I had a useful visit this morning to the Camro data centre site – the area just before Cheffins auction site on the Elean Business Park – where two concrete barriers have just been placed to try to reduce unauthorised incursions onto the site.
Work is due to begin before too long on the first piece of building work on the site.
East Cambs District Council is looking to recruit canvassers for this year’s annual election canvass process. Fees vary depending on location and the size of the area. A bonus scheme is based on percentage returns at the end of the canvass.
Canvassers are employed to hand deliver electoral registration forms to approximately 37,000 households in the East Cambridgeshire district – and just over 8,000 require a personal canvass visit to collect information where forms have not been submitted.
The council is now looking to recruit canvassers for the second part of the process – to door knock any property that has not returned a form, or to door knock any individual that has not returned a form, between 2 October and 30 October.
You must have experience of working with the general public, local knowledge of the area in which you are applying to work, and must not be politically active or be a councillor. All training and materials will be provided, and the majority of visits will be most effective during evenings and weekends, meaning it can fit in with other commitments.
Areas needing canvassers include Littleport and Witcham.
If you are interested or know someone who may be interested, please contact elections@eastcambs.gov.uk for full details and an application form. The closing date for completed application forms is Tuesday 15 September 2015.
East Cambridgeshire District Council has received a planning application for a proposed new dwelling next to 11 Tower Road. The reference number for the application is 15/00913/FUL.
If you wish to make representations to the council about the application you can do so here (directly to the council, not to me) by the deadline of Monday 24 August. If you have any views you would like me to hear, I’m happy to receive them by email here.
The district council has received the following planning applications relating to Sutton:
Any comments should be directed to the council’s Planning Department, not to me:
If you’re thinking of visiting Ely Country Park in the next month or two, you might be pleased to know that the District Council has launched a trial of public toilets there over the school summer holidays.
Three portable units (male, female, and baby changing/disabled), will be cleaned and stocked daily by an external cleaning company and will be open between 8:00 am and 6:00 pm. The facilities will be covered by a new CCTV system which also covers the play and picnic area and surrounding area.
As I’ve reported before, the group of parishes working together for a combined Traffic Regulation Order to restrict heavy vehicles thundering through our villages has drawn up a hefty evidence document. It is currently approaching the affected parish councils to ask them to sign up to the attempt to get the County Council to put an Order in place.
So far representatives of the group have attended parish council meetings in Earith, Wilburton and Haddenham – and all have agreed to support the application. The group will be meeting Sutton Parish Council on 28 July and Cottenham on 4 August. Once all these meetings have taken place the group will then get together to agree its next steps.
County council ward boundaries
Further to my post yesterday about proposals to split Sutton between two county council wards or ‘divisions’, it’s now been confirmed to me that East Cambridgeshire District Council broke its own rules when it made this submission to the Boundary Commission.
The plan to split Sutton was never discussed by a properly constituted meeting of the council. Instead, it was dealt with under the council’s ‘urgency’ procedures. Under these procedures, if an ‘urgent’ decision is taken, this is done by the Chief Executive of the council under delegated powers, in consultation with the Leader of the Council. The Chief Executive must then report such decisions immediately to Group Leaders (ie me, as the only other group leader) and as soon as practicable to the Full Council.
In this case, the proposal to split Sutton was submitted to the Boundary Commission on 6 July. I was not informed at all, never mind immediately. And Full Council, which met on 16 July, was not informed either. It is therefore clear that the proposal was submitted unconstitutionally, and I shall be writing to the Boundary Commission to advise them of this and ask them to disregard it.
Meanwhile, Cambridgeshire County Council meets this morning to consider its response to the county council boundary proposals. County councillors have been told that the proposal to split Sutton has been submitted by East Cambridgeshire District Council, when constitutionally this is not the case.
I have asked whether, like the county council, East Cambridgeshire had asked for an extension to the deadline so that it could have considered the boundaries publicly and democratically at its meeting on 16 July. The council has confirmed to me that it did not.
District council ward boundaries
And in a final twist, East Cambridgeshire district councillors have just received initial draft proposals from the district council for new boundaries for East Cambridgeshire district council wards. And guess what? The proposal is to split Sutton in two for that council too. Someone seems to have it in for Sutton …
Earlier this month I warned local residents that there were plans afoot to propose to the Local Government Boundary Commission for England that Sutton should be split in half for county council elections, with one half of the village having one county councillor and the other half having another. I made a submission to the Commission which argued against this, and encouraged others to do likewise.
I was told by a number of residents at the time that I was mistaken, and that such a proposal could not possibly be put forward. It gives me no pleasure to say that I was right.
Tomorrow Cambridgeshire County Council will consider its submission (this link will open a PDF document) to the Boundary Commission about the future of its electoral boundaries. The county council’s working party did not reach agreement about East Cambridgeshire’s boundaries, and will therefore consider two alternative proposals. It is not clear which one the county council will choose tomorrow, but it is very possible that it will be the second.
The first proposal, an adapted version of the working group’s suggestions during its discussions in 2014, combines Sutton with Mepal, Coveney, Witcham, Little Downham, Pymoor, Wentworth and Witchford. That makes sense, and I would support such a proposal.
The second proposal draws a line through Sutton, along The America, the High Street, and Station Road. The two halves would be represented by different county councillors. Sutton would be the only village to be treated in this way.
There is absolutely no logic behind the second proposal. The variation between the number of voters in each area under the second proposal is greater than under the first proposal; the Commission accepts a difference of up to 10 per cent from the average, and under the second proposal ‘Sutton South’ just squeaks in at -9.9 per cent, while ‘Sutton North’ comes in at -9.8 per cent. (Under the first proposal, Sutton and the other villages would vary from the average by 6.6 per cent).
The proposal to split Sutton has been made by two bodies. The first is South East Cambridgeshire Conservative Association. The second is East Cambridgeshire District Council. I am in the process of trying to find out why the leadership of a council of which I am a member submitted a proposal to split the village I represent without informing me in advance, discussing it at a meeting of the council, seeking the views of councillors, or even sending me a copy afterwards.
Of course it is the Boundary Commission, not the county council, that makes the final decision on our boundaries. If you wrote to the Commission expressing the view that Sutton should not be split, thank you. All we can now do is await the outcome of tomorrow’s county council meeting and, if they do propose to gerrymander Sutton, hope that the Boundary Commission will reject their proposal.
East Cambs District Council is currently reviewing two of its policies, on Licensing and on Gambling.
Statement of Licensing Policy
The council must review its Statement of Licensing Policy at least every five years. Full information can be found at http://www.eastcambs.gov.uk/licensing/licences-permits-registration. Should you wish to submit a comment please do so by e-mailing licensing@eastcambs.gov.uk with the subject heading LA03 – Consultation response.
Gambling Act 2005 – Statement of Principles
The council must review its Statement of Principles at least every three years. Full information can be found at http://www.eastcambs.gov.uk/licensing/gambling-act-2005. Should you wish to submit a comment please do so by e-mailing licensing@eastcambs.gov.uk with the subject heading GA05 consultation.
The deadline for responses to both these reviews is 5:00 pm on Thursday 27 August.
“We agree in principle that in the current local government funding environment, this authority needs to be able to raise money from its activities, and generate the surplus it is forbidden to raise outside the vehicle of a local authority trading company.
We do have concerns about governance arrangements, and about the accountability of the proposed company, particularly under a non-proportional board.
We would want to see risk analysis specifically included in the report of the Chief Executive to the full council in January as outlined in section 3.1.
We recognise the concerns of the staff about this proposal, which we believe to be symptomatic of the continued pressure under which they have worked in this authority for some time, with constant reorganisation of departments and salami slicing of the workforce. We in this group value the contribution of the council’s staff to the work of the authority, and are concerned at the low level of staff morale under the present administration.
As the establishment of a local authority trading company under an independent Chairman will reduce the workload of the authority, we would like to ask the Leader what plans he has to correspondingly reduce the salary of the Chief Executive. We note that the Chairman of the Board will be paid ‘a small annual remuneration’. As not everyone’s definition of ‘small’ is the same, we would also like to ask the Leader what he envisages that remuneration as being, and to suggest to him that the council should cap the combined salary of Chief Executive and Chairman of the Board. We also believe that the remaining board members should be unremunerated, and invite the Leader to agree with us on this point.
My group has agreed that I should be the Liberal Democrat nominee to the committee.”