East Area Committee

East Area Committee is back this Thursday, 14th April at 7pm, Cherry Trees Day Centre, St Matthew's Street.

Neighbourhood policing is on the agenda. None of the policing priorities for the last period covered Coleridge and all are recommended for discharge and there are no recommended priorities for the next period so councillors will be working from a blank sheet.

Without Conservative Chris Howell to push the case for the speeding priority that was dropped a while ago although it's worth reading about the traffic policing session that the policy undertook in Coleridge as part of their 'beat sweep' across the east area.

Friday also saw 4 officers from the Roads Policing Unit (RPU) assist us. Their task was to deal with speeding through Coleridge, the anti social use of vehicles and other road traffic related matters. The following is a breakdown of their results:

• 1 driver reported for speeding
• 13 drivers prosecuted for driving whilst using a mobile phone
• 4 drivers prosecuted for not wearing seat belts
• 1 driver reported for not having current road tax
• 2 drivers reported for the condition of their vehicles
• 2 drivers reported for no insurance
• 1 vehicle seized as there was no insurance policy in place
• 2 drivers reported for vehicle defects
• 1 driver reported for driving through a red light
• 1 person arrested for the offence of going equipped to steal
• 1 vehicle stopped in relation to rogue trading intelligence

A lot of work on drugs was also reported - it is good to see the police following leads from the local community - often residents feel that they are being ignored on this sort of thing.

The controversial item on the agenda will be libraries, when fervently ideological opposition (to the Conservative cabinet on the county council) councillors will whip up outrage over plans to make the library service viable in a tough fiscal environment. I hope that they will engage with trying to save the libraries instead, otherwise it'll just be a waste of time - I could write out the script right now if that's the case.

Elsewhere in Coleridge the 28th Cambridge Scout Group and St Martin's Church look set to receive significant capital grants towards the scout hut and hall respectively. These are worthwhile causes.

There are no planning applications up for decision at this meeting in Coleridge.

Debating the Alternative Vote

Coleridge Conservative Branch Chairman Richard Normington will be putting the case for First Past The Post in a public debate on the AV referendum on Monday evening, 7.30pm at St Luke's Church, Victoria Road.

Say no to mediocracy—rule by the mediocre!

Don't let Labour do to your council what they did to the country

David Cameron's party political broadcast for the local elections:

Saving Rock Road Library

There is a public meeting organised by the 'Friends of Rock Road Library' tonight at 7.30pm, Wednesday 2nd March 2011, at the library to explore the future of the library.

As we reported last year, the Conservatives at the county council are determined to keep open local libraries in Cambridgeshire and so are looking to find ways to continue the service despite needing to rationalise spending. Any ideas raised by the community at the meeting will be helpful.

South Cambridgeshire District Council retained

Yesterday voters showed their support for a low-taxing Conservative council that has already got its house in order and doesn't need to make significant reductions to service this year.

Neighbouring South Cambs District Council was held by the Tories by one seat as voters in Bourn and Cambourne elected Clayton Hudson with 56% of the vote.

It's great to have a good example nearby of what a Conservative council can do. City Conservatives will be making the case at the forthcoming city council elections for a more efficient council that gets the basics right.

Meanwhile the latest from the Department of Communities and Local Government: Stop the non-jobs!

One day to complete 'community safety' survey

The sham consultation for the 'Cambridgeshire Community Safety Partnership' and its priorities for 2011 to 2014 closes tomorrow.

The options available, to councillors and members of the public alike, are to select three of the following five priorities. That is it:

• Repeat incidents of anti-social behaviour
• Cycle theft
• Re-offending
• Alcohol-related violent crime in the city centre
• Repeat victims of domestic violence

An earlier, very unscientific, prefiltering exercise eliminated other possible priorities like burglary (a high priority to city residents).

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.