Over the next twelve months 80,000 people across Cambridgeshire will need to renew their concessionary bus pass.

Around half of these use online services. If you’re one of those 40,000 or so, and are comfortable renewing your bus pass online, doing so will free Contact Centre and library staff to help those who don’t have internet access.

Renewing online means you can use your own photograph, and even see what it looks like on a mock bus pass.

The county council has been emailing reminders inviting people to renew their concessionary bus pass. Nearly 70 per cent of recipients have gone on to renew online which has saved the council a lot of time and money already, but has also made it easier for people renewing.

So if you have internet access, and feel comfortable using it, do use the online form to renew your bus pass.

Peterborough & Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is set to provide outpatient clinics at the Princess of Wales Hospital in Ely and at Doddington Hospital from September next year.

The announcement comes today from the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough NHS Clinical Commissioning Group, who have been looking for someone to provide the clinics at Ely and Doddington since current provider Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust last year announced its intention to quit.

Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust will continue to provide outpatients services at the two hospitals for the next twelve months until Peterborough & Stamford take over.

This is excellent news and ends a long period of uncertainty.  Now let’s hope the Clinical Commissioning Group comes forward with proposals that keep our minor injury units in place as well.

The following applications in the Sutton division have been published recently by East Cambridgeshire District Council:

16/01174/FUL
Coveney
24 Main Street Coveney Ely Cambridgeshire CB6 2DJ
Proposed timber frame rear/side extension to existing dwelling

16/01175/LBC
Coveney
24 Main Street Coveney Ely Cambridgeshire CB6 2DJ
Proposed timber frame rear/side extension to existing dwelling

16/01139/FUL
Little Downham
57 Ely Road Little Downham CB6 2SN
Demolition of existing garage. Single storey side and rear extension to bungalow, with associated internal alterations

16/01181/OUT
Little Downham
Land south west Of 1 Straight Furlong Pymoor Cambridgeshire
Outline permission for 3 detached dwellings

16/01024/FUL
Mepal
Paradise Cottage Engine Bank Mepal Ely Cambridgeshire
Erection of Garden Store

16/01173/SCREEN
Sutton
Land Adjacent 43 Mepal Road Sutton Cambridgeshire
SCREENING OPINION Proposed residential development

16/01223/FUL
Sutton
To Rear Of 2 The Brook Sutton Ely Cambridgeshire CB6 2PU
Construction of 3 bed bungalow

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 webpage (the link above);
• By email to plservices@eastcambs.gov.uk;
• Or by post to the Planning Department, The Grange, Nutholt Lane, Ely, CB7 4EE.

One of the questions that has cropped up most frequently whenever plans for housing growth are discussed is ‘What about health care and space at the doctors’ surgery?’.

On Tuesday 5 July I asked the following question of the Primary Care* Co-Commissioning Joint Committee of NHS England and the local Clinical Commissioning Group:

How does the Joint Committee intend to identify and address the potential need for additional primary care services arising from housing growth proposed in the revision of the East Cambridgeshire Local Plan, currently being prepared by East Cambridgeshire District Council, and what mechanisms exist for the Joint Committee to do so?

(*’Primary care’ is people’s first point of contact with the NHS – it includes GP practices, primary dentists, community pharmacies and the eye tests you would get in the high street.)

The response of the Joint Committee was as follows:

The CCG and NHS England (NHSE) do not have a formal mechanism for discussions between the Primary Care Co-Commissioning Joint Committee and East Cambridgeshire District Council (ECDC) at the moment. We do hold a regular New Communities Group at which we plan strategically for new housing growth and we would welcome input from ECDC in the future.

Public Health at the County Council is acting as a central point to pull together the different organisations across the system (District Councils, County Council, CCG, community health providers etc.) to plan for growth and put the right people in touch with each other. Iain Green, Public Health Specialist, is already making these connections and will continue to do so in his new pan-County role which starts at the beginning of September 2016. He has confirmed that he will be making early contact with the Head of Planning to start the conversations.

It is our intention to prepare a presentation for the membership of the Joint Committee at one of their forthcoming development sessions, to advise of the health commissioning processes at the interface with planning in the context of growth projections and the wider Strategic Estates Plan, in order to inform their future decision making.

We acknowledge that it is early days and the conversations have just started, but we hope that this early engagement will be a step in the right direction.

I think that means ‘We’re beginning to think about it’, which is at least a start.

X8: from 16 October, the evening X8 bus from Cambridge to March via Sutton (Monday to Saturday) will operate 15 minutes later than at present. There will be no change to the morning journey into Cambridge.

Guided Busway A/B: from 16 October the 08:15 journey (Monday to Friday) between Longstanton and Cambridge railway station will operate 10 minutes later than at present.