District councillor for Sutton, Mepal, Witcham, and Wentworth (East Cambridgeshire District Council) and county councillor for Coveney, Little Downham, Mepal, Pymoor, Sutton, Wardy Hill, Way Head, Witcham, and Witchford (Cambridgeshire County Council)
The following planning applications in the Sutton division have been published by East Cambridgeshire District Council.
21/00226/FUL Little Downham 7 and 9 Main Street Pymoor CB6 2ED Change of use of land to domestic use with two storey rear extensions and alterations with new access and parking area.
21/00383/FUL Little Downham Plot 1 land south west of 73 Main Street Pymoor Construction of one two-storey, five-bedroom detached dwelling with three-car garage.
21/00370/FUL Mepal 6B New Road Mepal CB6 2AP Proposed single storey side and rear extensions, side extension for a new utility and replacement garage.
Further information can be found on the district council’s planning pages. If you would like to respond formally to the council about any planning application, comments should be addressed to the district council and not to me. Comments may be made
online using the council’s public access web page (the link above);
The government has recently announced additional Winter Grant funding, to allow councils to provide support over the Easter holidayto families whose lives have become more difficult because of COVID-19 .
Cambridgeshire County Council will receive an additional £507,000, and the council aims to provide Easter food vouchers to all children and young people who meet the eligibility criteria. The cost of doing so will be around £570,000, and the gap in funding will be met from the underspend from Christmas and February half term.
If children receive Free School Meals or are over 16 years old and receiving a bursary, they will automatically receive food vouchers to cover the Easter holiday. The Council plans to automatically issue each food voucher eligible child or young person with a £30 supermarket voucher on 26 March in time for the Easter holiday.
The Council also hopes to continue the wider Winter Support Scheme through its the hub network, offering financial help with utility bills and household items relating to warmth, hygiene, and cooking.
Over 1800 families in Cambridgeshire have asked for this additional help, 80 per cent of them with an immediate and urgent need for help with food, utilities, or other essential supplies. Councils have been working together to issue emergency fuel vouchers and linking into wider support through Citizens Advice and community-based support.
The Winter Grant Scheme is available to families or young people who meet one of the following criteria:
There was an end of term feeling about Cambridgeshire County Council this morning at its last full council meeting before the elections.
The meeting started with a minute’s silence in memory of Huntingdonshire district councillor Jill Tavener, who had represented her authority on the County Council’s Health Committee, and former councillor Colin Shaw who had represented Abbey division in Cambridge.
There was a public question about chalk streams, then a report on senior managers’ pay, and updates to committee chairmanships and outside body memberships.
There were five motions scheduled for debate. Mine on the Fens Biosphere was first, and I have written about it in a separate blog post. Cllr Peter McDonald proposed a motion trying to open up some of the information about the council’s housing company This Land, but this was defeated.
A motion from Labour councillor Elisa Meschini about fairer funding for Cambridgeshire was withdrawn, after Conservative councillors threatened to wreck it by turning it into a piece of self-congratulatory Tory party propaganda and then have it published on the Council’s web site with Cllr Meschini’s name attached to it. Familiarly thuggish behaviour which I suspect even the Chairman of the Council may have been slightly embarrassed by.
A Labour motion encouraging the Council to adopt the real living wage and sign up as an accredited RLW employer was defeated by 32 votes to 20, but a motion thanking those councillors who will be stepping down from the Council in May was agreed.
The name of former council deputy leader Roger Hickford was not mentioned once, and indeed two public questions about ‘farmgate’ were banned from being asked.
The last full council meeting held in Shire Hall was the budget meeting in February 2020. I don’t think any of us thought it would be our last. The council will be homeless over the spring and summer, as it will be required to move out of Shire Hall next month, and won’t be able to move into its new HQ at Alconbury until the autumn. If the Government continues to refuse to let councils meet on Zoom beyond early May, that could be a tad awkward.
I’m very pleased indeed to have started a public discussion at Cambridgeshire County Council today about the proposal for UNESCO Biosphere status for the Cambridgeshire Fens.
The Fens Biosphere project is being coordinated by Cambridgeshire ACRE, and information about it is here. The Fens Biosphere proposal was awarded candidate status in November 2019 on behalf of UNESCO, and since then Cambs ACRE has been working hard to engage particularly with young people, but also with businesses and communities. An online conference in January attracted over 160 participants.
I’d hoped that the County Council could be really positive about this proposal, and endorse it as I proposed in my motion to the Full Council this morning. Unfortunately however we were required to water down the motion to accommodate Conservative councillors, and it’s much weaker as a result.
Eighteen months after the Fens Biosphere was awarded candidate status, it’s astonishing that so many Conservative councillors representing areas of the Fens freely admitted they knew almost nothing about this proposal on their own front lawn. Why weren’t they engaging with this project, and bringing the debate to the public?
I love the Fens, and its very special landscape and history, and I want to see our area thrive. I believe the Fens Biosphere application has huge potential, and I’m pleased to have begun the process today of opening up that public debate at the County Council.
Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Aidan Van de Weyer has pledged his unconditional support for the interim recommendations of the Independent Commission on Climate and has urged the other mayoral candidates to do this same.
“Baroness Brown’s report makes clear the gravity of the crisis that we are facing,” says Aidan. “Tackling climate change needs rapid action across a wide range of areas. The consequences of further delay in implementing a rapid plan will be catastrophic.
“The Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, with the largest electoral mandate in this area, must show leadership on climate change and wholeheartedly support these ambitious aims.
“Every decision and every policy that the Combined Authority makes should show how it maximises its contribution to reducing carbon emissions and protects residents from the damaging impacts of climate change. The current mayor seems to think that relying on the staid formulas provided by central government is enough – it just isn’t.
“The report recommends prioritising sustainable travel over road schemes when considering new investments. The mayor has shown over the last four years that he is most interested in building new roads regardless of the environmental consequences. This has to change.
“The commission has put a particular focus on the emissions from the peatlands of the Fens. Through a ‘whole farm’ approach, we can achieve both emissions reduction and biodiversity enhancement in the Fens. But this requires us to working closely with farmers so that we can continue to produce food for the nation.
“I fear that Mayor James Palmer just does not grasp the urgency of the situation. He is stalling when it is time for action. Adding caveats to the recommendations will send all the wrong signals to those who also need to up their game. He is once again showing that he fails when it really matters.
“Of course, the Mayor can’t single-handedly do all these things. But that is one of the main problems with tackling climate change: everyone has to be striving for the same goals for us to succeed.
“What is needed from the Mayor and other politicians is clear leadership on this issue. We must raise expectations about what we can do, but also what others can do. And then everyone must be held to account for how well they are meeting the milestones.
“If elected on May 6, I will immediately adopt these recommendations in full, without caveats or quibbles, and get on with implementing them.”
A young woman has been abducted and brutally killed. The man who has been charged with her murder is a Metropolitan Police officer.
In response to this event it has been distressing to read the vast and growing encyclopaedia on social media of women’s lived experience of daily and unremitting fear and intimidation by men, and there is a growing feeling among many women that We Have Put Up With This Sort Of Thing For Far Too Long.
A number of women wanted to hold a peaceful and Covid-safe vigil for Sarah Everard at Clapham Common, and—as I understand it—were making good progress negotiating with the local force at Lambeth toward that end. Until Enter The Metropolitan Police, at which point the whole event turned confrontational.
When the women gathered, it appears that the Metropolitan Police (one of whose colleagues has been charged with the murder in question, let us remember) ‘kettled’ the women towards the bandstand, prevented any woman speaking from the bandstand, and behaved aggressively and violently as we saw.
The Metropolitan Police culture has long been regarded as in need of review. It is led by Cressida Dick, whose previous professional high point was the shooting of an innocent man, Jean Charles de Menezes, from which frankly her career should never have been allowed to recover. Her sex, and her sexual orientation, do not give her a free pass to avoid scrutiny. She has presided over a quite shocking piece of policing and should resign.
Cressida Dick reports to the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, who if she had any shred of decency would also resign. Instead, Patel and Boris Johnson are trying to roll the boulder back down the hill towards the police—but of course will do nothing other than mouth empty words about Lessons Needing To Be Learned as they have been doing for the whole of yesterday.
None of this is to cast any aspersions on individual police officers who like other uniformed public servants do an immensely difficult job every single working day. It’s about the culture and the leadership—the sort of thing for which, in previous and more honourable days, those at the top of the tree would have taken responsibility.
Meanwhile to put the cherry on top of all this, today is the day that Priti Patel is introducing in Parliament a Bill to remove the right of peaceful protest in all situations, not just for Covid but for life.
The Bill will require protests not to ‘impact’ anyone (an astonishingly low bar); will prosecute participants on the basis that they ‘ought to know’ of restrictions on the day even if they have not been advised of them; will extend restrictions on protests to include single-person protests (a piece of law specifically designed to silence one individual, the anti-Brexit campaigner Steve Bray); will extend the penalty for damaging statues to ten years’ imprisonment (compare that to the sentences meted out to people who commit violent assaults on actual human beings); and will give Priti Patel herself power to change the meaning of ‘serious disruption’ in relation to protests, without scrutiny by Parliament.
The launch of Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Climate Commission’s interim report on Monday 15 January was nothing if not thought-provoking.
Most of our high levels of carbon emissions are transport-related, we were told, making it all the more important to get a collective grip of the transport agenda.
Because the stakes are high.
We have just six years left to take some serious remedial action, warns the Commission.
There are multiple benefits to tackling climate change: from cleaner air to healthier homes, and better public transport to good jobs in the growing green economy. But it’s a huge task, with significant investment needed. And behaviour change will be needed for around 60 per cent of the required reduction in carbon emissions.
The Commission’s first full report will be published in September, including
The following planning application in the Sutton division has been published by East Cambridgeshire District Council.
21/00364/FUL Mepal Holne House Chatteris Road Mepal Proposed demolition of existing extension / outbuildings and erection of two storey rear extension and side porch.
Further information can be found on the district council’s planning pages. If you would like to respond formally to the council about any planning application, comments should be addressed to the district council and not to me. Comments may be made
online using the council’s public access web page (the link above);
Ministers have withdrawn £45M of the £100M the Government promised to Cambridgeshire and Peterborough following concerns about insufficient delivery progress and below-expectations value for money under Mayor James Palmer.
The £100M programme for housing in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough (except Cambridge) is one of the central planks of the 2016 ‘devolution deal’ between the Government and the local authorities in the area.
Local Government Minister Luke Hall MP writes:
“I have concluded that the programme has made insufficient delivery progress and that the value for money being achieved is below our expectations. I will not be extending the timeframe or continuing to fund the programme on its current basis.
However, rather than closing the programme at this point, I remain committed to enabling investment in schemes that will deliver further affordable housing, at pace, in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.
I have confirmed to Mayor Palmer that the Department will, subject to further work on the details, consider making further funding available to CPCA for the delivery of affordable housing by 31 March 2022.”
Mayor Palmer’s challenger for the Mayoralty in the forthcoming elections, Lib Dem Aidan Van de Weyer, has responded:
“This is disastrous news for the people of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.
“As a result of Palmer’s incompetence and arrogance, hundreds of desperately needed affordable houses will now not get built. The housing programme is now at an end and several schemes than had been approved – and that residents were looking forward to – will have the rug pulled from under them.
“Peterborough will be particularly impacted as 215 of the affordable houses affected are in the city.
“The housing money devolved to the Mayor was not new money, but was going to be invested by the government through Homes England into the area. So we are now actually worse off because of Palmer’s tenure as Mayor than if he had never been elected.
“Palmer should have been focusing on getting the maximum benefit for our residents, not spending time on pet projects like the £100,000 houses, which were never going to contribute to solving the housing crisis.
“It is clear that the government simply do not trust Palmer to deliver on his promises or to spend tax payers’ money wisely.
“Palmer is the only metro mayor in the country who has had money removed from him by government. He is a national embarrassment. He is dragging the people of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough down with him. He needs to be replaced.”
Cambridgeshire County Council’s highways committee has agreed a new policy on maintaining road verges – and it’s excellent news.
I’ve been pressing the County Council for some time to make it easier for local volunteer groups like the one in Sutton to manage local rural verges and seed them with wild flowers, and asked for this to be included in the Council’s new verge maintenance policy.
The new policy states that the Council will not require an application for a licence before groups can do this. And the Council has now instituted a new verge maintenance programme that brings it into line with the recommendations of nature charity Plantlife.
Volunteers can use the already existing Highways Volunteering forms and once risk assessments have been completed, this will enable them to be covered by CCC insurance whilst working on the public highway of which the verge forms part. Local Highway Officers will be encouraged to promote this scheme through their meetings with Parish Councils, residents’ associations and individuals.
The new system looks far more encouraging and permissive, and I really hope that’s how it works out in practice.
