Tenants lose out in Digital Changeover

The City Council has previously maintained communal TV aerial for its tenants - and most private sector tenants would expect the same from their landlords as well.

But I think they have a mess on their hands with their plans for the digital changeover. The Council plan for communal digital aerials on City Homes residences that are 3 or more stories high (i.e. very few in Coleridge), and have basically told residents in building 2 storeys high they need to make their own arrangements, and unhelpfully added that they will probably need planning permission.

I've followed this up with the planning department, and the situation on planning permission for aerials is far from straightforward - to be more precise:

"Part 25 Class B deals with buildings less than 15m in height and limits the number of antennas that can be put up without the need for permission to 2, of which only one may exceed 60cm in length and neither of which may exceed 100cm in length.  Furthermore, any antenna

-       attached to a chimney must not exceed 60 cm in length and must not exceed the height of the chimney; and

-       must not have a cubic capacity in excess of 35 litres; and

-       no part of an antenna installed on a roof without a chimney shall exceed the highest part of the roof on which it is installed; and

-       an antenna installed on a roof with a chimney must not exceed the height of the chimney stack or 60cm above the highest ridge tile, whichever is lower.

The length of an antenna is measured in any linear direction and shall exclude any projecting feed element, reinforcing trim, mounting or brackets."

The Council just telling tenants they 'may need planning permission' and leaving them to get on with it when so many people are affected by this is not very helpful.

The Council needs to rethink its decision and arrange to make digital aerials available to all tenants - but at the very least where it would be better to have a smaller number of communal aerials on two storey buildings, City Homes should be making the arrangements and dealing with the planning complexities. The current policies are unacceptable.

Works planned for Station Road

The contractors for the guided bus have provided notification of some road works and traffic management from 3 May for two weeks for the new bus/rail interchange at the station:

As part of the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway scheme BAM Nuttall are building a new bus interchange at the Railway Station.

The final phase to complete the interchange is to carry out work to tie in the new interchange area with the roundabout outside Cambridge Railway Station entrance.

To carry out this work safely traffic management will be put into place on the night of Monday 3 May 2010. The works will commence on Tuesday 4 May and last for approximately 2 weeks, including working at the weekends.

The traffic management restrictions will be in place and operated 24 hours a day with works taking place between 7am and 8pm. The traffic management cannot be removed at night as it would leave the road in an unsafe condition.

Please find attached a detailed sketch of the proposed traffic management that will be in place for these works.

To explain in more detail. There will be traffic lights controlling the roundabout for the duration of the works. Buses will not be using the roundabout; instead they will carry out a U-turn in front of it when they are given a green light by the temporary traffic signals.

All other vehicles will use the roundabout as normal although the carriageway width will be restricted. Access to the car park, disabled parking, taxi ranks, cycle park and other buildings will remain as normal.

The footpath on the south side of the road will be closed, but access will be maintained to all buildings, part from the Railway Station. People wishing to access the Railway Station should use the path on the north side of the road.

Please expect some delays due to the volume of traffic in the area and allow some more time for your journey.

Should you have any queries regarding the works please contact BAM Nuttall on 01954 785200.

Conservative City Council Manifesto launched

Today City Conservatives launched our manifesto for the city council outside City Homes South on Cherry Hinton Road.



A Conservative vote in Cambridge is a vote to set a path towards:

• Lower council tax, with a focus on better basic services
• A planning system that protects Cambridge's heritage, and puts local residents in control
• More frequent refuse and recycling collections
• Promoting sport in the run up to the Olympics
• Supporting better transport of all types, public and private
• Open and accountable governance
  

We recognise that when asking people to make sacrifices during tough times politicians should lead by example, that is why we are proposing to cut councillor allowances by 10%, contributing £25k towards cutting council tax.

Vote for Change in Romsey

Why Government is so expensive, part II

A few days ago I wrote about why government is so expensive, and why the Conservatives are right that it is not only better to reduce the cost of government (rather than increase taxes) to fix Labour's debt crisis, it is mandatory. I said:

 'Partnership working' is another recent entry in public sector buzzword bingo - in theory, great, it means (I think) public bodies working together to try running services better. In practice, there are pots of money available from government for their pet projects, whole teams of project managers and press officers producing plans to demonstrate that the right boxes are being ticked to show people are working together - along with endless meetings and powerpoint presentations taking up vast amounts of time, and involving senior public sector employees

As if by magic, an example turns up. The Community Alcohol Partnership from the humble Councillor's point of view is simply the police working with trading standards to tackle underage drinking, and they had been working in Coleridge as part of a pilot project. They visited places like Coleridge Rec on a friday or saturday night in response to complaints about under-age drinking, so the police can confiscate alcohol and contact parents as necessary, and trading standards can work with the shops who sold the alcohol to find out how it came into the possession of under 18s, and try to stop those sales in future.

All very sensible - except all seemed to have gone quiet from the community alcohol partnership, so this week I made enquiries as to what had happened to it - here is the reply:

As you had observed there has been less activity in recent weeks.

There are a couple of reasons for this.  Firstly, the Adult Alcohol Commissioning Group are now acting as the CAP Board to oversee the roll-out of all CAPs in the county (including the existing ones) This measure was put in place earlier this year primarily to address some of the issues that had arisen. For example, they found that, without any formal structure or agreements, the representation of some partners on the working group changed several times - and some new representatives did not consider CAP a priority. This made it difficult to undertake any activities requiring input of certain partners.

The CAP Board will oversee and commit resources to the CAP (i.e. influence the CAP on the ground - making sure the working group has the necessary resources to deliver the relevant activities) and by getting formal agreements signed by each partner (SLAs) of their contribution to the scheme. A Terms of Reference for the working group and the SLAs will be drafted shortly and we hope to have these signed ASAP.

In addition, there is currently an evaluation of the CAP's work by xxx Ltd which will identify how the CAP can be improved as they move forward. It is anticipated that some of the aforementioned formal agreements and structures will be among the suggested improvements going forward. Once the evaluation report is published the CAP Board can consider the findings and influence how the CAP continues in the city.

And to think that if you believe Labour, it is vital we have so much government and any cost cutting would immediately impact doctors, nurses and teachers on the front line - absolute nonsense. One Conservative policy I really like is the idea of a directly elected police chief. Someone local residents can hold accountable, and to thom they could say that they just want the police to work with other groups to tackle the problem of underage drinking in their neighbourhood, and if they can't do it without a commissioning group, an oversight board, contracts, service level agreements, and a consultants report, they won't be in charge for very much longer...

New Wine Merchants for Cherry Hinton Road

The former Wine Rack shop on Cherry Hinton Road, that shut after the parent company went into administration  last year looks set to reopen as a branch Cambridge Wine Merchants, who have just submitted an alcohol premises license application for the shop.

They are a local specialist chain with branches on Mill Road, Bridge Street and Kings Parade, and hopefully will be an valuable addition to shops on Cherry Hinton Road.

Meet the General Election Candidates

Perhaps the public meeting is staging a comeback as part of election campaigning, as there seem to have been a number of debates already involving the main general election candidates. As a strong supporter of No2ID in Cambridge, I would particularly like to publicise the following debate on April 22nd:

Cambridge NO2ID is collaborating with Amnesty International Cambridge city group & Cambridge Oxfam Group to run an Election Question Time on Thursday 22nd April.

These Cambridge parliamentary candidates will be there to answer your election-time questions:

Daniel Zeichner (Labour)
Tony Juniper (Green)
Julian Huppert (Liberal Democrat)
Nick Hillman (Conservative)
Peter Burkinshaw (UKIP)

Andie Harper of the BBC Radio Cambridgeshire will be in the chair.

Attendance is open to all, and free (but donations are appreciated).

Time & Date: 20:00, Thursday 22nd April 2010 (Doors open 19:30)

Location:    
Emmanuel United Reformed Church
72 Trumpington Street
Cambridge CB2 1RR

(Opposite Pembroke College, next door to Peterhouse)

Map:         http://www.aardvarkmap.net/mape/D8VVUR2D

Poster:      http://tinyurl.com/22AprEQT