Station Road developments - too close to the A505

The developments along station road are causing a fair amount of disruption as lorries tip hardcore down into the deep site, cranes arrive and builders vans park on the verges - and of course the commuters still try to squeeze their cars in. But here's a thing - the builders have found an old access route into the second site (just to the left of the "Give Way" sign in the picture here) on Duxford Road as it joins the A505. So while the Station Road activity is messy and a pain, this is dangerous.

Lorries pulling in and out of that track is not something people coming round the Duxford Road corner expect, and they are also causing big tail-backs on Duxford Road, and on the A505 itself. The parish council, county councillor Tim Stone and me are trying to make sure this is stopped.

Hanley Grange, Hanley Grange, Hanley Grange

The government planners came up with four options for concreting over East Anglia (oops, I mean building sustainable communities for the future). I was at the Regional Assembly in July when we debated these options, and voted to put them out for public consultation. It is called the "regional spatial strategy".

If people express a view that they prefer the option of building some, but not lots, of houses, then it makes it more difficult for developers who happen to be in possession of a big plot of land and want to persuade the planners to let them build a big town on it.

It follows that people who want to express a view on the regional spatial strategy options have until the end of this month to go here

I met up recently with Andrew Lansley, our MP, who spearheaded the fight against Hanley Grange, and we reminded ourselves that the campaign last summer to stop Tesco building HG was a GOOD THING

Where's tha bin?

No - not a Yorkshire expression of curiosity as to one's recent whereabouts, but the fact that a number of litter bins seem to have been pinched or otherwise removed from the southern end of Whittlesford, near and on the A505, leading to litter being left around on the grass verges and to generally blow about and make the place look untidy.
So I will ask the district council environment team to see about replacing them.

Formula1 at Duxford - Whittlesford votes

Whittlesford Parish Council met last night and discussed the results of a poll of people and their views about the F1 testing at the IWM. 160 responses were received, which is high for a village of 600-700 houses.
Generally speaking, more people were in favour than were not, with the threshold in terms of how many days a year people reckon they could tolerate being around ten. This would mean, given that the racing teams are looking for about eight to nine days a year, that only one team could base themselves there - we believe McClaren were interested too, but at the moment it is the Renault team that have been whizzing round. The information will go off to the IWM, and to the district council environmental health noise team who would take any decision about noise nuisance.
The comments in the survey demonstrate how different a view people take of this - for some it remains an intolerable intrusion - and I got an email last week saying the same thing - while for others it boosts the local economy, is a welcome addition to the air museum etc.
There is a public meeting at the air museum later in the autumn - dates yet to be announced.

What's happening to the wardens - sheltered housing

Latest situation is - after talking to people locally at Butts Green and the Lawns in Whittlesford I expressed my concern at the plans to axe on-site wardens in sheltered housing and replace them with floating ones. My views appeared, accurately, in the Cambridge News tho' under a fairly provocative headline - but the fourth estate and all that.

At South Cambs full council in September I put down a question asking the housing portfolio holder for his plans, and to be fair, Mark Howell gave a very full reply, which included the complicating factor of the wider issue of the withdrawal of the government's "supporting people" grants, which has led many councils and housing associations to go for floating wardens.

I said to Mark that he was welcome to come and talk to the residents at the Lawn here in Whittlesford, which he had offered to do, but we all actually want him and the officers to focus on finding the best solution possible for our most vulnerable residents. I will ask the residents if they would find a discussion with Mark helpful: I'm sure they will, as one of the concerns voiced by Help the Aged is that people across the country have not been consulted on proposals that materially affect them.

There is a Guardian article covering the issue, including Joan Bakewell's involvement as the government's "older people champion" , and here is a link to a Help the Aged report (big download alert!).

Traffic management plan for Station Road, Whittlesford

At planning committee this afternoon one of the proposed developments on Station Road came up again. I was very pleased to see that the planning officers had now inserted a requirement that no major work on the site could start until the developers had come up with a traffic management plan to control the construction vehicles and how they access the site.

But I said that the Highways people still seemed remarkably unconcerned at the volume of traffic that Station Road will now have to contend with. I said that the village youth council - when asked what was it that concerned them - had replied that cars, traffic and the way people park is an issue for them - and especially along Station Road. Often young people are on bikes or walking to get the train into Cambridge, while the commuters are gunning their cars down the road to make the 0755, slaloming round the cars of the commuters who have already parked along what used to be a very tranquil road.

I questioned why the Highways Authority had not expressed a view on the additional 38 cars that Station Road is going to have to cope with from this site alone - not to mention the one a bit further down.I will take this up with the HA. But at least we have a traffic management plan.