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)
Cambridgeshire County Council has produced a guide to support parents and young people as they transition back into formal education.
It includes answers to some of the common questions parents ask every year, such as transport, attendance, and free school meals.
The guide also covers the Test & Trace process, and the expectation on parents to help protect school staff; and gives some ideas on how to help their child fall back into a school routine.
Volunteers with Sutton Timebank are among the first to be formally recognised for their contribution to the community during COVID in a new monthly Commendation Scheme.
The scheme has been established by the Chairman of Cambridgeshire County Council to recognise the hard work and commitment of members of the community who have volunteered their services during the pandemic.
Sutton Timebank and the other nominees will receive a special certificate and their details will be published in an online roll of honour on the council website.
Households across Cambridgeshire will soon have the opportunity to club together to buy and install solar panels at a reduced price.
The County Council and District Councils have joined forces with Solar Together as part of the initiative to improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. From Tuesday 1 September households and small and medium-sized enterprises can register for free and without obligation for the group-buying scheme. When they register online for their complete solar PV system, applicants will be asked questions about their house, roof, and electricity usage.
The County Council will then arrange an auction with pre-vetted installers on Tuesday 6 October. The auction is a reverse auction, meaning the lowest bid wins. The winning bid sets the price for all solar systems and battery systems. All installers are pre-vetted and must comply with certain criteria to guarantee the quality of the offer.
After the auction, applicants will receive a personal recommendation based on their registration details. They then have six weeks to decide if they want to take up the recommendation and proceed with an installation.
Solar panels turn sunlight into electricity. In order to use this energy, the panels mounted on a roof need to be connected to an inverter using cables. The Solar Together offer is for a complete service, including all equipment, survey, installation, monitoring and warranties. Afterwards households or businesses will automatically generate their own electricity from the panels on their roof.
Households that already have solar panels installed can also register to have battery storage added to their existing solar panels to maximise the benefits of their system.
Cambridgeshire County Council’s mobile libraries are set to make a comeback on Monday 21 September.
The fleet will be headed by two brand new vehicles.
The service will be returning to its regular stops, but unfortunately access to the vehicle is limited to help keep staff safe, so customers will need to choose books in advance.
Choose the mobile library as a pick up point, and order as far in advance as possible to ensure a selection is ready and issued for you to pick up from your stop – ideally a week in advance, but the service will do its best with forms received after this.
The following planning applications in the Sutton division have been published by East Cambridgeshire District Council.
20/01078/FUL Little Downham The Cottage Hundred Foot Bank Pymoor Demolition of existing two-storey dwelling and replacement construction of two detached three-bedroom dwellings.
20/00861/FUL Little Downham 13 Lawns Crescent Little Downham CB6 2TT Two storey and single storey rear extensions.
20/00862/FUL Little Downham 20 Eagles Lane Little Downham CB6 2TG Internal and external alterations.
20/00899/HEN Little Downham Wigeon House Downham Common Little Downham Construction of single storey rear extension which extends beyond the rear wall by 7m, has a maximum height of 3.97m and an eaves height of 2.45m.
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);
Weekly rates of Covid-19 cases per 100,000 population, up to week 17–23 August (data extracted 26 August 2020).
Note: Rate per 100,000 resident population, crude rates calculated using mid-year 2019 population estimates. Last updated on Wednesday 26 August 2020 at 4:04pm. Figures are from pillar 1 and pillar 2 testing.
Remember this survey? It was launched by East Cambridgeshire District Council on 9 March, shortly before the beginning of lockdown. Because of COVID-19 the closing date was extended to the end of May.
Three months on from the closure of the survey, and we’ve still not been told anything about what East Cambridgeshire residents said, or what their priorities are.
Two rounds of bids for the Government’s emergency active travel fund have come and gone, which local residents’ responses could have influenced – but haven’t.
The forward plan for the Council’s Finance & Assets Committee, which is overseeing the walking and cycling surveys and which next meets on 24 September, currently does not schedule any update on the findings.
No date has even been set for a meeting of the Bus Working Group which is overseeing the bus survey.
And members of the Council’s COVID-19 Recovery Working Group were told last week that councillors could not be guaranteed to see the results of the surveys in the next two weeks.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, 11,900 people in East Cambridgeshire have benefited from the job retention scheme.
A further 3,700 people in the district are receiving financial support through the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme, following a successful national campaign by the Liberal Democrats.
These schemes have helped stem the tide of job losses, says Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey MP – and the Chancellor of the Exchequer must not threaten mass unemployment by ending them before it is safe to do so.
Liberal Democrats are also urging the Government to extend support to those who have so far been excluded. Three million self-employed workers across the country are still not covered by government support. Liberal Democrats are calling on the Chancellor to expand the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme to include:
The 150,000+ people who became self-employed since April 2019.
Those who are registered as limited companies.
Freelancers who got more than 50% of their earnings through employment.
“Now is the time to extend support to those wrongly excluded and for Ministers to deliver a Green Recovery Plan that will create millions of jobs, keep people in work and tackle climate change,” says Ed Davey.
Stagecoach say these changes are “to ensure that we’re providing sufficient capacity across our network, ready for the return of schools and colleges and in anticipation for increasing numbers returning to work”.
East Cambridgeshire District Council’s trading company has submitted its planning application for Phase 2 of the redevelopment of the MOD homes near the Princess of Wales Hospital – and only 30 per cent of them are set to be affordable.
Of the 53 homes proposed to be built, just eight will be available for affordable rent, and a further eight for ‘affordable’ purchase.
That’s no more than the council’s Local Plan would expect of a commercial developer, and a crashing disappointment for those hoping for a local home they can afford.
Details of the application are on the council’s Planning web pages – search for reference 20/01006/FUM.
