Green verging on the ridiculous

Thanks to the Green Party for adding some entertainment to the Coleridge by-election campaign with their recent newsletter.

Outgoing councillor, Chris Howell, has provided us with his fisking of their newsletter:

Their stuff on the East Area committee ranges from confused to grossly misleading.

On speeding

The vote at East Area committee was only won on a recount, after fierce opposition from Green party Councillor Margaret Wright who described the use of police resources to enforce residential speed limits as a scandalous waste of resources. You wouldn't guess that from the Greens' newsletter.

On verges

The Greens claim they wanted to make verge repairs the number one priority at East Area committee, and this "did not get any support from Coleridge's currently elected Councillors". This point is utterly misleading - it's debatable if it is even factually accurate, as the vote that Adam Pogonowski forced was a nonsense amendment proposed for the purpose of political points scoring and I think I made that point at the meeting, whilst confirming that I agreed it should be top priority.

The committee had over many meetings narrowed down the projects to be funded by the Council's environmental improvements budget. At the last meeting, there was enough money left to implement all the remaining projects under consideration except one, so we picked a project that in the unlikely event all the projects proved to be technically feasible and supported in public consultation would be dropped on lack of budget grounds. That was not grass verges, which had therefore been allocated funding.

Adam then put forward an amendment seeking to set a priority for funding amongst the projects that we had just agreed full funding for - as there was no further contention for funds between these projects as they were all fully funded, this didn't actually result in any additional priority - all funded projects were to be moved forward as quickly as possible.

On the reason for the by-election

"Conservative Councillor Chris Howell ... Perhaps ashamed of the savage cuts the coalition government is undertaking, he resigned."

This is a completely false accusation designed to imply to the electorate that I resigned because of a disagreement with the coalition government's policies on the deficit - for the record, overall I am delighted with the direction of the coalition, both because of their firm but considered approach to tackling the budget deficit, and in the related area of how they are seeking to roll back the patronising, expensive, bullying top down government that is blighting so many local services and local communities.

Specifically, on the budget, my view is that if you borrow beyond your means and give every impression that you aren't that interested in repaying the debt at any point - which appears to be this week's policy from both Labour and the Greens - investors will only lend you money if you offer very high interest payments, and eventually they will stop lending altogether, as the risk of the government failing to repay the debt becomes too high. The firm action of the coalition has already ensured that the immediate crisis has been averted, and interest payments on UK government debt are already lower than they would have been under a Labour (or Green) government.

I certainly don't support the argument that the risks to the economy are lowered by delaying action on the deficit, rather if the coalition government hadn't taken the steps it has, it really would have had a devastating effect on the government's ability to provide essential services in future, and would have left our children with a horrible mess to fix.

If my blog post wasn't enough for them, and they wanted to confirm my position, they could have asked and I would have made it clear what they wrote was false.

Chalmers verge plans emerge

Good news on verges for residents of Chalmers Road and safer parking for everyone off Birdwood Road!

Following a recent verge 'walkabout' with councillors and council officers the city and county councils have worked together and approved in principle a long-awaited proposal to deal with the verges and parking in this area.

There is clearly a chronic shortage of parking spaces in this area yet well-kept verges can make an area much nicer. St Thomas's Square probably has the balance about right, with some bays and verges. Coleridge Conservatives have long argued that in places like Chalmers Road a combination of turning some verges into parking spaces and protecting others vigorously is the right answer.

The plan for Chalmers Road is to repair and reseed verges as approporiate but to turn two substantial sections of verge into hard standing: the low odds and mid evens.

The junctions of Birdwood Road with Gray Road, Ward Road and Chalmers road will have double yellow lines on the corners to discourage unsafe parking (it's a shame these are needed since the highway code is clear on this point as it is...), enforced by wooden bollards.

The Southern side of Birdwood Road as it joins Perne Road is to have its verge strengthened and reseeded.

We have asked the city council whether it is also possible to have trees planted to mitigate the effect of losing verges. Such planting would also help to enforce no parking on the verges.

Overall this seems like a great plan - I hope that it will be accepted by residents and councillors and that it will attract funding.

Around Coleridge

Been a busy of couple of days with on-site meetings looking at some of the long standing ward issues:

Grass verges
The East area committee has allocated £25,000 to each ward including Coleridge to tackle problems with grass verges. Last night 2 of our 4 Councillors met (in the rain!) with a City Council officer, to talk about how we can use this very limited amount to help in the main problem area around Chalmers Road and Birdwood Road.

It won't be possible to repair all the verges, and the suggestion was that some of the money could be used for some yellow lining on Birdwood Road (especially round the junctions) that could allow some verges to be protected, and for some of the (much narrower) verges in Chalmers Road to be tarmaced, but with some new trees planted as well. Whilst there isn't the cash to pay for additional dropped kerbs (and it would be unfair on those that have had to pay for this work themselves), I suggested we look into whether a bulk deal on dropped kerbs could be negotiated to see if any residents would like to pay for improved access to drives, with the Council then being able to repair the verges with some hope of them surviving. Very early days, but hopefully plans for some improvements (if not a complete solution) should be forthcoming in due course for public consultation.

Perne Road Shops
As previously reported, the developer has put plans for the Perne Road shops redevelopment on hold until the finance markets improve. They are however working on putting hoardings around the site, and have offered to contribute to some artwork on the hoardings and building. Working with one of our other Coleridge ward Councillors, there was an on-site meeting today with teachers from Coleridge Community College, and a representative from Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination, a charity who work on community public art projects. The plan is for the school to work with the community and produce some public art. Hopefully the school will be taking this project forward with CCI, and with the support of local Councillors.

Tiverton House
Finally, at 7pm this evening, there is a residents meeting at St Thomas' Hall, Ancaster Way to talk about Tiverton House, with updates on the current (much improved) situation, actions since the last meeting, and a plan for the start of the next academic year. All local residents (including Tiverton House!) welcome.

Interesting Meeting later today

I'll be very interested to see the outcome of the County Council Conservative group AGM on Friday, in particular who the new Matt Bradney in charge of transport in the City will be. Whoever he or she is can expect a phone call - I have a little list...

UPDATE: Sounds like it will be a little while longer before we can see the white smoke...

Grass Verges: How long to wait for action?

The problems of grass verge parking are rapidly becoming one of the hottest topics on the doorstep in Coleridge. It is clearly a difficult issue - for some people (those not needing to park a car on the road) verge parking is just wrong, causes immense damage to the local environment, and should just be banned with the full force of the law. For others, they have no choice as there is nowhere else to safely park their cars, so it is completely unreasonable to try stopping verge parking.

Take Chalmers Road for example:

A huge verge parking problem (as noted above, I am aware that people parking on the verges may have no realistic alternative). But there are measures the Council could take here to protect some of the verges and improve the streetscape, such as planting some trees where people want them, and repair the verges. So I have been trying for some weeks now to get the Council to take some action. I have wanted to know the answers to two questions: What can the City Council do to protect grass verges on Coleridge (such as planting a tree on the verge on the right here), and who in the Council is responsible for developing the Council's policy in this area. 

Despite bragging in their manifestos about what they have been doing to help solve the grass verge problem, the answer from Liberal Democrat Cambridge appears to be nothing and nobody - the Council is literally doing nothing at the moment to work towards solutions to this tricky problem (or if they are, some very senior officers in the Council can't tell me who is responsible for work in this area.)

Solving this problem in the longer term will require a number of significant policy changess. Car ownership now is higher than ever imagined when Birdwood Road and Chalmers Road were built, and personally I think that is a good thing - this is a huge boost to personal liberty and for economic development, due to better workforce mobility - these upsides of car ownership are frequently ignored by the anti-car brigade. Contrary to the Lib Dems vision for Cambridge, we are not going to return to walking, cycling and horse and cart as the only ways of getting around. As much as walking and cycling should be encouraged (and this will be part of the solution), cars aren't going to disappear, they will just become greener and less polluting, ultimately being powered by energy captured in useful form without producing carbon dioxide. So to solve the verge parking problem, as well as encouraging alternaives, we will need to take steps to increase the availability of parking - for which there are a number of potential solutions, e.g. we could make it cheaper for people to get a "dropped kerbs" - currently an expensive Council mandated process, or create other parking spaces within the existing street layout.

But as a measure of how far from understanding the problem the Council is, it is setting up a much bigger problem for itself in future, by banning developers from including sufficient car parking on new developments, such as the flats going up on the Tim Brinton site that will be built with significantly less than one parking space per flat. Parking generally is probably the most frequent source of complaints to local Councillors - what a shame the City Council doesn't seem to be doing anything about the problems and in fact through the planning system is making them worse.