Keeping an eye on one or two fields in the area

In the middle of January I had a busy week liasing between local businesses and parish councils, South Cambs planning enforcement officers and the district's legal team, and Andrew Lansley's office.
The reason: a couple of fields in the area need to be closely watched to make sure that they don't - overnight - become illegally occupied by travellers. It would be wrong for all sorts of reasons to have people living on the edge of a major road with no facilities, bypassing all planning rules, and south cambs has done a lot to provide proper traveller sites.

The aim was to ensure we could get a High Court injunction, backed by all levels of democracy ie parish, district, MP, having done the prep work very quickly as needs be. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Trains and trips!

Back to work after the Christmas break - and back to plenty to do too on the district council front.
I had an interesting meeting at a very frosty Whittlesford train station with the area manager from National Express and the crime prevention officer from British Transport Police. We talked through the concerns that commuters and people living in Whittlesford have raised with me about crime and disorder at the station late at night, and also the parking on nearby streets now that the prices have gone up again. There has been more vandalism this week inside the waiting room that was smashed up completely 18 months ago. Every time the walls are cleaned up, they get scribbled on again (as in this pic). Some very positive ideas from the meeting, especially from the policeman. National Express will put up cycle safety posters, will increase the number of patrols their staff do in the evening, and will continue to increase the lighting levels at the station. Meanwhile British Transport Police will liaise with Sawston police team to see what local intelligence exisits re the station and also do some surveillance.

I have been asked to explore whether we could instal grit bins near the shop and Post Office in Whittlesford, like they do in Thriplow, so that pavements could be gritted as well as the roads, keeping it safe for people heading out in the icy weather. I'll raise it at the Parish Council next week - if we can supply the bins, then the county council will apparently supply the grit. But we would have to do the gritting ourselves - an interesting test of public spiritedness if it can be done, but one that might save a few nasty falls and trips!