An email yesterday advises that a revised version of East Cambridgeshire District Council’s Corporate Plan has been produced for the full council meeting on 4 January.

The council debated this key document in early October, so it’s slightly odd to see it back again in January, and to note what the changes are.  From the agenda papers for the meeting (Item 9), it doesn’t look as if councillors are being invited to actually debate or approve the changes to the plan, which is odd to say the least.

The email doesn’t tell councillors what the changes are, so it’s necessary to play ‘spot the difference’ between the revised version and the October original.

1. In column 1, ‘Continue service reviews …’ has been changed to ‘Continue business reviews …’.  It’s not clear why, or what the council thinks the difference is.
2. In column 2, a new item has been added: ‘Develop a new procedure to improve the way customers report fly-tipping on public land’. This follows my criticism of the plan in October, that a lot of it consisted of vague promises with no corresponding actions.
3. In column 6, ‘Deliver an additional 80 commuter car spaces in Littleport and 128 in Ely’ has been changed to ‘Deliver up to 80 additional commuter car spaces in Littleport and 128 in Ely’. So, fewer spaces than planned in the new car park at Littleport station.

However, the council still hasn’t corrected the incomplete statement in column 5: ‘Work with local partners and the Combined Authority to develop an integrated, improved and sustainable road transport, including work on A142, A14, A10’.  (Presumably there should be another word after transport, but we still have no idea what it is).

And column 6 still refers to reducing and slowing traffic on the A1123, but not on any other roads such as the B1381 through Sutton.

Most oddly, though, the new version of the plan still (twice) promises to bring the council’s waste contract into the East Cambs Trading Company. This is despite the council having publicly admitted – in answer to a question from me at the full council meeting in December – that it would be illegal for the existing trading company to receive the contract.

The full council on 4 January is being asked to set up a second trading company to receive the waste contract. So will the council then alter its corporate plan yet again as soon as the meeting on 4 January is over? In which case, what is the point in (incompletely) updating it now?