A two-day £48,000 scheme to improve an accident site at Little Downham is due to take place next Monday and Tuesday, 30 and 31 March.

Bates’s Drove ( the A1101) at Little Downham will be closed at Toll Corner (this junction) for approximately 150 metres in each direction from the junction with the Hundred Foot Bank (B1411) from 9.30am to 3.30pm on each of the two days.  It will be possible for non-motorised road users to pass through the site under supervision of the contractor.

Personally, I’m very pleased to hear it! I very nearly came a cropper in my car with two passengers driving down the A1101 at night and missing the bend, as the lights along the Hundred Foot Bank looked like the continuation of the A1101 until I realised too late they weren’t.

There will be NO changes to collection days for the bank holidays – Easter, May, or August. Waste and recycling collections will take place as usual: please put your materials out for collection by 7am on the normal day.

East Cambridgeshire was the third most improved English council for recycling last year, with 45.5% of waste recycled, up by 12%. Further improvement is expected this year, but we can’t do it without you. Please recycle as much as you can.

Additional wheeled bins for garden waste can be provided in return for payment of an annual fee of £48. Paid-for bins will be identified by brown lids and licence stickers that will change each year.  Information about this offer is on the Council’s website.  To subscribe to this service please telephone the Council on 01353 665555.

East Cambridgeshire District Council has received a planning application for a two storey extension to side, single storey extension to rear, and garage conversion at 28 Sutton Court.

The application can be viewed at the District Council offices in Ely during office hours, or at The Glebe by arrangement with the Parish Clerk.  Details of the application (reference 15/00275/FUL) will also be online on the council’s Planning web pages, where it is also possible to leave comments if wished.

The Local Plan which will manage growth and development in East Cambridgeshire for the next 20 years is set to be approved by the district council next month.

The original version was judged by a planning inspector last year to be deficient, not least because it did not identify enough capacity for new housing to be built in the next five years.  After further work and changes to the plan, the document has now been recommended for adoption by the inspector.

The plan will guide how much development should take place, and where and when it will happen.

East Cambridgeshire District Council has received a planning application for a detached garage to the rear of 11 Blaydon Place. The reference number for the application is 15/00253/FUL and details will shortly be available on the East Cambs website.

As previously reported, Deli@65 in the High Street in Sutton has applied for a variation in opening hours which would enable it to open earlier in the mornings, later in the evenings, and for six hours on Sundays.

In view of the high level of interest in this application from local residents, both for and against, I have ‘called in’ this application so that it will be considered in public by the council’s Planning Committee and not delegated to a council officer.

It’s now been confirmed to me that the application will go to the Planning Committee, but not when. It’s possible that the next meeting of the committee (1 April) will be too soon, and the following meeting, on 29 April, is likely to be reserved for discussion of a single item.

Comments on this application (to the council, not to me) are still open for another couple of days: you can use the council’s planning pages, or email the Planning Department.

From midday on Monday 16 March, up to £70 million will be available for home energy efficiency grants to domestic properties through the government’s Green Deal Home Improvement Fund (GDHIF).

The Government has announced the third release from the Fund, with up to £5,600 available to households to help with the cost of installing energy saving measures such as solid wall insulation, double glazing, boilers, cavity wall and floor insulation.

More information including a grants calculator and contact details for enquiries is available here.

Government grants for superfast broadband are now available for businesses in East Cambridgeshire.

Connection vouchers provide funding of up to £3000 to pay for the installation cost of getting superfast broadband to offices. Businesses with fewer than 250 employers, sole traders, and charities are eligible for funding.

The scheme was initially for businesses in Cambridge and the South Cambridgeshire but has now been extended to the wider economic region until March 2016. The county council’s Connecting Cambridgeshire scheme has awarded over 170 connection vouchers so far and more are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Businesses can apply and find out more about the connection voucher scheme on the Destination Digital website.

Last night saw a meeting for district and parish councillors across the north east of Cambridgeshire to hear about the county council’s plans to drastically reduce its subsidy to bus services across the county. This process has been going on for about three years now and has finally reached us.

There was a short presentation followed by questions and answers.  Although statistics and other information were provided about the No 9 route through Sutton from Chatteris to Cambridge, it was clear that the county council is thrashing about for what, if anything, to do with it. At £1.53 per passenger journey, the subsidy on non-commercial journeys on the No 9 is not as large as for some routes, and the route clearly serves a purpose – predominantly for people to do their shopping but also to get to work or college, or visit friends and family. Messing about with it is unlikely to save much money, but very likely to make life very difficult for anyone without a car.

I raised the potential of linking Sutton by bus to Longstanton, to connect us to the Guided Busway and make for a more straightforward journey into Cambridge than that offered by the No 9. However, it’s clear that the county council’s process is interested only in trying to save money on the non-commercial routes; anything else, including any prospect of evening and Sunday services, they are leaving entirely to the energies of the commercial transport providers such as Stagecoach.

What was interesting was the survey table showing that around half of all journeys on this long route started in Sutton, making our village the single biggest market for this service.

There will be a further meeting in a few months’ time which will bring forward some proposals for people to consider. The meeting lasted only a little over half of the time allotted to it.

Tonight the parish council held an extraordinary meeting to hear details of the changes to Sutton’s street lighting which are about to take place.

In July 2011 the whole of Cambridgeshire County Council’s street lighting was transferred to contractor Balfour Beatty under a 25 year Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract, in return for cheaper maintenance and energy costs. The contract included replacing over the first five years of the PFI all street lights that Balfour Beatty considered had fewer than 30 years of life left in them, and the removal of one out of every ten street lights to save money.

A total of 45 lighting columns will be switched off in Sutton’s streets and estates, as part of this programme. More details are available here while the Parish Council’s website here includes a very helpful set of detailed maps for downloading.

Work on the street lights will begin in March.  In the event of any queries, contact Balfour Beatty directly on 0800 7838 247 or text 07800 140782 or email enquiries@lightingcambridgeshire.com

The parish council will need to make some decisions about the eighteen ‘heritage’ lighting columns in the high street conservation area. The county council is offering either to replace them free of charge with ordinary non-heritage columns; or to renew them at a cost to the parish council; or to allow the parish council to take on the responsibility (and the cost) of maintaining them.

It is somewhat surprising to say the least that the county council and its contractors appear to have no duty to have regard to an area’s conservation area status, and can simply remove heritage lighting columns and install ‘bog standard’ ones in a conservation area if other ‘lower tier’ councils don’t pay up. After all, any private citizen living in a conservation area who installed uPVC windows in their home would find planning officers descending on them like the proverbial ton of bricks.