Ashes Cricket Comes to Cambridge

In case you were wondering about the barriers being erected on Parkers Piece at the moment...

Cambridge City Council is hosting the nPower Cricket in the Park event on Parker's Piece this weekend

The English Cricket Board and nPower are providing a free cricket carnival and big screen on Parkers Piece so that people can enjoy the excitement of watching Sky Sports' coverage of the third Ashes test between England and Australia live from Egbaston whilst enjoying cricket activities and a fun day out.

The Council’s Sports Development Service and Cambridgeshire Cricket Board will be working alongside the event to provide information and opportunities promoting cricket to people of all ages and abilities.

The event takes place on both Saturday and Sunday and doors are open from 10.00am to 8.30pm. Further information can be found at the ECB’s Cricket in the Park website: www.ecb.co.uk/cricketinthepark

Tiverton House Planning Battle Hots up

The planners at the City Council must dread opening their inbox when they see an email from Coleridge Councillors at the moment, but there are similar concerns to those expressed in the Mill Road Tesco situation over at Tiverton House. In both cases the developers, large enterprises that should know what they are doing, are just going ahead with plans that they arguably don't have permission for.

To recap - the new owners of Tiverton house are carrying out extensive works on the building, for which they have not applied for a certificate of lawful use, nor received any planning permission (yet).

What they have done is to work from very early in the morning, sometimes until 9.30pm at night, put velux windows in the roof, installed huge steel girders, created vast amounts of additional bedroom space, and the only planning application is to convert the warden's flat into 2 flats, and to create cycle parking for about a dozen bikes - they think they can get away without planning permission for any of the other works.

The developers wanted the Council's opinion on the relevant planning issues, so the Council has written to them and placed their response on the planning file. Some extracts from the letter and my comments:

"I see from the drawings submitted that there are more external changes than were suggested when we met. For all that, the changes to openings within the walls and the introduction of some glazing to existing doors (albeit that they were previously fire doors), appears to me to be minor and not to, “materially affect the external appearance of the building”. Clearly however, this can be a personal view and not one necessarily shared by others."

On its own maybe, but not immaterial in the context of all the other changes.

"The alteration to the roof by the introduction of the velux rooflights is, again, a change, but the issue is whether it is one that, “materially affect(s) the external appearance of the building”. The legal test is whether the change will be visible from a number of normal vantage points and the materiality of the change must be assessed in relation to the building as a whole and not to a part of the building in isolation. Having had the advantage of seeing the rooflights in situ, which clearly can be seen from a number of normal vantage points, I am personally of the view that given the expanse of roof involved, and the angles at which much of the roof is seen, the rooflights do not materially affect the external appearance of the building taken as a whole. However, as I said when we met, that is a personal judgement only and may not be shared by others, including Members."

Indeed, this member of the Council does think there is a significant visual impact.

"As a general matter, it would appear that there are inconsistencies between your earlier drawings and what is happening on site and it would be useful to have a correct set of drawings with the planning application."

It would indeed be useful.

"As the planning application already addresses the matter of some cycle provision, I am of the opinion that those matters could be included within the current planning application and considered by Committee on 3 September, provided the information is forwarded shortly. In saying this I am conscious that the current application shows very different provision from that shown on the plans that accompanied your letter.

It is also my understanding that the provision being shown is considerably less than that being suggested by Environmental Health colleagues and I have some reservations about location relative to some of the accommodation. In visiting other accommodation (albeit occupied by students), I have been very conscious of how much space is required and how a site can rapidly deteriorate when the proper provision is not made at the outset."

It is going to be very difficult to get appropriate levels of cycle parking, car parking and refuse collection areas on such a small site considering the increase in bed spaces planned.

"What is also at issue, however, is whether the changes being undertaken are an intensification of the use of the site that constitutes a change of use requiring planning permission. As I have said before, it is a matter of fact and degree. On the surface, the increase in numbers of bedspaces from in the order of perhaps 40 to 96 bedspaces would appear to be significant and would constitute a change of use"

I couldn't agree more - 40 bedspaces of sheltered housing to 96 bedrooms likely to be occupied by students - surely this intensification constitutes a change of use that requires a planning application covering the whole scheme, so that residents and Councillors can get across the view that what is planned for the site it totally inappropriate and shouldn't be allowed.

I hope there are some Lib Dem Councillors reading this - to understand how angry local residents are with their decision to flog off Tiverton House to the highest bidder with no regard for the use planned for the site, and see how the planning situation is now panning out, with local ward Councillors desperately fighting to ensure there is some form of meaningful input for local residents on the substantive plans for the site through the planning system.

Tesco Pressing Ahead

I am urgently trying to establish the planning department's view on how the planning condition relating to no deliveries from Mill Road can be enforced most effectively, Tesco meanwhile seem to be pressing on with opening plans regardless of any obstacles...

(Photo from Tesco's on the Leisure Park)

Tesco Licensing Premises Application

The deadline for representations on Tesco's application for a premises licence to sell alcohol from their planned Mill Road store closes tomorrow. Many thanks for all those who have copied me in to their representations - for info, most but not all were opposing the application.

As part of this process, I've learnt a bit about the process for making representations - which it appears is much narrower than for planning applications - you must be an interested party (which for most people means local resident), and address concerns in specific categories relating to licensing objectives. Local Councillors have no special right to comment as a local representative - if asked I can represent a constituent, but only to help put across that constituents views (I haven't been asked!). I am however a local resident in my own right, so have made representations on this issue, pasted below, which outline my views on the issue.

Meanwhile, Tesco's seem to have got started with the store conversion - with or without a licence to sell alcohol, permission for air conditioning or a plan for how they are going to deliver to the store:

"I am writing as someone living in the vicinity of the premises concerning the licensing application by Tesco Stores Ltd, 163-167 Mill Road, Cambridge

The representations relate to the prevention of crime and disorder, the protection of children from harm and public safety.

I am writing as a local resident, although as a local Councillor I am also aware of many concerns raised by constituents in neighbouring Coleridge ward about the problems of alcohol related crime and disorder.

Many areas and recreation grounds in Coleridge suffer from late night underage drinking parties – the local area is a pilot area in Cambridge for the Community Alcohol Partnership between Trading Standards and the police that aims to tackle underage drinking in public places. This partnership has identified that as well as buying alchohol themselves, young people also obtain alcohol by persuading adults to buy it for them.

There are also well documented problems with alcohol related crime disorder and anti-social behaviour in Mill Road that led to the introduction of the cumulative impact zone.

It is fully possible that a new license to sell alcohol can be issued that doesn’t contribute to these problems, for example, a responsible alcohol vendor with very well controlled sales staff, that doesn’t specialise in selling alcohol at low prices in terms of cost per unit of alcohol. In these circumstances I would have no objections in principle to the issue of a new alcohol licence on Mill Road despite the cumulative impact zone. This is presumably why the assumption that new licences will not be granted in cumulative impact zones is rebuttable.

With regards to the specifics of the proposed Tesco site, there is the issue of how the store will be delivered. A re-run of the planning arguments against the opening of this store by Tesco is clearly not appropriate, but one aspect is clearly relevant to the licensing application.

I understand that there is a planning condition on the site that prohibits delivery from the store. Delivery from Mill Road will add considerably to the dangers to cyclists using the road, and therefore is an issue of public safety.

The question therefore is the extent to which Tesco can give assurances that it will act in a very responsible way when selling alcohol, and address these concerns.

I would be opposed to Tesco being granted a license to sell alcohol on Mill Road unless they can:

Demonstrate that it has robust procedures specifically appropriate to the Mill Road context to avoid sale of alcohol that would end up with people who are likely to cause crime and disorder on Mill Road, or underage people likely to drink in Coleridge ward, along with management undertakings that these procedures will be rigorously monitored and enforced.

Undertake not to engage in irresponsible alcohol promotions or the sale of very cheap alcohol (as it arguably does do in some of its stores) which is likely to encourage irresponsible drinking, or

likely to encourage other local retailers to respond with promotions of their own.

Undertake not to deliver supplies relating to the license from Mill Road, and to comply with all other planning regulations."

Government betrays Cambridgeshire over funds for growth

Yesterday's Cambridge News revealed that the Government will be cutting £6 million of funds that had been allocated to help Cambridgeshire deal with the housing growth being imposed centrally by the Government.

Cllr Ray Manning, the Conservative leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council put it perfectly when he said (my emphasis):

"Removing this crucial infrastructure funding will put us in a very difficult position and could put existing projects in jeopardy. I very much doubt, however, that the government will reduce housing targets accordingly.

"We want to see new homes and communities that we will be proud of – not developments without the schools, health services and community facilities necessary to make them work."

Hot on the heals of other scandals such as the negative housing subsidy to Cambridge (sounds a bit like a 'zero percent rise', doesn't it?) and under-funded 'free' concessionary bus fares, it rather looks as if the Government doesn't care about Cambridge.

Transport Commission Report Published

The transport commission published its findings at 5.30pm today.

The key recommendations from the Executive Sumary were:

"1. Cambridgeshire County Council submit a full TIF bid to secure resources from Government to make improvements to cycling, walking and public transport, broadly in line with the proposals set out in Appendix 2 to our report.

2. Cambridgeshire County Council inform the Government that it has not ruled out the introduction of a congestion charging regime, but that it accepts the clear evidence that such a regime would be unacceptable without a programme of investment, including the TIF investment proposals, A14 widening and Chesterton Station and in any case no such scheme should be introduced without further public information and consultation, and not before 2017 at the earliest."

It is difficult to see how this moves things on much further. Congestion charging simply isn't acceptable to a large part of the electorate, as the full report (p48-49) acknowledges. Yes we will need the transport infrastructure improvements outlined in the recommendations - but if the government doesn't want to fund this without using Cambridge as a congestion charging guinea pig, then we should tell it we aren't going to co-operate with any of their plans to swamp the subregion with massive new housing developments - its as simple as that.

Freedom of Information Victory

You could say that last Thursday's Full Council meeting was slightly less predictable than usual...

Motions to Full Council are usually just a way of setting out a party line - opposition Councillors put down a motion to try shifting the Council's opinion, the ruling Lib Dems then amend the motion by getting rid of it and replacing it with some meaningless guff about how wonderfully the Council is already responding to said problem. Occassionally the Lib Dems don't bother about waiting for the opposition motion, and go straight to the self-congratulation.

An example of the latter was the Lib Dems motion designed to set out how they are going to improve the availability of information to the public, particularly in the area of Freedom of Information requests and Councillor expenses.

Personally, I have long been calling for complete openness at the Council - the default should be that all information is publicly available (unless there is a good reason not to, such as publishing would put the Council at a commercially disadvantageous situation, or for classes of information like personal emails that would require so much editing for data protection, they should only be available through a specific Freedom of information request). But in the areas the motion dealt with specifically, I think the Council should certainly be publishing (almost) all Freedom of Information requests, and all of the Council's responses, as well as detailed information about all allowances, expenses and benefits to Councillors. Apart from the fact that allowances are generally too high in local government - we don't want to create a new class of professional or semi-professional politicians locally - I don't think the expenses claimed in Cambridge City would be a cause for great controversy, but we should publish everything and let the public decide.

You would have thought the Lib Dems would also be in favour of this, but a few of them were decidedly luke warm (I had one Lib Dem criticise me privately for supporting calls to publish Councillors usage of car park passes...), the original motion was far too woolly, and didn't commit the Council to enough action.

I did have an amendment prepared, but unfortunately you need a seconder, and there is only one of me. As Labour had a similar amendment, we combined the text and Labour presented it as their amendment. Remarkably, the Lib Dems agreed with the amendment, and then setout making minor changes to the amendment to allow it to go forward. Full Council doesn't pass motions requiring significant financial resources - they would need to be accompanied by budget amendments, so the output of motions is usually to get a report brough back to committee outlining how the principles can be implemented. In this case however, I think we may have gone much further than usual, and could have come up with something that genuinely changes the way the Council operates. As I see it, the amendment I helped draft in the final agreed motion commits the Council to:

• Aspire to make information available online by default.
• The Council will publish all Freedom of Information requests and responses online (unless there is reason not to like a request being libellous etc) (similar to www.whatdotheyknow.com)
• The Council will publish details of all Councillor's allowances, expenses, benefits in kind etc

I think when the officers sit down to work out how they are going to implement all this, they may have kittens, but overall I think last Thursday will go down as a good day for Freedom of Information at the City Council.