Station Road congestion - update

The boys in blue tell me they went down today and issued two parking tickets at lunch-time. I think it is the only way.

Mobile library

Mobile libraries always bring to mind the closing scenes of the Peter Sellers 1962 film "Only two can play" with him in the bookmobile keeping to the straight and narrow.

Anyway, there seems to be some concern that the current library van routes through Whittlesford might be changed, with the stop on the Green being dropped. I've been asked by people at Lettice Martin to find out and I'm waiting for the very helpful library people to call back. They don't think that there will be changes, but mobile libraries always tend to be soft targets when times are hard. Meanwhile here's a pic of the great actor looking pensive.

pot hole plotter

The Cambridgeshire County Council Highways Department has a website for reporting pot holes and other highway issues. Or you can go to a new website that is really easy to use called fixmystreet.com which enables things like potholes and dead muntjac deer on the roads to be reported (and hopefully fixed).

Congestion down Station Road, and Moorfield Road planning decision

People in Station Road have complained about lorries delivering topsoil and removing old earth at the weekends from a site behind the vets at the bottom of Station Road, Whittlesford. I've asked the enforcement and environmental services people to take a look. Seems to be about levelling the ground on the site. This may be in preparation for a bid for developing the site for housing.I've asked the planners for an overview of the scale of development at Whittlesford Bridge.

The sites currently in development are continuing to block the roads with lorries and vans, and I've gone back to the police to ask them to make another visit - I was talking to a resident yesterday who raised the idea of a rate reduction while all this went on!

Meanwhile, good news that the planning inspectors have said the land to the west of Moorfield Road should not be part of the village framework ie stays as greenbelt. This avoids ribbon development along the A505. The report says:

"Land at Whittlesford Bridge, just north of the bypass, is open, and

forms a continuation of the large open area to the west. The site

east of Moorfield Road, included in the Development Framework by

the Inspector who considered objections to the South

Cambridgeshire Local Plan, has housing on 3 sides as well as the

bypass to the south. This is not true of land west of Moorfield Road,

which land should not be included in the Development Framework."

Woburn Place - planning bid

I've asked that if the proposals to build at the entrance to Heathfield comes to the full planning committee, that there is a site visit to assess all the issues on the ground. Likely to be Feb before anything happens on this.

How's the hotel progressing at the Red Lion?

Working with the Red Lion owners and the South Cambs planners and conservation teams. Obviously it is an historic site, with Duxford Chapel nearby, as well as the hotel building itself, but at the same time the foundations of the new building have been dug out and we need to see things starting to take shape.