Tomorrow sees the start of a three-day exhibition at Ely Library about the district council’s proposal to build eleven properties on part of Barton Road car park in Ely.

The plans will lose four coach parking spaces and six public car parking spaces from the site.

The exhibition is open from 9:30am to 7:00pm on Thursday, 9:30am to 5:00pm on Friday and 9:30am to 4:00pm on Saturday.

A public exhibition has been announced of East Cambridgeshire District Council’s controversial proposals to build eleven dwellings in Barton Road car park in Ely.

The plans include moving coach parking from Barton Road, temporarily to Lancaster Way, then to the new leisure centre on the A10.  A number of public car parking spaces will also be lost.

The exhibition will take place at Ely Library:

• Thursday 21 July, 9:30am-7:00pm
• Friday 22 July, 9:30am-5:00pm
• Saturday 23 July, 9:30am-4:00pm

Further details here.

The housing on the site has not yet been given planning permission. The properties will be developed by the council’s trading arm, East Cambridgeshire Trading Company – trading as Palace Green Homes.  The money from the development is earmarked for the new leisure centre.

Britain is a diverse and tolerant society, and all people living here in Cambridgeshire need to be reassured that they are valued members of our community.  Racism, xenophobia and hate crimes have no place here.  The recent rise in racism, xenophobia and hate crimes must be condemned.  We must not allow hate to become acceptable, and we must ensure that the necessary support and resources are in place to fight and prevent racism and xenophobia.

Cambridgeshire County Council has re-tendered the number 9 bus service that serves Sutton and Mepal. The timetable and operator remain the same so passengers should see no change to the existing service.

Stagecoach have also retained the number 35 service that goes from Chatteris to Huntingdon in one direction and to March in the other.

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

16/00576/FUL
Little Downham
Paragon Container Site, Black Bank Business Centre, Black Bank Road, Little Downham
Construction of x2 No. blocks of new B1 Business units and associated bin store, cycle and car parking provision. Demolition of disused storage sheds, relocation of main access gate and improvements to car parking.

16/00709/OUT
Little Downham
Land Southwest Of 1 Straight Furlong, Pymoor
Outline permission for 3 Detached two storey dwellings.

16/00610/FUL
Little Downham
Site South West Of 20 Third Drove, Little Downham
Detached 4 bed dwelling and garage.

16/00627/FUL
Sutton
Site South East Of 9 The Row, Sutton
New three bed dwelling and garage.

Further information about these applications can be found on the district council’s planning pages.

If you would like to respond formally to the council about any of the above applications, any 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.

It’s the zombie plan from East Cambs District Council that simply will not die. Just when you think you’ve knocked it on the head once and for all, it staggers to its feet yet again and shambles towards you with its eyes on your brains.

Nearly a year ago, I reported that proposals were being submitted by the district council to the Local Government Boundary Commission for England which would split Sutton in half. Those proposals were not accepted then, but the district council is now submitting them again, and there’s no time to lose.

The district council is desperate to split Sutton across the middle between two different county councillors. Please email the Commission [this link will open an email window] before the end of Monday (20 June) to tell them you don’t want Sutton to be cut in half.  Sutton has a strong community identity as one village – let’s keep it that way.

(1) A little bit of history
(skip this bit if you wish, and go straight to 2):

• The Local Government Boundary Commission for England is currently reviewing the electoral area boundaries for Cambridgeshire County Council, with the aim of cutting the number of councillors in Cambridgeshire from 69 to 61. Eight of these would be in East Cambridgeshire. They have, to be fair, made a pig’s ear of it so far.
• Our county council area is currently Sutton, plus Little Downham and Pymoor, Mepal, Witcham, Coveney and Wardy Hill with Way Head, with one county councillor to serve the whole area.
• The Boundary Commission’s latest proposal was a complete mess, which would have seen Sutton joined in a two-councillor area with the above villages, half of Littleport, a bit of Ely, Chettisham, Witchford, Haddenham, Wilburton, Stretham and Little Thetford. It was rightly condemned on all sides.
• Recognising how unpopular its plans were, the Commission has reopened consultation, including inviting alternative proposals for achieving an eight-councillor scheme for East Cambridgeshire’s county councillors.
• The district council has submitted a proposal [this link will open a PDF document in a new window] for nine county councillors, not the eight the Commission asked for. And its proposal includes splitting Sutton along The Brook, the High Street, and The America. The north of the village would have one county councillor, and the south of the village another. Apart from Ely and Soham, which would have to be split in any case as they are too large to have just one county councillor each, Sutton is the only village in East Cambridgeshire to be cut up under the district council’s proposals. I voted against this at the full council meeting, but was defeated.

Sutton Parish Council has told the Commission it does not want the village to be cut in half. This is not surprising – a small parish doesn’t need two county councillors (as well as potentially three district councillors in future) reporting to its parish council meetings. Nor would it want the headache of having to check which side of the road a resident lives on before forwarding his or her query to the county councillor.

But the district council has ignored the parish council. It even refused my request that it should mention the parish council’s opposition in its boundary proposal to the Commission.

(2) There is an alternative

Instead of the district council’s proposal, I’m backing a submission to the Commission from county councillor Maurice Leeke. This proposal keeps the whole of Sutton together in one county council area, with the villages it is already connected with – and just adds on Witchford and Wentworth.  Overall this proposal gives the Commission the eight county councillors for East Cambridgeshire that the Commission wants; it doesn’t split any parishes at all; and it respects Sutton’s community identity and keeps it together.  It gives us one county councillor to represent the whole village.

Much better.

(3) What can you do?

If, like me, you think Sutton has a strong community identity and should be kept together in one electoral area as the parish council wishes, with one county councillor to represent the whole village, then it would be very helpful if you could email the Commission this weekend, before this Monday’s deadline, and tell them so.  Please give them your name, postal address, email address and a telephone number.

If you want to make a more complex submission, or put forward your own alternative proposals, you can do so using the mapping tool and the spreadsheet of elector numbers on the Commission’s Cambridgeshire review page.

A well-attended meeting at The Pavilion in Sutton this evening saw standing room only for residents keen to hear what developers Linden Homes had to say about their proposals for housing North of The Brook.

The site in question runs behind Stirling Way and St Andrew’s Close, The Orchards, and Tower Road, to Mepal Road and Millfield.  A planning application has not (yet) been submitted to the planning authority (the district council) but will be in due course.

The drawing shown by the developers included an initial allocation of around 50 homes (the land outlined in red below), along with indications of a possible plan for the rest of the site (the remainder of the coloured area – around 200-250 homes). This includes sports pitches and burial space, two amenities the parish needs.

After parish councillors had had an opportunity to ask their questions, it was the public’s turn. The issues raised included:

• Traffic: the developers confirmed that all access to the site, both during the construction phase and when the site is developed, would be via Mepal Road. The highways authority (the county council) would be consulted on the plans and would carry out an assessment.
• Parking: the site would be developed in accordance with the district council’s parking standards, which would on average be around two cars per property.
• Drainage: residents, particularly in Tower Road, drew attention to existing problems with drainage and sewerage.
• Local services: large numbers of additional homes would mean more pressure on the local school, health facilities and shops. (The county council is under a legal duty to ensure a sufficient supply of school places.  Priors Field GP surgery was granted planning permission earlier this year to expand its premises.  And the Co-op has expressed initial interest in applying to build a store on the triangle of land on the edge of the A142 roundabout at the entrance to the village opposite Tramar Drive).
• Density of housing: would the developers consider building lower densities of housing behind the existing housing, and the medium density housing nearer the A142?
• Timetable: the developers are talking about submitting a planning application in August. This would be before the district council has opened its local plan consultation, scheduled for November-December, about where more homes should be built across East Cambridgeshire. And it would allow little time to consult with residents and the parish council before a formal planning application is submitted.

Linden Homes have offered further opportunities for input into their proposal, and the meeting seemed keen that this should take place through the parish council.  Sutton residents should expect to hear more in due course.

Note: the above is not the formal minute of the parish council meeting, which will be written by the parish council and published on its website.

Edit (15-Jun): the presentation by Linden Homes to the council is available online here.