This Thursday 16 July sees the next meeting of East Cambs’ Full Council, at 6:00 pm. There are a number of quite significant items on the agenda, including:

Corporate Plan: the council’s political leadership will be presenting its Corporate Plan for members to comment on. This lists the leadership’s priorities for the next four years including the Ely bypass, the Ely leisure centre, Community Land Trusts, free parking in Ely, and freezing council tax.

Local plan review: it was only three months ago that East Cambs District Council signed off its revised Local Plan, having changed it to address the concerns of the Government inspector who reviewed it, who said that it did not show a sufficient supply of land for development in the next five years.

However, last month, developers Gladman won an appeal against the council’s refusal of planning permission for 128 homes in Witchford. The inspector hearing that appeal ruled that, even as revised, the Local Plan still does not demonstrate a five year supply of land, and this was part of the reason for allowing the appeal. Councillors are therefore being asked whether they wish to spend up to £145,000 to produce yet another Local Plan, to protect East Cambridgeshire from more inappropriate development.

Community infrastructure levy: this is the money paid to the council by developers to fund infrastructure in the council area. In East Cambridgeshire, most of this money is divided into strategic and major categories, and the rest is given to parish councils or used to cover the cost of administering the fund. The council leadership is proposing that of the strategic category, half should be spent on the new Ely Leisure Centre, and a quarter on Littleport schools, leaving only a quarter for all other strategic projects.

Local authority trading company: councils like East Cambridgeshire are not allowed to make a profit on services, unless they offer them through a company. The council is therefore proposing to set up a company which can provide services to other councils or private bodies; develop housing on its own land through its own company rather than through another developer; and directly support Community Land Trusts. The council estimates that this company will cost £240,000 to set up from 2015/16 to 2016/17, to be funded from savings in services, and a loan from the council to the company. The leadership is proposing to set up a shadow board on Thursday to oversee this transition, but eventually the company will have a board of three councillors, one senior council officer, and a paid independent chairman.

The council papers are here if you would like to read more. And, unusually for East Cambs, Thursday’s council proceedings will be broadcast live on YouTube, here.

This afternoon I was delighted to attend a community event called The Resilience Project, developed by Year 9 students at Witchford Village College and Community Carts, the youth charity covering the Fenland border villages of East Cambridgeshire.

For the project, young people have been interviewing local people, creating artwork, and devising interactive activities for young people and members of the community.

The one-day only event at Mepal Village Hall runs until 8:30 pm tonight, with an informal community discussion at 7:00 pm where members of the public can reflect on the value of our local village communities, how they can be improved, and what it means to be resilient.

Those of us who were there this afternoon, including local youth leaders, county council staff, Community Carts representatives, and students and staff from Witchford Village College, held a very (literally) hands-on discussion about the project, exploring the nature of communities and how we can ensure they are inclusive spaces in which people can grow and develop.

I’m looking forward to reading a summary of the project when it’s ready, and I’ve suggested that this should include some open questions which the project can take out to parish councils, the district and county councils, and other agencies, so that it can be used to inform and shape some of the important decisions these bodies will be taking in the years to come.  I’ve also encouraged the organisers to put some of the project information online.

(The picture shows me with Colin Stevens, acting chair of Community Carts, discussing the images we drew as part of the afternoon’s discussion).

The dates for my monthly ‘Meet Your Councillor’ surgeries have now been booked for 2015/16. They take place on the second Tuesday of each month, from 6:30pm to 7:30pm, in the Community Room at the school.

2015

• Tuesday 14 July (tomorrow!)
• Tuesday 11 August
• Tuesday 8 September
• Tuesday 13 October
• Tuesday 10 November
• Tuesday 8 December

2016

• Tuesday 12 January
• Tuesday 9 February
• Tuesday 8 March
• Tuesday 12 April

No appointment needed: just pop in for a chat about any local issue, or if you have a problem with the council that you’d like help with.

I’ve made the following submission to the Local Government Boundary Commission for England, in response to the consultation on new County Council boundaries for Cambridgeshire.

“As one of the two district councillors representing the Sutton district ward, I am writing to lodge my objection to the proposed ‘Littleport West’ division, which includes Sutton. This proposed two-member division is large and unwieldy, combining villages with no commonality of interest, and breaching the significant boundary of the A10 at Stretham.

I believe that the whole of Sutton should be included in one single-member division, perhaps enlarging the present county division to add Witchford, with which there is some shared interest, and Wentworth. Any two-member division would be spread over such a large geographical area that Sutton’s interests would be submerged.

In any case I would urge very strongly that the whole of Sutton should remain within the same county division, and the village should in no circumstances be split between different electoral areas. Sutton has a strong sense of community identity, and needs the same county councillor.  There are no boundaries along which the village could sensibly be divided, and such a division would not be in the interests of the village. Larger conurbations such as Ely or Soham will need to be divided to achieve equality of representation, but Sutton is not of such a size and should remain united.”

Tomorrow, Monday 6 July, is the deadline for responses. You can respond online on the Commission’s web site – choose Cambridgeshire County as the consultation, and click Have your say at the top right of the next screen.

A number of planning applications have been submitted to the council over the last couple of months which I’ve not had time to report here until now.

15/00333/FUL
44 Lawn Lane Sutton Cambridgeshire CB6 2RE
Rear two storey extension, extensions above garage and alterations to garage to enable its use as a Beauty Salon by occupier of dwelling

15/00346/FUM
Fortnum & Masons Plc Elean Business Park Sutton Cambridgeshire CB6 2QE
Warehouse extension and internal mezzanine floor extension to existing building

15/00564/FUL
103 The Row Sutton Cambridgeshire CB6 2PB
Replacement Garage

15/00576/FUL
Adj To Fernlea 3 Ely Road Sutton Ely Cambridgeshire
Re-submission of 14/01392/FUL for Proposed dwelling and garage

15/00634/FUL
35A The Row Sutton Cambridgeshire CB6 2PD
Extension to existing annexe (revision of application 15/00037/FUL)

15/00657/RMA
5 Fieldgate Sutton Ely Cambridgeshire CB6 2NT
Erection of three dwellings and associated works

15/00721/FUL
88 The Row Sutton Ely Cambridgeshire CB6 2PB
Proposed carport to front of existing property

As always, current planning applications can be viewed online at the East Cambs District Council web site. I’ll try to update more regularly in future.

The Local Government Boundary Commission for England has started the process of reviewing the council ward boundaries for East Cambridgeshire. Residents are invited to respond to the consultation which is the first part of the process, and which closes on 31 August.

The boundaries are being reviewed because East Cambridgeshire District Council has asked the Commission to do so.  The council leadership wants fewer district councillors – the intention is to reduce from the present 39 councillors to 27.  It has also said it wants fewer single-member wards, which means more wards encompassing a large number of villages and settlements.

With fewer councillors, each one will have to serve a larger area.  Instead of the present average of around 1,680 adult residents per councillor, each councillor will represent more than 2,650 voters – that’s fewer councillors per head than any other district in Cambridgeshire.  Wards will be allowed to vary from this size by ten per cent in either direction.

So what does this mean for Sutton? With a predicted electorate (by the year 2020) of 3,180, Sutton would be too big for one councillor, and too small for two.  (You can see the electorate figures here – the link will open an Excel spreadsheet). A two-councillor ward of Sutton plus Mepal, Witcham and Coveney would have 4,680 voters; or the Commission could add Little Downham and Pymoor as well (ie merge Sutton with the present Downham Villages ward) and make a large three-councillor ward with 6,780 voters. This would lose one councillor overall in that area.

Alternatively, Sutton could find itself merged with Haddenham (and Witchford, Aldreth and Wentworth) to be a three-councillor ward – in which case residents would share the same councillors but have different members of parliament.

The council estimates that its proposals will save it about £50,000 a year.  However, district councillors will be fewer and more remote, many of them with more parish councils to report to.  It will also be more difficult for independents and candidates from smaller parties to get elected, as they will have to campaign over a much bigger area where they are less well known than in their home village.

Finally, to add even more complexity to the situation, the Commission is in the middle of reviewing Cambridgeshire’s county council boundaries – and there is likely to be a parliamentary boundary review as well before the next election. Though the same team is carrying out the boundary reviews for both the district and county councils, there is no need for the boundaries of the different reviews to coincide, so some of the results could be very odd indeed.

The four new houses which have been being built in Haddocks Rise will get their street numbers starting from 15 July.  Not surprisingly, they’ll be numbers 7, 8, 9 and 10 Haddocks Rise.

Ely Wildspace’s Bio Blitz takes off tomorrow evening at Ely Country Park.

The event takes place from 5pm tomorrow (Friday 3 July) to 5pm on Saturday. There are many family and children’s activities throughout the twenty four hours all of which are free of charge, including bird walks, moth trapping, wildlife crafts, and a dawn chorus walk. There will be an event base camp in the children’s play area at the Country Park.

Visit the website to see the full list of activities and make a booking.

Tonight I was at another meeting of the local villages’ Joint HCV Group.

The group had decided at its last meeting in February to delay meeting again until this evening, so that the new parish councils – including Sutton – were in place after the recent elections. The group will need to work with the new parish councils to achieve its aim of a multi-village traffic regulation order limiting heavy vehicles coming through our villages.

The group has agreed to send its hefty evidence document to the parish councils (including Earith, Bluntisham, Mepal, Hilton, Haddenham and Cottenham, as well as Sutton), and ask them to consider whether they want to be part of the campaign. We hope that by the end of July all the relevant parish councils will have included the issue on the agenda for a parish council meeting, and discussed whether or not they want to back the scheme.

Once we know whether or not we have the support of the parish councils it’s on to the next step in the campaign to persuade the county council to put a traffic order in place, and the police to support it.

Next Thursday sees the first meeting of East Cambridgeshire District Council following the recent elections.  Among other things, it’s the meeting where committees are appointed.  (The agenda and papers can be seen here.)

There are laws governing how committee places must be allocated between the different groups on the council, which preserve the rights of minority groups on local authorities.  As I’m part of a group of only two councillors, and we must by law have a place on all committees, I’m going to have my work cut out for the next four years!

My name is being put forward for the following committees:

• Commercial Services: this covers things like parks and open spaces, the market, and tourism
• Corporate Governance & Finance: the one that looks after the money! and things like internal audits and corporate risk
• Asset Development: responsible for ‘maximising the council’s assets’

I will also be a substitute member for the Regulatory & Support Services, Planning and Licensing Committees.