Today it was the turn of Cambridgeshire County Council’s Highways & Transport Committee to scrutinise the council’s business plan and budget for 2025/26 and the years following.

The proposed business plan includes investment of more than £56million in highways maintenance to tackle the significant backlog of repairs and address residents’ concerns. This includes:

• £14.5M in revenue for the day-to-day management of the highway. Of this, an additional £550,000 will be invested to improve how residents experience the service as customers, including replacing the twenty-year-old fault reporting system; and an additional £450,000 on drainage, flood resilience, trees, greenery, and weed management.
• £42M of capital investment, of which an additional £20M will go into planned capital maintenance of the highway—roads, pavements, drainage, bridges, safety barriers, traffic signals, public rights of way, and cycleways.

We recommended a number of priorities for extra investment: bus shelters, an increase in the Local Highways Initiative scheme, trees, drains, active travel, soil impacted roads, road markings, pothole management, and street lighting.

Committee chair Cllr Alex Beckett said: “Although we do not receive sufficient funding from Government to meet the needs of the growing population in Cambridgeshire, we are committed to ensuring the council delivers value for money in the services it provides. That is why the majority of this committee supports the proposals today.”

We also discussed and approved the council’s draft response to the East West Rail non-statutory consultation. The line was originally going to be diesel, but is now proposed to be powered by battery and overhead wires—we need to keep pressing for full electrification. The new line is bound to cut existing community ties, in the same way the A142 sliced through well-used paths and rights of way: I said we need to listen to local communities about the effects of this. The draft response pushes back on the environmental impacts of the development, including for barbastelle bats (a question I was asked at a recent Full Council meeting). And we need to make the case for good links to the railway stations by cycle, on foot, and by bus.

Thanks to information technology, the last few years have seen a huge transformation in the amount of information about our own health that we can access.

When it comes to finding trusted health information online, the first port of call is always NHS website for England – NHS, where you can find out about conditions, symptoms and treatments, and how your medicine works. 

It is also important to be able to access your health records and manage your medical appointments. NHS login allows you to access your NHS account and NHS services online. Go to the NHS website or download the NHS app to set up your NHS login. Visit Setting up an NHS Account – NHS England Digital to find out more.

One of the questions I’m often asked is why all new homes aren’t automatically built with solar panels. I agree they should be.

Last week, Max Wilkinson MP (Lib Dem, Cheltenham) saw his ‘Sunshine Bill’ receive its Second Reading in the House of Commons. This would have forced developers to install solar panels on new-build homes, leading to lower household bills, less reliance on dirty fossil fuels, and greater energy security for our country.

The Government failed to support the Bill.

Later this year the Government will be announcing amendments to its Future Homes and Future Buildings Standards. Liberal Democrats will be keeping a watchful eye on whether Labour will do anything to require solar panels on all new-build homes. It’s so obviously the right thing to do.

The new Tiger On Demand bus service is now available in East Cambridgeshire!

Tiger On Demand is a flexible transport service for residents in rural and under-served areas. The service allows passengers to book journeys between designated virtual stops, offering a reliable and convenient alternative to traditional fixed-route bus services.

• Flexible booking options: Residents can book their journeys
  • On the Tiger On Demand app
  • By calling the dedicated booking line 01480 595 440
  • Via the website at www.tigerondemand.co.uk

• Operating times: Monday to Saturday, 6:30AM to 7:00PM

• Affordable fares: £2 per journey for adults, £1 for children aged 5 to 16 or Tiger pass holders, free for under-5s or concessionary and disability bus pass holders.

For full details please visit: https://transport.cambridgeshirepeterborough-ca.gov.uk/buses/tiger-on-demand/

Pay by debit or credit card when booking over the phone, or via the App. Unfortunately drivers are not able to accept cash or card payments.

A decision on the Development Consent Order (DCO) application by Anglian Water for the Cambridge Waste Water Treatment Plant Relocation Project has been postponed by Secretary of State for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Steve Reed.

A decision is now expected on 14 April 2025.  

The further extension is to enable the application to be analysed in light of the revision of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which was formalised on 12 December 2024. A full copy of the Secretary of State’s statement can be found here: Written statements – Written questions, answers and statements – UK Parliament.    

The relocation of the waste water treatment plant will enable South Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridge City Council to develop a new low-carbon city district on Cambridge’s last major brownfield site located in North East Cambridge.

Cold homes can affect mobility and put older people at greater risk of falling. It’s important to be extra careful to avoid falls during winter months.

Do you know what increases the risk of falling? Are you worried for a friend, a family member or an elderly neighbour? Encourage them to use the interactive risk checking tool to help identify their risks. Access the online tool for tips to prevent falls at www.steadyonyourfeet.org/cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire libraries offer a free rubber stopper replacement service for walking aid users to help them stay steady on their feet. Visit Free walking aid rubber stoppers | Cambridgeshire County Council to find out more.

Expert advice on Awaab’s Law, tackling damp and mould, and retrofitting

Landlords from East Cambridgeshire are being invited to a free information event to find out how to prepare for upcoming changes to Awaab’s Law and effectively tackle damp and mould in their rented properties.

Hosted by the Cambridgeshire Private Sector Housing Group, which represents councils across the county, the countywide ‘Dealing with Damp and Mould’ forum will take place on:

• Monday 13 January 2025
• 1pm to 5pm
• The Maltings, Ship Lane, Ely CB7 4BB

The event is open to both private and social landlords and will offer expert guidance to help landlords meet legal responsibilities while improving the safety and wellbeing of tenants.

The afternoon will see keynote presentations from:

• Nadhia Khan, Executive Director of Customer and Community, Rochdale Boroughwide Housing: Nadhia will share insights into her organisation’s experience of dealing with significant failings in handling complaints related to damp and mould, providing a valuable perspective on lessons learned.
• Ian Sanders, Principal Environmental Health Practitioner, Hull City Council:
  Ian has a wealth of experience in all aspects of damp and mould and acted as an advisor and contributor to the recent government’s statutory guidance.
• Steph Salmon, Retrofit Project Manager, Cambridge City Council: Steph will present a range of retrofitting options available to landlords, focusing on improving energy efficiency and tackling the root causes of damp.

Awaab’s Law was introduced last year as part of the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023. It followed the tragic death of a toddler who died in December 2020 due to prolonged exposure to mould in the social home his family rented from Rochdale Boroughwide Housing.

The law requires social landlords to fix hazards that pose a danger to tenants’ health with a strict, legal time limit. But with its extension to the private rented sector expected under the Renters’ Rights Bill, the forum provides a vital opportunity for landlords to stay informed, network with industry experts, and ensure compliance with the new regulations.

There will be an opportunity for Q&As after each keynote presentation and the chance to network with other landlords and housing professionals. Refreshments will also be available.

Places at the event are limited, so early registration is encouraged.

To register: email ProjectResidential@cambridge.gov.uk before 5:00PM on Thursday 9 January.

Freezing temperatures are forecast by the Met Office in Cambridgeshire until Wednesday 8 January and health experts are urging people to be Winter Wise and look out for others. 

Val Thomas, Acting Director of Public Health for Cambridgeshire County Council, has issued advice to help residents look after vulnerable friends and neighbours as well as themselves.

Read more here.

With the weather taking a cold turn for several days to come, a quick reminder about gritting on Cambridgeshire’s roads.

Cambridgeshire County Council’s 37 gritting vehicles cover 44 per cent of the county’s road network. Cambridgeshire is split into three gritting areas:

• Fenland and East
• Huntingdonshire and South
• Cambridge

Which roads are gritted and when will depend on the forecast temperatures in each of these three areas, so there may be occasions when some parts of the county are gritted but not others. 

Roads on the County Council’s gritting network are classified as primary or secondary gritting routes. Primary routes are the priority for gritting, because they serve as major connecting routes for communities and allow most road users to get to work and access essential services. Secondary routes are gritted in addition to primary routes as and when resources allow when there is a forecast of a prolonged cold spell, where road surface temperatures fall below zero, or when snowfall is forecast.

You can find which roads are primary or secondary gritting routes here—in the Map categories menu to the left of the screen, choose Transport and Streets, then select Primary Gritting Routes and Secondary Gritting Routes from the drop-down menu.

The Council checks detailed weather forecasts throughout the day, and at midday every day during winter receives road and air temperatures from twelve weather stations around the county. This information guides where and when to send out the gritters and how much salt needs to be spread.

You can find more information about winter gritting in Cambridgeshire here. And the County Council posts regular updates on Facebook and X (Twitter), including road gritting news and weather warnings.

In the meantime, do drive safely and take care out there. In 2022, 14 people were killed, 379 were seriously injured and 1,227 were slightly injured in reported road collisions on Great Britain’s roads when there was rain, snow, sleet or foggy conditions, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. The AA has useful advice for driving in snow and ice.

(Image: Cllr Alex Beckett)

The Government has now announced how much each council area will receive for highways capital maintenance for 2025/26.

For the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough area it’s £10 million, with a quarter of that amount to be held back until the respective councils have proved they will meet certain—still to be announced—criteria.

£10 million sounds a lot, but

• The Government may hold back twenty-five per cent of it
• It includes Peterborough as well as Cambridgeshire
• In Cambridgeshire alone the backlog of highways maintenance is around £600 million

Better than nothing, then, but a long way from what we need.