East Cambridgeshire District Council has published the arrangements for collecting the rubbish over Christmas and New Year.

• The collection due on Monday 22 December will take place as usual.
• The collection due on Monday 29 December will take place on Tuesday 30 December.
• The collection due on Monday 5 January will take place on Tuesday 6 January.
• From Monday 12 January normal service will resume.

Christmas cards, non-foil wrapping paper and cardboard tubes from Christmas crackers can all be recycled in your blue bin.  Real Christmas trees will be collected until 31 January if left for collection next to your green bin. Please cut into lengths no longer than the height of the bin.

Witchford Recycling Centre will close from 1pm on Christmas Eve and will be closed on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.

A planning application 14/01303/FUL has been received by East Cambridgeshire District Council for a new two-bedroomed two-storey chalet dwelling behind 47 and 49 The Row.

You can see the details of the fresh application by going to the council’s planning applications page and entering the reference number above.  When you have done this, you can hit the Documents tab to see the application and associated papers, or hit the Comments tab to make a comment on the application.

Alternatively, you can see the application at the district council offices in Ely during office hours, or by arrangement with the parish clerk at the Glebe.

Planning permission for a two-bedroomed chalet dwelling (14/00061/FUL) at this location was refused earlier this year for several reasons, but the application has been revised and re-submitted.

If you have any views about this application that you would like me to know about, do get in touch with me no later than Thursday 18 December.

As a district councillor, I’m contacted about each planning application that the council receives for land in Sutton. I thought it might be a useful service to share these as they arise.

Planning application 14/01245/FUL is for a new two-storey three-bedroomed house on land next to 16 Tower Road, immediately opposite the water tower.  You can see the details by going to the council’s planning applications page and entering the reference number above.  When you have done this, you can hit the Documents tab to see the application and associated papers, or hit the Comments tab to make a comment on the application.

Alternatively, you can see the application at the district council offices in Ely during office hours, or by arrangement with the parish clerk at the Glebe.

If you have any views about this application that you would like me to know about, do get in touch with me no later than Wednesday 3 December.

Sutton is blazing a trail in East Cambridgeshire, with an application to start producing a Neighbourhood Plan, giving more power to local people to shape development in the village.

Sutton Parish Council has submitted a letter to the District Council to open this process, with a map showing that the area of the Neighbourhood Plan will be the same as that of the parish.  Residents have until 5pm on New Year’s Eve to comment on the proposed boundary of the Neighbourhood Area.

If approved, the parish council will then be able to start work on preparing the Plan. This can establish planning policies for development and use of land, including new housing and employment premises. These will then form part of the District Council’s planning rules.

The drawing up of the Plan must involve local residents and the community as a whole.  And at the end of the process, all residents of Sutton on the electoral register will be given a vote in a referendum on whether or not the Neighbourhood Plan should be put in place.

The Royal Town Planning Institute has published a useful guide to the process here.

Out and about today with Lucy Nethsingha, the Lib Dem prospective parliamentary candidate for our area, talking to residents in Sutton. Picking up a number of local issues, including this hazardously bumpy tarmac pavement in The Orchards.

The wheelie bins most of us received just over twelve months ago have already made a huge improvement to recycling in East Cambridgeshire. Our area is now the third highest mover in recycling rates over the past year, according to this article. We’ve still a way to go before we hit the really high spots, but it shows what a difference it makes to have the new bins.

Seven and a half weeks ago victorious Liberal Democrats took Epping Hemnall (Epping Forest District Council) from the Conservatives. And on Thursday this week the Liberal Democrats gained Queen Edith’s (Cambridge City Council) from Labour. It’s real votes in real ballot boxes that count, and these results show there’s all to play for next May here in the East of England. Congratulations to respective winners Kim Adams and Viki Sanders!

If you haven’t had your annual supply of black bin bags yet, you have only a few days left to tell the council! Email customerservices@eastcambs.gov.uk or phone 01353 665555 before Friday (Halloween, 31 October).

The Local Government Boundary Commission has just confirmed that it will be reviewing the size of East Cambridgeshire District Council in 2015/16.  The process includes drawing up proposals for public consultation, and may result in a different number of councillors and a different arrangement of wards.  Sutton could lose one of its two councillors, for example, or share councillors with one or more neighbouring areas.

At tonight’s meeting of East Cambridgeshire District Council, the council agreed to add the Ely crossing to the list of major schemes that might receive funding from the district’s ‘Community Infrastructure Levy’ – the newly-introduced pot of money the council receives as a result of development in its patch.

I made the point that the Ely crossing, while it might alleviate traffic at the station, would create new traffic problems elsewhere – in several other streets in Ely, for example, at the A10, and of course in Sutton itself, where it is likely that HCV traffic will increase as a result of the scheme.  These problems will also need solutions, and I have therefore told the council that it should be aware of the need to add these to the ‘Community Infrastructure Levy’ list of significant schemes requiring funding in the future.