Holiday Snap

I've just returned from a week's holiday, cycling in Ireland. Fortunately we managed to avoid the worst of the rain, and had some great days cycling through lovely countryside.

After a blissful week away, the chaos left a week ago hasn't gone anywhere - chiefly the fact that last week my landlord has returned from 18 months working in Russia and very unreasonably wants his house back! House hunting over the last few weeks has given a real insight into how housing and planning policies over the last few years have affected those who need to live in Cambridge - more of this later when I finally get the keys to a new home - at which point I will have house moving to look forward to.

Many thanks to Andrew Bower for blogging on the Post Office consultation meeting last week - many Coleridge residents will already have met Andrew as he has been working with the Conservative team in Coleridge for some time, and helped me a lot canvassing at the last two elections here, so is really up to speed on the local issues.

I hope to blog updates from the last couple over weeks on the key ward issues as I catch up over the next few days.

Post Office Closure Public Meeting

The City Council hosted a public meeting last night on how Labour's Post Office closure plan will affect Cambridge. The panel consisted of two Post Office representatives, a representative of the independent watchdog Postwatch and four local politicians.

Unfortunately, since the Lib Dems forced the council to change the date of the meeting to allow their own MP to attend, instead neither Chris Howell nor South Cambridgeshire Conservative MP Andrew Lansley were able to be present. However, Prospective Parliamentary Candidate Richard Normington (left in photo) was on the panel to put the case for loosening Labour's constraints on Post Offices, allowing them to become commercially viable and therefore survive as the key community resource that they are.

In a refreshing outbreak of agreement between politicians, all agreed that Post Offices are vital for some sections of the community as well being valuable to virtually everyone. However, Labour's parliamentary hopeful was looking a little isolated as he tried to defend his party's indefensible plan.

An important message that came out of the discussions was that while we should all put the case to defend the specific post offices that are under threat, such as St John's on Hills Road, we must also tell the government what we think about their rigid target to lose 2500 Post Offices, in the hope that they will change their minds. Considering how many U-turns Gordon Brown has performed in the last year and that 20 of his own MPs rebelled over Post Offices, we shouldn't give up on trying to replace the plan at the top level. While your local Labour representatives haven't opposed the plans in public yet, we hope that they are putting pressure on their Westminster colleagues in private.

The most productive element of the meeting was discussion of ideas for how to make Post Offices more commercially viable. This is the cornerstone of the Conservative Post Office Action Plan:

The key parts of our plan are:

• Freeing up Sub-Postmasters
• Using Post Offices as Government GP service
• Campaigning on the Post Office Card Account
• Encouraging 'Council Counters'
  

The importance of freeing up Sub-Postmasters was emphasised when a Sub-Postmaster for elsewhere in the county mentioned that she had been asking to be allowed to offer popular extra services at her branch but was not allowed to do so.

The great tragedy about the closure plan is that so much of it could be avoided. The fact that profitable branches could close under the scheme illustrates how ill-thought out it is, while the fact that branches can only be saved at the expense of others shows how uncaring it is.

The deadline for responses to the formal consultation is 26th August 2008. Responses must be sent by e-mail to consultation@postoffice.co.uk or by post to:

National Consultation Team
Post Office Ltd
FREEPOST CONSULTATION TEAM

It is recommended that responses are copied to Postwatch at info@postwatch.co.uk or "FREEPOST POSTWATCH".

According to Post Office Limited, responses must refer to errors and omissions from the Branch Access Reports drawn up for Post Offices targeted for closure. See pages 49, 55, 61 for Cambridge branches. Further guidance is available from the City Council.

Andrew Lansley MP joins Post Office fight

Local MP Andrew Lansley visited Coleridge this week to help the campaign to save St Johns Post Office, which is threatened by Labour's latest Post Office closure program.

I joined Andrew to discuss with the sub postmaster the branch usage and how local residents might be affected, including:

• The lack of post office facilities for the hundreds of new homes being built near to this Post Office.
• The lack of post office facilities for many people in the South of the City, including staff at Addenbrokes.
• The students living in the area, and the consultation deadline closing prior to their return.
• The limited opening hours of the nearest alternative post office.
• The range of services that the post office allows each branch to offer.

Andrew will be feeding back his own comments to the Post Office.

Many thanks to Andrew for visiting Coleridge and joining the fight to save St Johns post office - some customers were slightly surprised to discover that St John's Post Office whilst in Coleridge ward is also currently in Andrew's South Cambridgeshire parliamentary constituency, along with other parts of the ward south of Cherry Hinton Road!

Folk Festival Thoughts

Firstly many congratulations to the City Council Arts and Entertainments staff who put on another brilliant Cambridge Folk Festival last weekend.

As a Councillor for a neighbouring ward, I would obviously be keen to hear any feedback from local residents, good or bad about how the festival was run this year. But after many years there is considerable expertise, and as a major festival site in a residential area, considerable effort goes in to minimising the hassles for those local residents who may not appreciate the music or the revellers, so I hope there were no major issues.

When I was a Councillor previously in Cherry Hinton, a question heard more than once from a minority of people is why does the Festival have to be held in Cherry Hinton Hall, the site is too small etc it should be moved to Coldhams Common or elsewhere in the City. I disagree - the site is a part of the festival, and although there are many visitors from outside Cambridge, for many local residents the Folk Festival is a key part of their arts and entertainment calendar - long may it continue.

I will have a couple of comments for the organisers. Firstly, although the weather could have been worse, the rain showers will have resulted in some damage to the grass. After torrential rain some years ago there was considerable damage and the repairs were less than ideal - we need to make sure any damage this year is fixed as soon and as well as possible to bring all of the park back into use. Then there is my pet topic of cycle parking:

It would be nice if there was more temporary cycle parking on site to avoid bikes being chained to every available road sign and fence in the area.

But I suspect the most significant issue for the Festival going forwards is that of ticket pricing. In recent years, Councillors have repeatedly raised questions at Council meetings about ticketing arrangements, as demand significantly exceeded supply, and many categories of ticket sold out instantly overwhelming systems. But with ticket prices going up over a number of years, and Gordon Brown's mismanged economy sending household spending power spiralling in the opposite direction, supply and demand may have now met in the middle. Although a sell out this year, this took longer, and I was certainly able to buy a ticket a week before at less than face value. It was a similar situation with tickets at this year's Glastonbury Festival. Last time I looked at the finances for the Folk Festival (some years ago admittedly), although the accounts are muddied by 'central overhead recharges' from the Council (which make trying to understand any part of the Councils budget a nightmare), it looked like the Festival makes a modest contribution to Council finances. This equation would rapidly move the other way if the Festival ceased to sell out, so there is a risk with any further increase in ticket prices. Personally I still think the festival represents fantastic value for money, but ticket prices could represent a tricky call for organisers next year...

Persistent Traffic Offenders to Face Action

The County Council has published the following notice that they intend to take action against persistent non-payers of parking fines, with action commencing today. Motorists are generally over taxed and over harrassed, but nothing annoys people more than seeing people 'playing the system' and ignoring charges that more responsible people (e.g. because they also haven't registered the car properly). This sounds like an excellent plan from the County Council.

"Notice is hereby given that Cambridgeshire County Council, under the powers contained in the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 (as amended) and the Traffic Management Act 2004 (as amended), intends, from 4 August 2008, to commence with the removal of vehicles parked in contravention of a road traffic regulation order where the owner or keeper has persistently evaded payment of penalty charge notices previously issued and to introduce additional charges in relation to the removal of those vehicles.

A vehicle which has been removed shall be released upon payment of:

a.) the penalty charge amount; and
b.) the additional parking charge of £105 and any vehicle storage fee which is currently £12 per day, or part of a day, during which the vehicle has been impounded.

The charge for any vehicle that is disposed of is £50.

The Department for Transport define a Persistent Evader as a vehicle owner with three or more recorded contraventions for the vehicle and the Penalty Charge amount for these have not been paid, represented against or appealed against within the statutory time limits, or the representations and appeals have been rejected but they have still not paid. Motorists are reminded that vehicles not recovered within the appropriate timescales may be disposed of."

Cycle Parking Again

The East Area committee last night didn't just discuss refrigeration plant and equipment - it also talked about environmental improvement schemes for East Area. One small part of this I found particularly annoying in view of my previous concerns about cycle parking in new developments - I have just sent the following to the planning department:

At East Area Committee last night, Councillors were presented with an environmental improvement project for Fairsford Place cycle parking.

The officers report states:
'This potential scheme has been requested by residents on this fairly new development which does not cater well for cycle parking.'

Although the sum of money to be spent is relatively small (estimated less than £3k), I am deeply concerned both that new development is allowed in Cambridge with insufficient cycle parking space, and that the Council should now be picking up the bill for rectifying this.

I would like to understand if the problem in this case is failure of the developer to comply with agreed planning permission and conditions, failure to enforce existing local plan minimum cycling parking standards by the Council when granting permission, or inadequacy of the local plan standards.

Could you please let me know:
What planning permissions have been granted in Fairsford Place?
What provision the agreed plans made for cycle parking?
How the provision agreed compares to the local plan?

Tesco Defeated at East Area Committee

After around two hours of discussion about the planning merits or otherwise of the installation of a small amount of refrigeration equipment on the back of a shop in Mill Road, Tesco's suffered a defeat at the hands of Councillors on the East Area Committee. Cllrs Smart and Wright voted to oppose the application, whilst Councillors Blencowe, Hebert, Hart and Walker abstained, defeating the proposal. In line with my previous policy, I didn't vote on the application, but did speak to highlight what I saw as the two key issues and ask those deciding to consider them:

Does the fact that Tesco's would like permission for a some refrigeration equipment to be installed before opening a shop mean that all the planning issues related to a Tesco's opening (mainly the traffic impact from deliveries) become factors in whether or not to approve the refrigeration equipment? I suspect not, the officers and Council's legal advisers said not, but in view of the complaints citing this reasoning and the crucial nature of the argument, I argued that Councillors should have received independent legal advice citing previous case law on this point before approving.

Secondly, despite the Council telling Tescos in no uncertain terms to dot the i's and cross the t's on their acoustic impact report, the original efforts from their consultant appeared to be somewhat flawed, to put it mildly. In this case, I suggested, Tesco needed to get their story straight and demonstrate they had done the right investigatory work to prove their proposals complied with local planning policies about noise pollution before permission should be granted.

If the above two concerns had been addressed, I think I would have struggled to have recommended anything other than approval. In the event, 2 Councillors voted to reject the application, which was enough to defeat it. I have to say I'm still a bit confused as to how they phrased their objections to marry the evidence to the planning policies, but that was the result. I can only imagine the grief that a certain acoustic consultant will be put through by some Tesco managers next week.

Many congratulations to all those in the No Mill Road Tesco campaign, who have vigourously opposed Tescos applications. My prediction that this application would get through has been proved wrong. I'm now playing double or quits, and predicting that there will be an appeal against this decision arriving with the planning inspector in the very near future. In the meantime, life goes on at the Mill Road Social Centre...