applications late, there is a real risk that their child will not offered a place at one of their preferred schools, as other children's applications (those received by the 31 October deadline) will be processed ahead of theirs.

For further information, e-mail admissions@cambridgeshire.gov.uk or log onto the County Council's website at:

www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/admissions

Planning application in Milton Road

After a little break from us the weekly list of planning applications is back.

Just one to report this week:for "Installation of two fascia signs and one pylon sign (all internally illuminated)." at 383 Milton Road. The online planning system now seems to allow direct links to the application, so if you need more details follow that link.

383 Milton Road is in the stretch between the Lovell Road and the bus way on that side of the road.

As always in case of difficulty contact the team, and for more information see the Development Control pages of the City Council website.

Buses: Cut First, Ask Later

The County Council has paid a heavy price for its cavalier decision last February to cut 100% of bus subsidies.   No research had been conducted on people’s transport needs, and there was no plan in place for those who lack transport of their own and would end up stranded, though the council said it expected Community Transport to make up the difference.

In May an application for Judicial Review was lodged against the Council on several grounds, including lack of consultation.  In July the Council’s bid for £5 million from the government‘s Local Sustainable Transport Fund was denied, specifically on the basis that the Council had gone too far in its cuts.  The government refused to fill in the gaps.

In order to make the Judicial Review go away, the Council has been forced to consult on residents’ transport needs—something the Lib Dems have been pressing for all along.

It is now doing so, though the consultation is being run primarily via the council’s website:

http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/transport/around/buses/busconsultation.htm

Unfortunately the web version does not allow you to view the entire document before starting to respond.

Campaign Against Cuts to the Fire Service

Tomorrows scheduled meeting of the Fire Authority was originally intended to be the kick-off meeting to implement the cuts to the service. Fortunately Cambridgeshire Fire Service has had a stay of execution until next year in order for the Fire Authority to assess their Financial situtation - particularly with regard to changes to the grant settlement.

The Liberal Democrat group on the Fire Authority have been working hard to safeguard the front-line Fire Service including opposing cuts to the number of fire-fighters.

We have organised a petition to oppose the cuts and this petition will now be extended until the February Fire Authority meeting. To add your signature just follow the link below;

http://cambslibdems.org.uk/en/petition/petition-against-cambridgeshire-fire-service-cuts

The FBU is similarly campaigning against the cuts, for information on their campaign see;

http://www.savecambsfire.org.uk/news.html

The FBU recently did a street survey across the County that showed around 99% of respondents were happy to have the Fire Authority increase Council Tax in order to avoid front-line service cuts.

Help us to protect Cambridgeshire Fire Service - Oppose the cuts to your Emergency Service!

Pupil Premium Brings More Money Into King's Hedges

Today figures have been released by central government for the amount of pupil premium each school is to receive. The total figure for each school is based on the number of Free-School-Meals pupils the school has enrolled.

King's Hedges schools will receive the following amounts;

• The Manor £52,704
• King's Hedges Primary School £55,632
• The Grove £27,328

The total amount for King's Hedges is £135,664.

As Chair of Governors of the Manor this is fantastic news for the school and for the local community. King's Hedges contains some of the areas in Cambridgeshire with the highest levels of deprivation. Any extra money that helps our local schools invest more in the future of our children the more benefit, both in terms of higher achievement and - critically - aspiration, that we will see.

MP Welcomes Pupil Premium Cash For City Schools

Cambridge MP, Julian Huppert has welcomed today’s announcement that city schools will receive extra money than originally expected through the new Pupil Premium.

More than 1,300 youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds will benefit from £652,000 which means that every school in Cambridge will now get nearly £500 for every child on Free School Meals.

Among the schools benefiting are Chesterton Community College which receives more than £52,000, Coleridge Community College which gets almost £43,000 and the Shirley Community Nursery and Primary School which receives just over £50,000.

Liberal Democrat Children and Families Minister, Sarah Teather announced the extra money which gives Cambridgeshire as a whole £4,152,000 for 9,020 eligible pupils.

The total Pupil Premium funding for next year nationally will rise to £1.25bn, double the amount in 2011-12. And it will rise again each year until 2014-15 when it will be worth £2.5bn.

Julian said: “This is excellent news. Youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds struggle through the school system often failing to achieve good GCSE results and go on to further education.

“This money, which is more than expected, will make a real difference to children in Cambridge. It will help from their early years through to secondary school and put them on a more even footing with their classmates.

“I am delighted that, as a party, we have been able to achieve this and I look forward to seeing how it can help.”

Today's Cambridge Area Joint Committee

Earlier today the Cambridge Area Joint Committee, a mix of City and County Councillors representing the interests of Cambridge city (for which I am a substitute member) met to discuss city-wide traffic management and environment issues.

The leader of the County Council, Cllr Nick Clarke, was in attendance at his first AJC representing the Conservative-controlled County Council.

The agenda was fairly straight forward and the meeting took a little over two hours (which isn't that bad to an AJC meeting - as Cllr Clarke pointed out the room is booked for four hours for the meeting). There was nothing really contentious and so there was only one or two members of the public in attendance. Not really a surprise but given the County councils pending review of AJCs it would have been nice if more people where there as it does seem to be the only AJC in the County which is actually fit for purpose and working!

Agenda item 4a (off-street parking) was the first real item with debate. Several members raised the issue of queuing to enter Park Street being a real issue during peak periods over the weekend (with long tailbacks interfering with the bus network amongst other things), comments were also raised regarding full day charging (£25) and officers clarified that the high charges were to discourage use for long periods, and finally the "grace period" was asked about and officers revealed that the grace period isn't fixed and varies across the cities car parks and even at different times of year. You have been warned!

When the vote was taken Cllr Clarke abstained and all other members (Labour and Liberal Democrat) voted in favour.

Agenda item 4b (On-street parking account) was looking like a fairly uncontentious item right up until the point where Cllr Clarke decided to raise the issue of why the AJC was even discussing it as it had no power of control over it.

The debate was lengthy and the gist was that committee members (except Cllr Clarke) believed that as the Committee looking strategically at traffic management across Cambridge it was right that it should express its view on how the surplus in the scheme should be spent - Cllr Clarke seemed of the view that the best place for local members (by which he specifically said County Councillors - not City Councillors) to raise their views was directly at Cabinet. I think Cllr Clark doesn't understand how the City works - the interdependency across Electoral Divisions seems to elude him. For example how Kings Hedges users would benefit from a Milton Road crossing opposite Downhams Lane (in East Chesterton) or how having additional Cycle Parking and/or a disabled bay outside the Milton Road shops (in West Chesterton) would be of direct benefit, etc.

Cllr Clarke seemed to adopt the view that democracy started and ended with local members and that committees, like the AJC, were a bad thing. There is, of course, a balance to be struck but I'm happy with where the AJC puts this balance and I do believe it benefits the people of Kings Hedges for certain decisions (like Radial road/bike routes) to be taken by a joint City/County committee.

The fact is if it didn't exist we'd need too invent it.

Cllr Rosenstiel proposed an ammendement, which I supported, which asked the County Cabinet to look at (not necessarily do, just look at) using some of the scheme surplus to reintrouduce the scrapped city centre shuttle bus.

Cllr Clarke voted against this amendment, all other Councillors (Labour and Liberal Democrat) voted in favour.

To be fair to Cllr Clarke he does seem to be generally trying to understand the city (which is in many ways better than the seemingly complete indifference that preceded him) but despite doing a few good things in Kings Hedges and Arbury I still feel that he just doesn't "get" the City. And judging by the number of Conservative City Councillours I can't help but feel that he isn't alone in his party on this one ...

Cllr Clarke also agued against this item even being on the Agenda.

Other items of note; ANPR was raised as an issue and a report requested from officers regarding the entire system (to assuage privacy concerns - which officers largely did in the meeting), a tour of the highways management centre is going to be arranged so members can see what goes on there, and the (Civil Parking Enforcement) CPE deficit is currently the subject of a review by government on how local councils can move out of permanent deficit.

This nicely brought us on to item 4c which dealt with the CPE account in detail. There was some concern expressed at the numbers (as they seemed to be different from those given in the previous section!), an offer was made to send round the CPE process flow diagram to clarify what was being covered by "There has been a procedural impropriety by the council" (down from 11% to 0%), it was agreed that a clarification would be sent by email.

Item 4d (South Area Parking plan) was uncontentious except that there was a request to add the Cambridge Cycling Campaign to the list of member organisations (not just the forum), officers responded by saying that the members list was intended to just be elected members and the parking demand generators, AJC members could see this point but still felt that having the Cycling Campaign would help.

Item 5a the Ring Road and Radial Route Parking Review was next, members suggested that Milton Road and Histon Road would benefit from being in a Northern Area more closely aligned with the North Area Committee. Milton road was the only radial route in Kings Hedges mentioned and the current plan is for no stopping at peak times, no waiting, loading or unloading, no parking on footways, no parking on highway verges, and a 24-hour clearest on all bus stops. All of those things I support, and no parking on verges is something I have been after for a while!

There was a debate about priorities and it was agreed that the new Northern area would be second (unfortunately I failed to note the positions of the other schemes - that will come in the minutes).

Agenda item 5b (Regent Street Toucan Crossing Upgrade) gave Cllr Clarke another opportunity to display his lack of understanding of the city. He raised the question of why the local member had not just decided this themselves rather than it coming to Committee. Officers pointed out that the local member had been consulted and Committee Members pointed out that the proposed upgrade was on one of the arterial cycle routes and so the change would have an effect on many divisions - in fact several of the Councillors sitting on the committee had used the route within the last few days.

Cllr Clarke, to the frustration of many of the Committee members present (including me) didn't seem to deviate from his point that taking decisions like this in committee will in some way "disenfranchise" local members.

Cllr Clarke then responded, rather darkly, to a comment from Cllr Nethsingha that the Committee had spent quite a lot of time on discussion whether or not issues should come here but saying that this "would be born in mind during the review [of AJC's]".

Cllr Brown (Chairing) attempted to help Cllr Clarke understand by comparing this cycling issue to issues we had discussed around Newmarket Road (i.e. strategic - bigger than a single division).

This issue was never going to be resolved in this Committee. Chair moved us on.

Agenda item 6 (Cambridge Centre Area Quality Bus Partnership) followed. Cllr Rosenstiel raised the issue of pollution (specifically nitrogen dioxide) in the City Centre and how buses with higher Euro ratings have lower emissions and asking if there was any plan to move providers like Stagecoach and Whippet onto buses with higher Euro ratings. Past progress has been quite good;

There was major investment a few years ago and officers did stress that it was unlikely that this would continue over the next few years.

The Committee questioned the reporting officer regarding "Low Floor Buses" as the current 90% of buses entering the central area are apparently "low floor". Officers clarified that this means that the bus is not just having a physical low floor but is also suitable for buggies, wheelchairs, etc - i.e. is suitable for disabled access (Cllr Rosenstiel had raised an issue with some low floor buses having a central column in the middle of the doorway and thus not being suitable for buggies).

It was pointed out that national legislation will require all single-decker buses to be low floor buses by 2016, double deckers by 2018, and coaches (which is going to be the most interesting to see!) by 2020.

The officer also pointed out that buses on the Guided Busway must be a minimum of Euro 4 and that the one hybrid bus currently being trialled by Stagecoach will be trailed by Whippet in a few weeks. This bus cost approximately £100,000 more than the already £120,000 cost of a Euro 4 bus. The fact that London has them was raised, and the officer confirmed that Transport for London paid for them - not the operators. As prices come down I'm sure hybrid (or maybe purely electric) buses will be the solution to Cambridge's air pollution issues but clearly at these prices it's not going to be this year or next year!

The final item of note, item 7 Programme Delivery Monitoring and Issues Update, followed and officers revealed that the list was going to be ripped up and tours arranged with local members and officers so that a definitive list of Division-based issues can be assembled.

That being said I raised the issue of the "missing" slow sign (that King's Hedges School agreed to pay for) on Northfield Avenue and the fact that there seems to have been some confusion regarding no-waiting on a bend in King's Hedges - I think this refers to Woodhead Drive but the table says Molewood Close which is actually in Arbury.

After a brief discussion of future Agenda items the meeting was closed.

Party leader speeches, Autumn 2011

With another set of autumn conferences finished, the respective leaders have all set out their vision for the future of the UK.

As a comparison, here's three word clouds from the three main parties:

Nick Clegg, Leader of the Liberal Democrats

Ed Miliband, Leader of the Labour Party

David Cameron, Leader of the Conservative Party

Solar Power - Coming To A School Near You!

The 10:10 campaign, dedicated to helping people reduce their carbon emissions, is currently developing a new project called "Solar Schools".

This new project allows individuals and businesses, for as little as £5 each, to sponsor new solar panel installations for their local primary or secondary schools. In the words of the founder; "The idea is simple: we help schools get their own solar panels by giving them tools to raise money from the local community. This cuts their carbon emissions, generates long-term income via the Feed-in Tariff and provides a brilliant educational resource for the pupils."

The beta project is far from complete but they are already asking schools to register for the 2012 programme.

If there is a school in your local area that would like to register please direct them to;

http://www.solarschools.org.uk/registerinterest/

If you'd like to find out more, or sponsor one of the existing schools in the scheme, then please visit the URL;

http://www.solarschools.org.uk

NOTE: The nearest school registered with the scheme to King's Hedges is Newnham Croft Primary School (3km away) - http://www.solarschools.org.uk/newnhamcroft/