Lib Dems confirm loony parking policy

Today's Cambridge News carries confirmation from the Liberal Democrats running Cambridge City Council that they remain intent upon exacerbating Cambridge's parking chaos with every new development that is permitted.

Referring to not changing the current hierarchy of road users (pedestrians > cyclists > public transport > private motorists) Cllr Clare Blair said,

I think that makes sense in Cambridge because it is a historic city which is very constrained, but we do recognise that people need to use their cars.

What we need to do is provide for people to be able to use their cars where necessary, but to use alternative modes of transport wherever possible. I see this as an opportunity to look carefully at what we are doing and see whether it suits the needs of our residents.

But this is a classic straw man. No-one ever suggested changing the relative priority of road users - the most vulnerable types must come first and be promoted.

Frankly I can see no evidence that the Lib Dems do "recognise that people need to use their cars", despite driving them themselves; they seem to have an ideological obsession that leads them to make perverse decisions like that on limiting parking for new developments when they should instead be requiring it to safeguard our future infrastructure.

She has also missed the point by focusing on the use of cars rather than the possession of cars - it is good for car usage to go down but that doesn't mean that car possession rates should go down, and if it is at the expense of those of more limited means then it probably would be a bad thing, too. When people do have them they will park them, whatever it takes - it's a shame the Lib Dems are unable to grasp this simple fact of life.

Local Planning Document Defective

In a rare case of them actually turning down a development Lib Dem councillors are crowing at how they appear to have 'saved' the Queen Edith pub from demolition at yesterday's South Area Committee.

Normally they hide behind the rigidness of the planning rules, the quasi-judicial planning process and their fear of the (exaggerated) cost of rejections going to appeal and being awarded to the appellant. However, in this case the Lib Dems seem to have rejected the application (10/0815/FUL).

Planning decisions currently can only be made with reference to national and local planning guidelines. The Lib Dems in Cambridge are responsibile for our own local plan but the plan is defective. It offers:

• No protection for pubs.
• Inadequate defence for Cambridge's distinct heritage and low skyline.
• A crazy rule limiting the number of parking spaces permitted per new dwelling to less than one.

This last rule is building in huge transport problems for the future, when we've got enough parking problems as it is. The new development in the station area will introduce no new parking, causing even greater problems around Rustat Road while new developments across the city are making local parking problems worse and worse all the time.

This is just the start of the problems. With 'affordable housing' quotas limiting housing for those in the middle band Cambridge is quite simply a planning disaster zone. Conservatives have been battling the Lib Dems over planning for years, both centrally and in clashes in Lib Dem-held wards like Trumpington. We won't stop holding them to account.

Meanwhile we'll see if the Queen Edith really is saved or if a new application is forthcoming or an appeal is lodged. It is frustrating when large pub companies and breweries try to argue that planning permission for housing is justified on the basis that they haven't been able to run a good business - let a smaller business or independent publican have a go!

East Chesterton Councillor Resigns

Siep Wijsenbeek has resigned as county councillor for East Chesterton. A by-election is expected on 16 September.

The current make-up of the county council is:

42 Conservative
22 Liberal Democrat
2 Labour
1 Green
1 UKIP
1 Vacancy

But of the county councillors within the city boundaries:

10 Liberal Democrat
2 Labour
1 Green
1 Vacancy

This by-election will be a great opportunity to elect a Conservative onto the county council from within the city. It would be hugely beneficial for Cambridge residents to be represented by at least one councillor in the ruling group on the county council. All the other city-based councillors who were present at the TIF vote last year voted for congestion charging - they clearly cannot be relied-upon to stand up for Cambridge's interests.

Cambridge Conservatives' James Strachan gave the Lib Dems the closest run at the last county council election in East Chesterton while Kevin Francis has been a close second in recent city council elections there.

Two City Councillors Resign

Two Lib Dem City Councillors, Cllr Armstrong and Cllr Liddle have resigned.

The latter is not unexpected, having moved away from the City last November, leaving East Chesterton residents with one non-local Councillor for months. The resignations were clearly timed for the electoral benefit of the Lib Dems rather than to ensure residents have effective local representation - the by-elections will both now be held on May 6th, meaning there will be two City Councillors elected in each of East and West Chesterton, (with the remaining wards in the City each electing one City Councillor as expected on that date).

A new kid on the blog

While looking for sources to find out whom the local Lib Dems have selected to be the next wannabe rubber tree I stumbled across Market Division Lib Dem County Cllr Sarah Whitebread's new blog. She acknowledges Tory supremacy in the Cambridge blogosphere and says that she wants to add an 'opinion' dimension to the otherwise sterile blog action from local Lib Dems here. This is to be welcomed!

"For such a liberal city it’s a shame that the most active bloggers at the moment seem to be tories."

I did notice while browsing the new blog that Martin Land has been selected Lib Dem PPC for Huntingdon. That would be the same Land who called Cambridge 'one of the scruffiest, nastiest little towns in England' in his blog. Yes we do have a copy of that post even though you pulled it down. I'm surprised Cambridge Lib Dems want to be associated with him!

P.S. Cllr Whitebread, is Colin going to be standing in Market Ward this year?

Ashwell's discussed at East Area Committee

The topic of Ashwells and the station redevelopment was discussed at East Area committee last night - amidst the concerns I have already raised that the transport improvements forming part of the scheme are now at risk - in particular the issue of cycle parking. I thought it was quite a successful meeting, we agreed to summon the Director of planning to our next meeting so we can question what the transport situation is now, and to request that the section 106 agreement is reviewed in light of the administration of Ashwell's.

I wouldn't normally respond to posts on other partys' blogs but Lib Dem Cllr Nichola Harrison has taken my comments made last night and misrepresented them in such an amusingly ridiculous way I can't resist.

As much as I enjoy, on occassions like last night's East Area committee, hearing Cllr Harrison's explanations of 'how things really are' and how with her great knowledge she is able to 'correct' my misunderstandings, I see the situation rather differently.

She says on her blog: "Chris Howell’s diatribe last night was based on the strange reasoning that the system is a tax and is therefore unfair on developers."

Firstly on the question of what s106 payments are.

If something looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck, I tend to call it a duck, even if other people insist on calling it something else.

In this case s106 agreements result in money or value that developers have to pay to the local authorities in order to get planning permission on a new development. Thats why I call it a developers tax.

To correct the biggest error in Cllr Harrison's blog post. No, I don't want to see this system completely abandoned with all developer payments stopped, just recognised for what it is, and for the Council to therefore act accordingly so we can start having the type of new developments people want and would welcome.

My argument is that if you accept the system is a tax, the Council will stop treating it like free money that no-one has to pay for (apart from developers of course who don't really count), and start considering both the economic effects of the Council's demands on developers and what this means for people who have to put up with the pokey overpriced rabbit hutches and inadequate transport infrastructure that results from our current broken planning system.

The suggestion that s106 agreements are purely there to mitigate the effects of a new development as Cllr Harrison claimed last night is laughable when you see what happens in practice - it is a system whereby the Councils' try to extract as much of the uplift in value from a developer being granted planning permission because they can, and don't seem to have any sense or scrutiny of whether the taxpayer gets good value for money from this huge tax burden. If these payments really are vital to mitigate the effects of development, why has the Council been busy renegotiating them over the last few months?

The fact is that new development has got into a vicious cycle, aided by local Councils, of which Lib Dem run Cambridge is a prime example - and it is going to take something dramatic to get us out of this.

• People see how horrible many new developments are so seek to oppose them (it doesn't help that the history of new house building in the UK for decades has been littered with hideousness)
• Planning permission is therefore hard to come by, so the uplift in value of the land when it is granted is significant (and the house prices in the free market are extortionate - yes Nichola, the other big error in your blog post, it is not big business, it is the ordinary people looking to buy market houses in and around Cambridge that are paying for all this nonsense)
• The Council through the s106 system has the power to tax this uplift in value, sees it as free cash so tries to extract as much of this uplift as it can, to spend on all sorts of things - 40% so called 'affordable housing' being one of the biggest costs for developers.
• Developers then need to extract as much value as possible from their open market housing, so don't allocate sufficient physical space for public open space and transport links, and build private sector housing to a low spec, with poor design and poor materials.
• The Council meanwhile thinks that community facilities are only things that Council's run, like community centres and libraries, and don't even think about providing things like a local shop or a local pub - nor do they necessarily think about the ongoing revenue implications of the things they spend their one-off capital payments from developers on. (Orchard Park springs to mind)
• The result is new developments that are hideous - and the cycle starts all over again.

The whole system has been even more broken over the last few years, as property valuations have been based on what effectively was a pyramid scheme, bearing no relation to underlying value, rather values inflated by the prospect of someone else coming along willing to pay even more than you have just paid, thanks to a buy to let mortgage fraudulently obtained from a now bankrupt bank. But the Councils were still lapping it up, and ramping up the s106 shopping lists for schemes getting approval, such that now the inevitable crash has happened, developments like Northstowe are on hold, Ashwells has gone bust, and developers around the city are seeking to renegotiate what were previously claimed to be vital payments. In other words, we are still in a high demand area for housing, there are sites available ready to go, and the Council's demands are stopping development from happening - it is a tragic irony that Council demands for affordable housing are probably doing most to keep housing unaffordable for the vast majority of the local population.

The Conservatives have proposed a different way (see policy green papers 9 - Control Shift, returning power to local communities, and 10 Stong foundations, building homes and communities) - s106 type taxes clearly won't go completely, but there will be less interference from government over how developments occur, with control passed to local residents, and local incentives for new development. Hopefully developers will start to focus on what people want, rather than what Councils want, and we can see high quality new developments around Cambridge, with appropriate transport that are welcomed by local residents.

Another Lib Dem leaves Cambridge!

Lib Dem City Councillor Jennifer Liddle has a new address.

Her term isn't due to end until 2012, but she will now be serving her East Chesterton constituents from Woodditton near Newmarket.

I wonder if the next local elections will yet again see sanctimonious Lib Dems criticising opposition candidates who may live only a couple of hundred metres outside a ward boundary as being completely inappropriate based on the fact they don't live in the ward they seek to represent...

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.

City Council's email handling still a shambles

When I was first elected as a Councillor in 2000, I pleaded with the Lib Dems to make email handling a priority of the then new-fangled 'e-government' agenda -all emails to service lines should be acknowledged automatically to indicate would be dealing with the email, then systems put in place to ensure every email received a suitable reply, i.e. all emails should be treated seriously, like the Council's handling of letters, only quicker and more efficient. These pleas were ignored.

Eight years later, the City Council's handling of emails appears to be as shambolic as ever - I'm trying to contact various Council officers about some ward issues, including urgently trying to get to the bottom of the planning situation at Tiverton House, and I am getting automated responses to indicate that my emails aren't being received again:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

THIS IS A WARNING MESSAGE ONLY.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEND YOUR MESSAGE.

Delivery to the following recipient has been delayed:

    xxxxx@cambridge.gov.uk

Message will be retried for 2 more day(s)

Technical details of temporary failure:
Unspecified Error (SENT_MAIL): Connection reset by peer

Last summer all my emails to the Council were ignored, for what turned out to be a completely spurious reason that never should have caused the Council to block them, and I have had other problems during the year getting responses to emails. If a letter was received by the Council, they would never think of putting it in a pile and ignoring it just because they didn't like the colour of the envelope, or reading a letter then not bothering to reply, but this if effectively what they do with emails on a far too frequent basis. No private company of any stature would allow their email handling to be as bad as this - the Council needs to get a grip. In the meantime, it would be helpful to know if anyone else is having trouble contacting the Council by email at the moment...

Lib Dems: Folk Festival Fiasco nothing to do with us

I've just been debating the Folk Festival Fiasco with the Council Leader, Liberal Democrat Ian Nimmo-Smith on Radio Cambridgeshire. 

I have to say am a deeply unimpressed with his response to the problems. Firstly, he suggests that it is fine that one department can inflict £645k of damage to Council taxpayers funds, and this doesn't indicate a problem with wider risk management in the City Council. With this attitude, problems like this could occur again and again on his watch. But the most concerning is his suggestion that Executive Councillors with significant powers to run Cambridge had no responsibility at all for the fiasco, and he just dumped the blame onto unelected Council officers.

The facts are that this was a major contract for the Council that should have been subject to oversight and scrutiny by the Executive Councillors, and Folk Festival ticketing arrangements have been a hotly debated political issue since May 2007. Opposition Councillors asked no fewer than four oral questions at Council on the subject of Folk Festival ticketing, by far the largest number on any issue in this time, and a motion on ticketing issues was debated by Full Council in May 2007.

In November 2007, the Community Service Scrutiny Committee considered a report that started:

"1. Executive summary

Due to the sustained success of the Cambridge Folk Festival demand for tickets continues substantially to outstrip the numbers available, placing considerable pressure on booking arrangements. This report sets out the range of issues for 2008, and recommends the formation of an officer/member working party to monitor the progress of arrangements.

2. Recommendations

The Executive Councillor is recommended:

1 To approve the creation of an all-party officer/member working group on the Cambridge Folk Festival Box Office.

2 To agree the number of members on the working group and its terms of reference, to include the discussion of the respective merits of different ticket sales methods, problems associated with secondary ticketing and issues related to tickets for residents and make a recommendation to the Executive Councillor for Arts and Recreation."

It was precisely these identified pressures on ticketing that should have been considered following this report that lead to the time pressure and ultimately the botched and deeply flawed contract agreement in 2008 - what on earth was the Executive Councillor doing while all this was going on?

Perhaps we can get some clues from the incredible oral question asked to the Executive Councillor by a backbench Lib Dem Councillor in Full Council, May 2008:

6. From Councillor McGovern to the Executive Councillor for Arts & Recreation 

Following the queues of the last few years would the Executive Councillor agree that the officers involved in the arrangement of Folk Festival tickets this year deserve congratulations on the success of this year’s sales?

So even whilst the Council was engaged in a contract now shown to have serious shortcomings, the Executive Councillor in response to this question was doubtless congratulating herself on having solved all the problems, oblivious to the real situation. If losing £645k of Council Tax payers money counts as "success" of the 2008 ticket sales to the Lib Dems, I shudder to think what would constitute a problem.

It tells you everything about why the Lib Dem administration is so disasterous for Cambridge City. No real scrutiny from backbench Lib Dems, just sycophantic questions at Council to prompt self congratulation, and Executive Councillors who appear to have no clue about the serious problems unfolding in the department they are responsible for.

Folk Festival Report is Truly Shocking

I’ve just finished reading the Council's report on the Folk Festival fiasco – it appeared on the website at about 5pm, and I didn’t get to see it in advance. I have to say some of the findings of the report are truly shocking.

• Despite its complexity, there was no project plan for the Folk Festival indicating dependencies of the various tasks and key responsibilities.
  
• Perhaps related to this, despite awarding the contract in Dec 2007, legal services were consulted late, given insufficient time to consider the agreement, and a decision was made to proceed with an incomplete (contract?) document on a Friday because tickets needed to go on sale on the Sunday.
  
• This decision was taken without escalation within the service lines. The Head of Legal services should have been consulted anyway due to complexity of the contract, but he wasn’t.
  
• There was no checking of the adequacy of the contract specification in either 2007 or 2008, in both occasions resulting in insufficient protection in relation to payment arrangements.
  
• Key evidence to support compliance with contract procedure rules, such as results of evaluations was not available. 
  
• After failure to carry out satisfactory financial viability checks, the finance department stated that the contractor should not be appointed, but this advice was ignored.
  
• Despite problems with the system in 2007 concerning the functioning and performance of the system, there wasn’t proper testing of the system in 2008.
  
• The Council was paid late in 2007, 4 ½ weeks after the festival. Despite 2008 funds being due by 11 August, the legal department wasn’t notified until 30th September.
  
• It appears that the Council didn’t even know how much it was owed. Only a rudimentary reconciliation was carried out in 2007, and it looks like when a detailed reconciliation was carried out for 2008, the amount owed is now stated as £644,951 rather than the £618,000 previously reported.
  

All very damning, but it leaves many more questions unanswered.

If the Council’s procurement rules weren’t followed how do we know that the contract wasn’t improperly (as opposed to incompetently) awarded?

And not even knowing how much was owed is just incredible – if the company had just handed over £618k, would the Council ever have discovered it should have been paid nearly £645k?

The report also focuses very much on the financial controls and how they operated – it says little about oversight of those controls by senior management, who have ultimate responsibility for looking after the Council’s assets, and who therefore need to be confident that suitable controls are not just in place, but that they are working effectively. Where was the oversight? What have the external auditors said about the financial controls operation at the Council?

How can a report prepared by internal staff members be described as independent? (contrary to promises to opposition Councillors that a full independent review would be carried out) – particularly as the report doesn’t currently include the results of the external review by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

And I think how the Council has reacted since the problem came to the attention of senior management will need to be subject to another investigation when we know how much if any of the cash missing will ever be repaid.

And yet despite all this, and with knowledge of the problems affecting the Folk Festival and the money at risk in failed Icelandic banks, the Audit Commission in its comprehensive performance assessment rated the council as excellent, saying its “Financial management is strong and there is good medium-term planning to make sure the council stays focused on its priorities.” How on earth can this be the case?

The ruling Liberal Democrat group have a record of failing to challenge decisions in public, preferring to nod just about everything through without debate. I hope there are some serious questions being asked behind closed doors about the performance of the Executive Councillor for Arts and Recreation, and her role in this fiasco. Ticketing arrangements for the Folk Festival have been the subject of repeated questions from opposition Councillors in the Council chamber, yet there is scant evidence in the report of any meaningful involvement from the Councillor with Executive responsibility in this complex and politically sensitive procurement exercise in 2008. Asleep on the job would be one way of putting it – I hope we will be seeing some responsibility taken by the ruling group for their catastrophic failures to look after Council taxpayers funds.

Lib Dems try to bring in Congestion Charging by the Back Door

The Sustainable Communities Act started as a private members bill promoted in the House of Commons by Conservative Nick Hurd MP, and received cross party support. It aims to promote the sustainability of local communities, covering economic, social and environmental issues. There were high hopes it would help Councils to protect independent shops on local high streets, and saving posts offices or community pubs.

The City Council recently held a workshop to discuss the act and how the Council might try use it, and came up with a list of possible actions – none of which would help protect local shops, post offices or other things that build sustainable communities or the local economy, but instead a list focussing on misguided environmental measures, some of which can only be described as barking, and that have the potential to do real damage to the local economy. But this list seems to have been taken seriously, as it is now featuring in an agenda item at Monday’s strategy and resources scrutiny committee. From http://www.cambridge.gov.uk/public/councillors/agenda/2009/0316sr/14.pdf

Short list of potential proposals for consideration by Panel
1 Enable the Council to positively discriminate in favour of local companies/suppliers when procuring, where this would have local and/or sustainability benefits.
2 Give the Council the power to ban the use of plastic bags or ban free plastic bags in shops – charge to deter their use
3 Require supermarkets to give priority to local food producers and have food packed locally
4 Give the Council the power to ban single occupancy cars from certain routes at certain times
5 Return traffic planning to the City Council. Local areas to enact their own traffic restrictions (assumes existing funding stream also moves)
6 Give councils powers to make local decisions on road pricing rather than under the control of central government
7 Give Cambridge city council Integrated Transport Authority powers under the Transport Act to secure better regulated public transport
8 Charge supermarkets (e.g. Sainsburys, Tesco) retail parks and offices for their car parking space and let Councils reinvest the money on local services
9 Change current legislation to allow the local authority to keep all revenues from council house rents for the improvement and new build of council houses in that authority.
10 Let councils keep business rates to spend locally
11 Make it easier to bring empty homes back into use
12 Give councils powers to charge higher council tax for second homes that are not occupied for most of the year perhaps to help fund more affordable homes

I can see some potential for making progress on reducing plastic bag use, but otherwise there are some real shockers in here.

Yes it is terrible that half the Council tenants’ rents are shipped off elsewhere, but tell me the Council isn’t already doing everything it can to protest about this.

“Make it easier to bring empty homes back into use” – from the Council that has kept Tiverton House empty for 14 months! They can already use compulsory purchase to bring homes back into use, even if the owner is trying to make improvements and neighbours aren’t complaining, such as on Auckland Road in the City. What more do they want - take a 4 week holiday and come home to find the Council has taken your home off you?

“Require supermarkets to give priority to local food producers and have food packed locally”. Supermarkets already do promote locally produced food – as a response to consumer demand. But insist food is packed locally – what planet are these people on? Do they have any idea how it is that our supermarkets are full of a wide variety of food at cheap prices. What next - a state controlled National Food Service anyone?

But it’s the transport measures that have the potential to do real damage to business, as many have been in considered and rejected in the past, and all have the potential to do real damage to the local economy. Last Council meeting, we passed a resolution calling on Cambridge University Press to do all it can to avoid job losses in Cambridge. Now we are telling them that their staff shouldn't drive in to work without finding someone to share the journey with, could be charged for entering the City, and then charged to park when they arrive at work. Employers won’t have to worry about needing to make people redundant – they will find it impossible to find staff prepared to work in Cambridge.

City Conservatives are fighting hard to ensure congestion charging is ruled out for Cambridge – the last thing we need is the Lib Dems trying to bring it in via the back door through the Sustainable Communities Act. And what a wasted opportunity to use what should be a very useful bit of legislation...

Councillor Rosenstiel Should Resign

The Cambridge Evening News are running a story about Councillor Colin Rosenstiel, who is being hauled in front of the City Council's standards committee, after an incident in 2007 where Colin is alleged to have blocked an emergency vehicle from entering Midsummer Common to treat a seriously injured person. There is a full report on an investigation of the incident from the Standards Board for England here (large pdf file), which makes damning reading.

Colin has form for this type of behaviour - he was caught on camera remonstrating with a van driver obstructing a cycle lane.

I understand that the Council's Standards Committee has the power to suspend Cllr Rosenstiel from office for 3 months. Generally speaking I think it should be up to the electorate to remove a Councillor from office if they behave like a small child when they don't get their way, but in both the cases above Cllr Rosenstiel was attempting to take direct action on issues where he is among the most empowered people in the whole City to take action through the proper channels. He is a member of the Cambridge Area Joint Transport Committee, and an Executive Councillor on Cambridge City Council, the authority that controls Midsummer Common. That a leading Lib Dem Councillor needs to resort to bad tempered direct action is testament to his ineffectiveness. He has lost the ability to challenge the systems and make change happen, and should resign.

Lib Dems have no excuse on City budget mess

In yesterday's Cambridge Evening News, the Lib Dem leader of the City Council is bemoaning the effects of the Government's concessionary bus fares scheme on City Council budgets - our local (Lib Dem) MP is apparantly going to raise the matter.

If this really is news to our MP, then what on earth have the Lib Dems been doing for the months that this problem has been known about? - we discussed it here last August.

The fact is the Lib Dems are now desperately trying to plug a hole in the City Council's budget of well over £1m pounds. Concessionary bus fares is doubtless in the news this week to try deflecting blame away from them ahead of Thursday's budget meeting. But the problems are not just due to this issue, the one they are (correctly) blaming on the government, but more crucially on issues that they have absolutely no excuses for - the £618k of Folk Festival cash at risk, and over £1m of interest that was due on the Iceland investments which is the very minimum amount they are likely to lose.

The fact is that the Lib Dems have know for months about all these issues, and I warned them to start finding significant savings at a meeting of full Council in December. Only now at this late stage are they trying to find massive savings in Council budgets, and don't appear to have even considered yet what could happen to various income streams as a result of the recession. After years of generous settlements and easy budgeting, they failed to find serious efficiency savings. Now when times are tough they are proving themselves completely unfit to be running the finances of the City Council.

Crunch Budget Decisions for City Council

It is crunch time for the City Council' s budget setting process, as the Lib Dem's Leader and Executive Councillors meet next week to agree the budget measures that will be put to the Full Council meeting in February.

There have been unprecedented pressures this year, including:
- the £620k at risk in the Folk Festival tickets fiasco that for budgeting purposes at least must be assumed lost
- £9m invested in Iceland, with no guarantee of repayment of the capital or interest
- a shortfall in funding from Government for the concessionary bus fares of approx £1.3m a year
- The credit crunch more generally, and its effect on all Council budgets.
- Loss of interest on the Council's reserves due to falling interest rates.

The top two are due to the poor financial management from the Lib Dems, but even without these there are clearly severe financial pressures. The interesting question now is how should this year's budget be handled.

Remarkably, the Lib Dems approach to date has been to stick their head in the sand and pretend there isn't a problem. For the first time in over a decade, the reports presented to the scrutiny committees in January did not identify sufficient savings to present a balanced budget - over £1m of savings still need to be found in the period to April 2010. Looking at the list of proposed savings to date (which curiously don't seem to be on the Council's website when you look at the meeting agendas), the only real savings are from service reviews completed some months ago, with the first draft budget leaving hundreds of thousands of cuts still to be found. But later amendments reflecting the Folk Festival fiasco and the City Council being told it must assume it won't be getting any interest on the Iceland money, and we are left with collosal amounts of savings to be found in a very short period of time.

We already know that the Lib Dems are planning to increase Council Tax by 4.5% every year, about the most they can get away with to avoid capping, despite the budget now assuming wage inflation much below this, and despite the hardship many people are feeling from the credit crunch. They were also expected to hit their minimum general reserves level of £1.5m in a couple of years anyway, although there is a case that in the current tough times (and one-off financial catastrophes) it is reasonable to go below their target minimum in the short term.

But the bottom line is that there are deep cuts that will need to be made (and not just one-year only fixes), and the ruling group seemed to have assumed that the Folk Festival fiasco and the Iceland deposits, which have been known about for ages weren't an issue. Lack of planning for this means cuts will now be made in a hurry, so will likely either be insufficient or highly damaging or both.

But even if they make then numbers work, there are some highly questionable assumptions involving ignoring the effects of the credit crunch on income - for example, they assume folk festival ticket prices can rise again, but still sell out (assuming they prove capable of collecting the money this year of course...), they pencil in much higher car parks revenue on the back of significant increases in charges, and don't seem to have considered the collapse in the value of recyclable materials, such as paper for recycling which is now apparantly worthless. All these issues could see lower income for the Council than they are currently expecting.

The Council doesn't seem to have even begun to consider the effects of the recession on its capital spending - a lot of which is delivered through s106 taxes on developers - this income stream looks to have all but disappeared as developers down tools, and when the property market returns to more reasonable levels, it is unclear if the Council will ever be able to levy these charges again at the same level.

In summary, in the good times, the Lib Dems failed to find the efficiency savings that have already been identified for this year (without admitting any cuts in service), causing Council Tax to be racked up unnecessarily, but in troubled times, their weak leadership and failure to tackle the problems early enough could prove disastrous.

Its at times like this when it is very frustrating to be the lone Conservative, rather than a group big enough to run the Council. Budgets should have been rebuilt from the bottom up, cutting out the waste, looking for more innovation in delivery of services and use of the Council's assets, and focusing on key basic services, sound financial management and keeping Council tax low - there are plenty of Conservative run Councils out there who manage to do just that.

Residents' Parking Rejected by Blinco Area

Resident's in the Blinco Grove area of Queen Edith's have rejected plans for resident's parking in the area, in a humiliating blow to local Lib Dems Councillors who have been pushing for the scheme, after forcing through the bizarre consultation arrangements at the relevant committee.

The combined results from the recent consultation exercise in the Blinco Grove/Rock Road/Hartington Grove area in response to the question: Do you support the introduction of on street parking controls in your area?

Strong support - 91 (27%)
Support - 27 (8%)
Don't know - 13 (4%)
Disagree - 30 (9%)
Strongly disagree - 171 (52%)

A clear majority of 61% disagreeing with the plans, that would have seen local residents forced to by resident's parking permits if they wanted to park on the road.

As part of the dogs breakfast of a consultation, Coleridge residents in the Rustat Road area were asked what they thought of the plans to introduce resident's parking in the adjacent Blinco Grove area, and its pretty clear from the results that the question was misinterpreted as should resident's parking be introduced in their area (the question as posed being ridiculous - there is clearly only downsides to resident's parking in an adjacent area). As such, the support in this area was evenly split. Hopefully the Lib Dems on the joint traffic committee will now take note of this fiasco and the objections to the consultation that we raised at the time.

On the Blinco Grove area, I think all Coleridge Councillors agree that most of the problem relates to a relatively small number of vehicles from Hills Road Sixth Form College, that could be fixed instantly if the school had more robust policies on student car usage. But the situation could change rapidly for Coleridge once new developments are built. We would like to ensure Rustat Road area residents are given the opportunity to introduce resident's parking if clearly supported, once the effects developments such as the CB1 station redevelopment and former Cambridge Water site start to be felt.

But in the long term, when are the planners (leaned on by central government policy) going to realise that you can't solve transport problems by pretending that people can be forced out of their cars just by providing insufficient parking spaces. In existing areas, verge parking and other related 'lack of parking' issues are just about the biggest complaint in Councillors' in trays, but at least they have the excuse of being built in an era before near universal car ownership. To build a new generation of developments like Ashwell's CB1 and the Tim Brinton flats that make a virtue of providing wholly insufficient onsite parking is amongst the most shortsighted decisions being made in planning today. In 30 years time we we look back with our carbon-neutral personal vehicles and wonder what on earth people were thinking.

Exclusive: Folk Festival Fiasco – Second financial calamity hits Council

Cambridge City Council has not been paid for online ticket sales for last year’s Folk Festival. The funds were due to be received last August from the company responsible for the website that sold the tickets, but after months of trying to obtain payment, the Council has or will shortly be publishing a notice in the London Gazette to take the supplier to court – a hearing will be held later in the month to determine the fate of the company, that is likely to see it put into administration. It is believed that the company has serious financial problems, and around £620,000 of Council tax payers money is now at grave risk of being lost. This amount is around 10% of total City Council Tax collected last year.

An independent investigation into how the Council got itself into this mess is currently being conducted by accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers.

This latest blow follows on from £9m invested in now-failed Icelandic banks, for which there is also no certainty that it will all be recovered. Although the issue doesn’t affect the Folk Festival going forwards, it could have a serious impact on budgets across the Council.

Commenting on the news, Conservative Councillor Chris Howell said:

“This is terrible news for Cambridge Council tax payers – this year’s budget was already looking very stretched, and I have already contacted the Director of Finance to ask why this issue, that has been known about for some time, does not appear to have even been considered in the pre-budget reports recently put on public record.

In the short term, I am urging the Council to take all steps it can to try and recover these funds, but I fear the financial impact could be bigger and more immediate than the Icelandic investments, as there is a strong possibility of the companies concerned having no assets at all available to unsecured creditors.

Whilst there is an independent investigation going on into how the Council managed to get itself into a contract that allowed a supplier to keep approx £620,000 of Council tax payers money, one thing is very clear, in both this case and those of the Icelandic investments there have been catastrophic failures of financial risk management. I am today repeating the calls I made in the Council Chamber in December for a comprehensive review of the Council’s risk management procedures, to help safeguard Council Tax payers assets going forwards.

But the ultimate responsibility clearly lies with the weak political leadership and inadequate scrutiny of key decisions shown by the Liberal Democrats running Cambridge. I understand both the flawed Treasury management strategy and this contract were decisions made personally by Executive Councillors – if not, they should have been. There is wholly inadequate scrutiny of key decisions by Executive Councillors and backbench members of the ruling group who see their role as nodding through decisions of the Executive whilst speaking only to criticise opposition Councillors. It's no wonder the Council finds itself in such a mess – the Liberal Democrats are proving to be a disastrous custodian of Council Tax payers funds.”

One final less than amusing irony is that the 2007 Annual report of parent company notes that “the second area of research that the company has been active in is the Electronic Biometrics Identification Cards system” – leading to the sickening possibility that Cambridge Council tax payers money has ultimately been used to finance research into ID cards.

Planning decisions at area committees

Richard Taylor in the comments has asked me to post my reasons for not voting on planning applications at Area Committees, so this seems like a good opportunity.

Firstly, some history. Around 2003/4, the Liberal Democrats running the City Council setup Area Committees, ostensibly to bring decision making closer to local communities, and encourage community involvement. As part of setting up these committees, they decided that planning applications significant enough to be decided by Councillors rather than Council officers, but not having City wide significance were to be decided at these committees.

It is difficult to come up with a good argument that says the area committees are a sensible use of Council resources. It is rare that more than about 15 members of the public turn up at East Area Committee, frequently outnumbered by Councillors, Council staff and others on the public payroll – the extra costs (staff etc) of running these committees in 2004 were estimated to be £100,000 per annum (Scribbles on back of envelope, 4 committees, 6 meetings per year, generously 30 members of the public in each, average cost per meeting per member of the public engaged - £138 – can you see why I am outraged at the costs?) Whilst much of the debate at these meetings is useful, many of the members of the public present are already very empowered to communicate with their local Councillors (resident association officers, local Council candidates from various political parties etc), and rather than empowering more people, it is possible that these meetings actually further relegate the views of those not currently engaged in local decision making process – i.e. the literally 99.9% of the population of East area that chose not to turn up to these meetings.

But deciding planning applications at these meetings isn’t just a waste of money, it is actively damaging the quality of planning decisions made by the Council for the following reasons:

• Regardless of training offered, the average experience of planning law and policies amongst members of area committees is significantly below that of the main planning committee, and indeed shortly after the local elections, Councillors on area committees were asked to make what are quasi-legal decisions with no training or experience at all.
• All Councillors on the main planning committee should have an active interest in planning, as opposed to Councillors who may be more interested in other aspects of the Council’s work.
• Decisions made after 10pm at night by people who will likely have been working all day cannot be as well considered as those made at a more sensible time.
• During the working day at the Guildhall, the full planning committee can call on expert officers where necessary, e.g. tree experts etc to help clarifying points before making decisions.
• The main planning committee meetings monthly, Area committees every 8 weeks, frequently making it hard for Area committee decisions to be made within the target timescales, costing the Council money and risking immediate appeals for non-determination as happened with Mill Road Tescos.

All good reasons why making planning decisions at area committees is a disaster. But for me there is an overwhelming reason why I refuse to take part. The current planning system does not permit those deciding to ‘pre-determine’ applications – they must keep an open mind until the meeting when the decision is made, and those who, in the jargon, have ‘fettered their discretion’ cannot then take part in the decision.

And it is this aspect of the situation which means I refuse to take part in planning application decisions, so that when local residents contact me, I am free to let them know my opinion on an application, and offer my full help to oppose or support an application if applicable. Yes, I could just refuse to take part in those applications for which this scenario happens, but I wouldn’t want my constituents (or indeed anyone in the City) to be reluctant to contact me about a planning matter, knowing that by default I couldn’t even let them know what I thought about the application.

This issue got heated at the time of the Mill Road Tesco refrigeration application – with letters to the paper criticising those, like myself, who refused to vote on the application (even though I did speak at the meeting to raise my concerns). I think the concerns were more that Councillors hadn’t put aside all other considerations and voted to oppose Tesco, but it didn’t stop the Lib Dems passing a shabby motion at full Council trying to bully all members of the Council into supporting their policy on planning decisions at area committees.

I was elected this year on the following manifesto pledge:

“Conservatives will scrap the area committee system. The fiasco of the Tesco application on Mill Road showed how the planning system is in chaos, and how the area committees are incapable of taking decisions. This is an experiment that has failed. We will look at how resident’s participation can be made more effective and move to timely meetings of a full planning committee.”

I will continue to campaign for a change to the Council’s deeply misguided current policy, and in order to best represent my constituents interests, I will refuse to take part in Area Committee planning decisions.

Congestion Charge Rethink - Time for some Lib Dem honesty?

As has been reported in the Cambridge Evening News, the result of the Conservative County Councillors group meeting last Friday is a rethink on congestion charge plans. Whilst they have not ruled out congestion charging immediately (by far my preferred option!), they are going back to the drawing board and setting up a commission including the district Councils and various other interests in the local economy to look at what transport infrastructure Cambridgeshire needs going forwards - this commission will gather evidence and then advise the County Councillors, who will then take the final decisions. I understand this new policy will be debated and approved at the next County Council cabinet meeting/full Council meetings.

I hope this new approach can start by identifying the serious investment that is needed in all types of transport, and will result in the County asking the government for this investment without any strings attached. It will also give time for more public reaction to the Manchester congestion charge proposals, that have already seen one high supporter of congestion charging lose his Council seat, getting trounced into third place.

It is also time for the Lib Dems to come clean about their plans for transport in Cambridge. Surprise, surprise, their first reaction to the news was to condemn the County Council's plans, but yet again they won't tell us what they would do instead. Its not surprising, because as a party the Liberal Democrats are actually in favour of a form of road pricing like congestion charging - and locally have said: "The Liberal Democrats recognise that a transport strategy which includes substantial improvements to public transport and some form of road pricing is essential". Yet you wouldn't think that from any of their literature distributed in the last local elections - when you will just have read about how opposed they were to the County Councils congestion charging plans. Nobody reading their literature would have guessed that the Lib Dems were only disagreeing with the detail of the congestion charging plans, and are actually in favour in principle. This is a disgraceful abuse of the electorate in Cambridge - as the debate continues, its time for the Lib Dems to come clean and be open about their support for road pricing in Cambridge.