Today I was one of two councillors to visit AmeyCespa’s waste handling facility at Waterbeach. We spent a very interesting couple of hours learning what happens to all the waste – recyclable and non-recyclable – after it leaves our homes. We saw the green bin waste before and after it has been processed; the blue bin waste being split, mechanically and then manually, into the different forms of recoverable material; and the black bag waste being sifted for recyclable material and then readied for landfill.

The cleaner and less contaminated the material in our rubbish, the better quality the material recovered from it – so it’s really useful if we can wash cans before putting them in the blue bins, for example. Recyclable items can be recovered from black bag waste, but they’ll almost certainly be more contaminated and of less value than those which have been put in our blue bins.

The worst contaminants of blue bin waste are dirty nappies and – really! – dead pets.  Not nice for the staff who have to manually pick out non-recyclable material from the waste stream at the end of the process.

East Cambridgeshire’s recycling rate has shot up enormously since we’ve had the wheelie bins – where we were lagging seriously behind other parts of the county, we’re now not far behind.

Pam Joyce, our local highways officer employed by Cambridgeshire County Council, has started running drop-in sessions for residents in various parts of the district, including Sutton.  Her next drop-in session here in Sutton is on Thursday 7 August, from 10:00am to 12:00 noon, at The Glebe. So if you’ve got a local highways issue you would like to raise with Pam, please do pop along.

NB I know not everyone is free on a weekday, so if you can’t make it but have an issue you’d like me to raise with Pam on your behalf, I’m more than happy to do so if you email me your concerns.

Ely Foodbank hopes to have a collection and distribution service running in Sutton by the autumn. The Foodbank has already secured the agreement of the Parish Council to provide accommodation at The Glebe, and now needs to find at least 15 volunteers to help run the service in Sutton.

Volunteers will need to be available for about an hour and half once a week, on a rota basis.  Training will be provided before the service opens, which organisers hope will be in October or early November.

If you would be interested in volunteering for the Foodbank in Sutton please email Ely Foodbank no later than Monday 8 September.  Meetings about the Foodbank will be held in Ely at 3pm on Tuesday 9 and Tuesday 16 September, and potential volunteers will be very welcome – please email Ely Foodbank for details.

Background to the Foodbank

Launched 18 months ago with the remit to serve people within a 15 mile radius of Ely, Ely Foodbank provides a minimum of three days’ emergency food to people in crisis. This service has now expanded with Foodbank centres in Chatteris, Littleport, March and Soham – all part of the Ely Foodbank (Trussell Trust) partnership.

The main way food is donated is through regular giving by shoppers and supermarket collections. Volunteers engage the public at the stores by providing them with a Foodbank shopping list and asking them to buy extra items while shopping. These extra items are then donated to the Foodbank. Schools, churches, businesses and individuals also donate non-perishable in-date food to the Foodbank.

Once collected, the food is sorted by volunteers who check that it is in date and pack it into boxes ready to be given to people in need. Recipients obtain vouchers from care professionals such as doctors, health visitors, social workers, Citizens Advice Bureau staff, welfare officers, the police and probation officers. The vouchers can then be taken to a Foodbank distribution point where they are exchanged for food. The volunteers who distribute the food can also ‘signpost’ people in crisis to agencies able to provide help with their longer term issues.

More information about Ely Foodbank is available at www.elyfoodbank.org.uk

(With acknowledgement to Alan and Lynne Williams)

East Cambridgeshire district council is looking for people to help with this year’s election registration canvass. This involves going door to door and ensuring that the council’s electoral register is up to date.

There are quite a few areas in East Cambridgeshire where the council needs canvassers but they include Mepal, Witcham and Wentworth which aren’t at all far from Sutton.

The council’s registration canvassers are paid 17p per property plus a one off mileage payment of £10.  Canvassers must be over 18, able to collect all materials (I assume from the council offices in Ely although they don’t make that clear), and available to do the work between Thursday 7 and Wednesday 13 August.  Canvassers must not be politically active.

The closing date for applications is Monday 4 August. If you are interested please call the council’s elections team on 01353 665555.

A great start to the Sutton Beer Festival tonight – I nipped along after my second Meet Your Councillor event at the Community Room.  My favourite beer so far? The Wilbraham Special by Crafty Beers. What about you?

The Public Health Observatory – part of Public Health England – publishes Health Profiles for every council area in England.You can find them here: click on E and select East Cambridgeshire.

The Health Profile for our district shows that generally we’re in average or better than average health compared to the rest of the country, except in two aspects: the numbers of people killed or seriously injured on our roads, and the incidence of malignant melanoma (skin cancer).

As previously reported, a revised timetable for the No 9 bus service – which serves Sutton – starts on Monday (well, Sunday really, but as we don’t have a Sunday service …).  The new timetable can be found here. The changes affect only a few journeys, from 4:15pm onwards.

It appears that all may not be rosy in the garden at East Cambridgeshire District Council’s planning committee.

Things have come to such a pass that a proposal has been tabled by the leader of the council, no less, to this evening’s Full Council meeting, to set up an arbitration mechanism to resolve disputes between the council’s professional planning officers and the chairman of the planning committee.

The proposal, which applies solely to the planning committee, is that if the planning officers want to amend a draft planning committee agenda and the committee chairman disagrees, the matter is referred to the Chief Executive of the council for him to resolve in conjunction with the leader of the council.

What on earth has been going on behind the scenes that matters should have come to such a state?

Today saw a small exhibition at the council offices in Ely about community land trusts as a way of providing affordable housing locally.  There are already a number in operation in East Cambridgeshire, not least in Soham and an emerging community land trust development in Stretham, but none yet in Sutton.

And after a meeting of the council’s Regulatory & Support Services Committee – more of which later – I also managed to attend the exhibition at Ely College of developer Turnstone’s proposals for a multiplex cinema, swimming pool and fast food restaurants on the A10 at Downham Road, Ely, next to the present sports grounds.