“The Corporate Plan in Appendix 1 to this report covers much familiar ground.
Community Land Trusts, the Ely southern bypass, the Ely leisure centre, free car parking, performance related pay – these and other issues have been debated in this chamber before. Other issues such as the Local Authority Trading Company will be discussed tonight.
At first glance, the 23 ‘commitments and actions’ in the plan, along with the various promises and priorities, are impressive. However, on closer examination, for a four-year programme the plan seems not only repetitious but also a little unambitious, and the items it omits are perhaps even more significant than some of the items it includes.
Affordable housing
The council’s commitment to affordable housing revolves entirely around Community Land Trusts – the only proposal on the table to address one of the most significant problems facing our area.
Over the four years of this plan, the council is prepared to sign up to only 23 affordable homes provided through Community Land Trusts – that’s fewer than six for each year of the plan. With over 1,000 people on the waiting list for social housing in East Cambridgeshire, the lack of ambition is remarkable.
There is nothing in the plan about the need for the district council to get tougher with developers in aiming for the 30 to 40 per cent affordable housing target which it has so hopelessly failed to hit – often caving in to developers’ demands to cut affordable housing provision on large sites to less than half that.
Community Land Trusts alone will not provide a fraction of the affordable housing our area needs, and until the council’s Corporate Plan demonstrates that it is prepared to take affordable housing seriously, this administration will continue to fail families in need.
Transport
The section of the plan on ‘improving local transport’ has a number of missing words. The words missing include ‘bus’, ‘bicycle’, ‘pedestrian’, ‘train’ – indeed, everything that isn’t ‘motorist’ or ‘car park’. Yes, provision for cars and parking is important, but so is provision for the many people in our district who don’t have access to a private motor vehicle as and when they want it.
It’s all very well including bus stops in the new Ely leisure centre, but if the last bus to Sutton leaves Ely at a quarter to seven, and there is no Sunday service, how are residents in my ward without a car expected to make use of the leisure centre as customers, let alone access employment opportunities there? Yet the plan makes no reference to any intention to press for better bus services to its flagship project, or even to oppose the continuing programme of cuts to existing services.
We support the administration’s commitment to retain free parking in Ely. However, increasing vehicle traffic into Ely by promoting free car parking without significantly increasing supply to match – and not just at Ely station – will lead to increased congestion and frustration, as was evident this morning among the drivers fruitlessly circling the full-to-capacity car parks at the Forehill and Waitrose. The administration’s plan doesn’t seem to even recognise this, let alone address it.
As an aside, the intention of the administration to enshrine free car parking in the council constitution seems strange. With only three non-Conservative councillors on the authority, there can be no risk of this policy being overturned from this quarter, even if we wished to. The ruling group has had its internecine struggles over car parking charges in the past, and embedding its car parking plans in the constitution suggests that members of the Conservative group don’t trust themselves – or perhaps more to the point, don’t trust each other – to stick to their own policy.
Infrastructure
Similarly, there is nothing in the plan to address the impact of moving traffic congestion from Ely station crossing to the A10 junctions, or of the extra traffic attributable to developments in Ely North or to the Ely leisure centre.
The plan is also excessively optimistic in its assessment of its Local Plan. Perhaps that will be addressed later tonight when members will be asked whether or not we wish to embark on a fresh Local Plan only three months after signing off the current one. This follows the failure of the current plan to defend us against Gladman’s application for 128 homes at Witchford. The risk register at Appendix 4 lists this as the second greatest corporate risk facing this authority.
(We note that the greatest corporate risk the council believes it faces is its own government!).
Conclusion
The council has patted itself firmly on the back in its report on the last year at Appendix 3 – a look back which includes many of the same items as the plan for the next four years, which in itself doesn’t suggest an administration with much momentum behind it.
Given the challenges facing the district, and the lack of recognition of them in the administration’s corporate plan, it should come as no surprise that we find ourselves unable to support it.”
