Housing Targets Scrapped

Housing targets are now officially dead. Councillors have been written to:

"As you may be aware, the Secretary of State announced the revocation of Regional Strategies with immediate effect on 6th July. Essentially this means that the East of England Plan (Regional Spatial Strategy) no longer forms part of the Development Plan for Cambridge and therefore should no longer be referred to in the determination of planning applications."

This is fantastic news, Labour's target driven agenda has gone, and there will no longer be pressure put on local authorities to build arbitrary numbers of houses - local Councils will now have to work with residents to get their consent to build more housing. This is an opportunity that should be embraced - the Cambridge sub-region desperately needs more housing (the CEN reported yesterday that last year prices increased by 26%, to £290k on average in the City, well out of reach of many families working in typical jobs in the City). We need our Councillors and Councils to change their mindset from compulsion regardless of local opinion to actively making the positive case for more housing - and it is inevitable that how we develop new housing will need to change. 

New developments must bring transport improvements of all types to everyone (and not just more traffic and congestion charging, which was all that was on offer to Coleridge residents from the previous plans for development on the airport) - the mindset all too apparant at both the City and County Council that says all local transport problems can be solved by 'demand management' must be replaced by demands for more transport capacity. New housing must be much higher quality, and bring new high quality public open spaces and other facilities, such as post offices and pubs in communities that don't currently have them, and facilities such as an ice rink for the sub-region. Finally, existing residents need to benefit rather than be penalised by the increased council tax base. Some commentators have claimed the abolition of targets will stop house building in its tracks. This is nonsense - the targets of the last decade saw reductions in new house building at a time of booming house prices and availability of financing for residential housing that was lax beyond the point of recklessness for many of the financial institutions involved. This defies all economic logic, and can only be explained by the catastrophically unfit for purpose regulatory environment that was Labour's planning system. Put simply, the failure of planners and government to make sure new developments benefited local residents, meant there was always massive opposition to them, and quality family housing wasn't delivered.

I fear the planners have not yet understood this. With the regrettable postponement of the A14 upgrade, the current planning policies prohibit significant growth at Northstowe and the NIAB site in North West Cambridge. Even now, planners want to change the planning policies to allow these developments to go ahead even if the A14 isn't upgraded. That would be a major mistake - the urgent task is to get the A14 and other transport improvements back on the agenda as soon as possible, and only when these are being built, to consider building the houses. When we need to convince people that new developments will bring real benefits in areas like transport, the last thing we need is new developments that demonstrably fail this test.

Lighten up, Labour!

Reading Labour's local, somewhat unmagnanimous, victory newsletter it seems that Labour councillors are a little rattled at the work we have been doing in the ward.

We are used to Labour councillors whinging at us for supposedly 'taking credit' for their work but in reality they are just having difficulty recognising how hard we have been working in recent years and how effective Chris is as a ward councillor.

Some of Labour's favourite areas for this complaint are:

Kelvin Close - Cllr Howell spoke out effectively against unsuitable planning applications and campaigned against the then Labour governments's garden-grabbing policies. Coleridge Conservatives took our concerns about the planning system right to the top in the Shadow Cabinet.

Charges for disabled adaptations - Cllr Howell had challenged council officers on this subject before speaking out on the issue at a meeting of the Housing Management Board.

In contrast, Coleridge Conservatives actually welcome the involvement of our political opponents in issues on which we have led such as City Homes South and the Ashbury Close/Golding Road cycle path - that is what voters deserve. There is no doubt that since Coleridge Conservatives came on the scene in force, making this a marginal ward, residents have benefitted from extra attention from both sides. (The Lib Dems ignore Coleridge.)

The two big campaigns of recent years, saving Marshall's Airport and congestion charging are areas where Labour have tried to paint local Conservatives on the wrong side of the argument in the knowledge that that did not reflect the truth.

Marshall's Airport - Conservatives were first to expose the dangers of Labour's housing targets over ten years ago but Labour dismissed our warnings as scaremongering before waging a long newspaper letter-writing campaign to claim we were for the development.

Congestion charge - City Tories have opposed congestion charging ever since local Lib Dems expressed their love of the concept but Cambridge Labour kept trying to pin the Labour government's congestion charge blackmail on local Tories. I would have voted against the TIF bid if elected to the county council in 2009 but Labour's county councillor actually voted for it, with a sycophantic defence of the Labour government!

If Labour want to claim dirty tricks we could remind them of their attempts to skew our residents' surveys with dodgy responses - not helpful for residents - or the rather amusing 'Tawrie Bluebird'. A bit of self awareness would help! We know it is often hard for died-in-the-wool socialists to acknowledge positive traits in Conservatives and they can tend to 'hear' what they want to hear but my advice for local Labour councillors is to lighten up... we have always been keen to work with our political opponents for the benefit of local residents and nothing has changed in that regard... so how about that pint, Lewis?

Cherry Hinton Care Home Redevelopment Begins

Work has now started on the controversial extension to the nursing home at 369 Cherry Hinton Road. Two semi-detached houses have already been demolished, and the site is being prepared for construction.

There has already been an issue over the removal of some trees that were due to be retained in the approved plans, so this morning I was at a site meeting this morning including planners, the developers and local residents, to talk through this and any other issues.

The trees at the front of the site were removed in error - and the developer has reassured me that similar trees (and more) will be replanted when the work is complete.

Another issue of interest that has arisen (particularly for the planning appeal being held in July against the refusal of permission for a development at the other end of the close) is the level of the water table - apparently it is very high - a test hole filled immediately with water. Perhaps not unrelated to this, the road further up the close is currently very unstable - the developers have stopped lorries reversing there in case the road or pavement collapses.

I will be following up this issue with the highways department, and the developer has promised to keep residents informed about progress on the works (due to last 40 weeks). If there are any further comments about the site, please be in touch and I can pass them on.

Cherry Hinton Road Resurfacing

Quick reminder - the long awaited resurfacing work on Cherry Hinton Road (Perne Rd to Cherry Hinton) is due to start at some point over the next week. Expect a few delays...

Have your say on Mill Road Festive Lights

A message from the Mill Road Festive Lights Association:

"What did you think of Mill Road’s first ever Christmas Switch On last year?

What Lights do you want to see in 2010?

The Mill Road Festive Lights Association will be holding its first AGM at 7pm on Tuesday 29th June at Ross Street Community Centre – see the map below.

Everyone is welcome to come along, and free refreshments will be provided.

There will be a review of the first ever Mill Road Lights last year, and you can help us decide how and when we switch the Lights on this year – plus what new Lights you want to see for 2010.

We will also be electing officers to the committee, and we are looking to the local community to get involved. As well as the job of putting the Lights up and planning the Switch On, we need people to speak to Mill Road traders, and we also need help with fundraising and publicity. If you live near Mill Road, or if you care about the area, then we want to hear from you!

Please help us publicise this event by passing this information on, or print off our poster and put it in your windows -

http://millroadfestivelights.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/agm-poster-2010.pdf

To see the full agenda or read the proposed constitution, please go to our website: www.millroadfestivelights.co.uk"

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.

Councils told to publish expenditure over £500

The Conservative decentralisation, or localism, plan does not just mean handing powers down from central government to councils, it also means handing power directly to people. Conservatives believe in treating adults like adults and understand that people will rise to the opportunity if given responsibility. That is why Conservative policy is being enacted by the new government to publish all items of expenditure over £25,000 and why Eric Pickles is requesting councils to publish all spending over £500. This ties in with another Conservative campaign on transparency and openness in general.

By publishing expenditure freely for everyone to see people will be able to scrutinise public bodies to such an extent that it will be difficult for the bodies to get away with wasting public money so easily as they currently do. The change will also make it easier for local suppliers to bid for contracts which will be great news for the small businesses which have been so badly hit during the recession and on which our recovery will depend.

Chris Howell had already urged the city council to follow the best practices showcased by Conservative-run councils like the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, which already publishes all expenditure over £500.

It will be important that councils release the data in a format that can be manipulated systematically and I am sure that groups such as mySociety will be quick off the mark with interesting and useful tools for analysing the data.

It seems that the new policy is due to be effective by January, but why wait? Coleridge Conservatives call on Cambridge City Council to end its culture of secrecy and start publishing the data as soon as possible. The Openness motion of which Chris supported the strengthening last year already called for change but what progress has been made?