County Council meeting: an outbreak of unanimity

Unusual to have a full county council meeting without a vote needing to be taken, but it happened today with unanimity on everything.

The meeting started with a public question from Antony Carpen about Mill Road depot in Cambridge and the old library. We then moved to the application for a town or village green to be registered at the Shire Hall site, and agreed unanimously that Suffolk County Council should be asked to determine this application so that there could be no perception of a conflict of interest. (A lesson for East Cambridgeshire district council to learn here, perhaps.)

We considered two matters referred to the full council from the Constitution & Ethics Committee: a revision of the council’s petitions scheme, and the extension of the term of one Independent Person and the appointment of another. (The Independent Person considers complaints under the council’s Code of Conduct.) My group had suggested to officers a clarification of the wording of the petition scheme about the rights of councillors to speak on petitions, and were pleased that this was agreed and incorporated.

Three annual reports followed – the Audit & Accounts Committee report introduced by my colleague Cllr Mike Shellens; and the reports of the Pension Fund Committee and the Cambridgeshire Local Pension Fund Board.

A new vice chairman of one of the council committees was appointed due to the ill-health of the previous vice chairman, whom the meeting wished well.

Three motions for debate followed. The first, from my colleague Cllr Ian Manning, proposed to press ahead with trialing innovative ways of improving highways and public spaces using the example of New York. This was seconded by the chairman of the Highways Committee and passed unanimously, with local councillors to be involved once a shortlist of possible projects has been drawn up. My division here in rural East Cambridgeshire doesn’t look anything like New York, but I’m sure there must be some opportunities to trial new ideas here.

The second motion was from my colleague David Jenkins, who proposed that the council’s budget in February should include a commentary explaining how it will address the council’s Climate Emergency commitment. This was seconded by the Leader of the Council and again passed unanimously.

The third motion was from the chairman of the council’s County Farms working group, promoting tree planting and proposing to lobby government for money to set up a pilot project for restoring peatland. Drained peatland used for agriculture is responsible for the emission of large amounts of greenhouse gases contributing to climate change. I moved an amendment to this motion, noting the work on peat already being undertaken by the National Trust and the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire Cambridgeshire & Northamptonshire, at places like Wicken Fen and Great Fen. The county council should be seeking to be a partner with organisations like these, rather than compete with them for scarce government funds.

The meeting ended with the opportunity for questions from councillors. My colleague David Jenkins asked the Leader of the Council, who is a member of the Mayor’s Combined Authority, whether the Combined Authority will join the county council and some district and parish councils in declaring a climate emergency. The answer wasn’t a No, but it wasn’t a resounding Yes either. There were also two written questions, one from my colleague Nichola Harrison about the registration service (births, marriages, deaths etc) in Cambridge, and the other from me about what has happened to the Children’s Centres that the council’s ruling group closed, including the local one in my own village of Sutton.

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