Granta Park to Whittlesford Station - new cycleway to be funded

On the back of the government announcement today to spend £8.2m providing a boost for cycling in and around Cambridge, the County Council's bid for funding for a cycleway to Granta Park from Whittlesford Station has been successful.

The three miles (12 -15 minutes approx cycling, depending on how fit you are) will enable people working at the Granta site to commute via Whittlesford, as well as linking the Abingtons to the station. At the moment the very fast and busy roads are totally unsuitable for cycling - though you do see some brave souls chancing it.

This good news for creating real connections between transport options.

Hole in the ground

Good to see some investigative work going on by the County Highways engineers as to the drain at Station Road, Whittlesford which has become blocked with mud. We on the parish council asked the district who asked the county to take a look.

When it rains the road near the postbox leading to the station itself is more like shores of some African watering hole.

The Sandhills of Whittlesford

At Whittlesford Parish Council meeting in March the state of Station Road was raised by residents - not the holes and bumps but rather the silt and mud deposited there by lorries using the road.
In dry weather this produces swirls of dust and grit like something out of a Nebraska frontier town, leading to a number of complaints by local residents.
I contacted the environment enforcement officer at the District Council who passed me on to the highways engineer at the County transport deport on the other side of the railways at Whittlesford Bridge. She has been out and taken photos and confirmed there is a potential offence under the Highways Act.
Now the issue is with the highways supervisor for the area for assessment and decision. We will keep the pressure on to get the road cleaned up and try to get those who cause it to pay for the costs.

Ticket machine robbed again

It's been two years at least since a series of crimes at Whittlesford train station left the ticket machine empty and out of order for months.
Now it has happened again, along with graffiti sprayed on the stairs over the tracks and the phone box done over in recent months. 
There's a police neighbourhood meeting at Sawston coming up so will put this at the top of our agenda.But the train company is responsible for the station area. Time to put CCTV at the station back on the agenda?

Station Road, Whittlesford

Latest in a long line of disruption to people living in Station Road Whittlesford is the demolition of the old vet surgery, now that the new one just behind it has opened.
Local firm Butler Bros will be doing the work, and I know they will take care to ensure that the lorries and diggers etc don't add to the congestion as commuters and schoolkids catch the trains. Tho there will be fewer doggies and moggies being off-loaded in front of the building so that will help. 

What is it all for...

When I have been out and about in Thriplow, Heathfield and Whittlesford people have asked about the proposals for building many more houses around the villages, and why the developers keep coming back with their plans.
The bottom line is that our villages and the countryside within which they sit are hugely attractive to big developers. Why? Well, we are near enough to Cambridge to bask in its reflected cachet and enjoy its booming economy and chic shops, there is the 43 minutes rail journey down to Liverpool St and the M11, the village shops, schools and pubs, the air museum, people riding horses through the villages, children playing football on a crisp November morning on the recreation ground, cricket on summer evening with the long shadows over the the village green..you get the picture.
No wonder then, that as in the opening of HG Wells famous novel, there are "envious eyes across the gulf of space slowly and surely drawing their plans against us."
But we'll see them off...

Station Road - honey bees and holes in the road

Out in Royston Road and Station Road this evening - issues included the commuter cars parking from six in the morning, through the damage left from the lorries building the new developments (I'll see if the planning people can get the builders to come back and make good) to the noise from the scrapyard (where the parish council is arranging for residents to meet the owner to see if some compromises can be reached.
Also learned about the fate of English bees from the apiarist who sells very fine jars of their honey from the front-gate near the top of Station Road, and I was reminded that we still need BT to come and fix their telephone box after it was vandalised over a year ago!

C7 bus service - county consultation timetable announced

We have all lived with the uncertainty of what will happen to the C7 bus since early 2011 when the County Council first proposed cuts in subsidy which would mean the bus company would withdraw the service through Whittlesford and Heathfield.
My boys used it to get to school in Cambridge and I have used it to get to the station with a suitcase, though it doesnt fit with the train times at all. It is pretty empty most of the time when it passes my house.
The county have now announced a consultation with parish councils that will run from April - it will be called  Cambridgeshire Future Transport and will seek to find practical solutions that meet needs without costing so much.
We have to find practical, sustainable alternatives to running an empty bus through our villages. Something that takes people to the station and to Sawston to go on to Sixth Form, and then runs a service mid-morning going through local villages to Sawston  and so on through the day. The parish council will have to decide how it wants to contribute, and it is important to be part of the process, not on the sidelines.I will hope to update the parish council at our session a week on Tuesday.

Talking to the police about Station Road, Whittlesford

The system works! - contacted ecops and have just picked up on voicemail a quick reply about Station Road issues. Cambs Police keen to talk about what they can do to improve policing profile in Station Road, Whittlesford. Report more tomorrow.

all aboard the community bus to Whittlesford station

Good to hear that there will be a pilot community bus with county council funding that will pick up from Duxford and Linton and deliver to Whittlesford station.
Hopefully if the timing can be got right, there will be fewer commuters parking on the roads around the Station as a result.

yellow lines, commuters, and car park prices at whittlesford station

I've had fed-up emails from fed-up people, both residents and commuters, saying that if only the outrageous cost of parking in the Whittlesford station car park could be reduced, commuters would not park on the corners of the Moraine and Knights Orchard, making the places easier for residents to get out of without being run over.

I'm not so sure, in that if Whittlesford was cheap to park at, more people would catch the train and potentially those empty spaces along Station Road would be taken up by other commuters wanting to save even the reduced price of a ticket. I think it is the economic law of demand.

So the answer is to get the county highways to agree to put yellow lines on the corners of these roads - as there are on Station Road itself. We are trying to fix a meeting with highways at the moment, and Tim Stone, our county councillor, is on the case.

crime prevention day at Whittlesford station

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Given that no one in their right mind would leave a bike at the rail station overnight, this seems like a very good idea. Thursday 1st September, from four till seven.

Station Road - works start on the vet surgery

It looks like the good people of Station Road, Whittlesford, have another bout of building and disruption to put up with.
The building that is currently the vet surgery (and used to be a pub, and possibly the stationmaster's house?) will be turned into an office building and a bran' new surgery built behind it.
With all this commercial activity plus the traffic from the residential developments down there, maybe its time to talk to the highways department about a traffic scheme that makes life simpler for residents. I'll talk to Tim Stone, our county councillor about a meeting with Highways

station flowertubs

mmm... the area railway manager, alan neville alan.neville@nationalexpress.com came to the parish council to talk about various things - including the new trains to London being introduced, which look pretty good. He also floated the idea of some group adopting the station and helping look after it - perhaps a bit of planting, a bit of sponsorship. We'll have to see.

I'd like to think that the station staff team down there should do this, aided in terms of crime and vandalism prevention by the Transport Police, but the days of the porter watering the flower baskets are long gone. Perhaps the guy who checks the car park to make sure people have paid the huge fees levied by NCP could do a bit of weeding. Doubt it. In the meantime, I'm chasing up whoever needs to fix the broken glass from the phonebox down there.

thinking about tomorrow's services, and keeping today's up to scratch...

Every now and then I have a day more or less totally given over to district council and parish work, and last Thursday was one of them…

0715 Up and around Whittlesford delivering leaflets containing the reports for the Parish Council annual meeting the following evening. Nice and peaceful across the Recreation Ground at this time of the morning

0815 Quick bowl of shreddies and granola (home-made, thank you very much) then off to Heathfield to meet up with some residents complaining about the numbers of cars parked up and being repaired. As I leave the house the phone rings. A fellow parish councillor asking for details about street naming, which is a district council task. It is important in this case to get this right as we want to name a new road in Whittlesford after the village lady whose generous will has made possible the affordable housing being built as part of the development.

0945 After the Heathfield meeting (of which more later) I arrive at South Cambs offices at Camborne. I’m chairing the climate change working group at ten, but I just have time to check with one of the lawyers at the council about a planning application that has gone to appeal. Thriplow Parish Council want to write to the planning inspector and I need to to get some details. Helpful quick word and then in to the climate change meeting at ten. We work through the draft of an action plan for the next three years, setting out how the council will support local people, and local businesses, make sustainability work, and in particular try to help people make savings by being more energy conscious. We also go through some ideas by two of our working group on how the council’s own buildings rate in terms of sustainability and how we can put our own house in order.

1230 Working lunch with a group of officers and councillors to go through options for improving the council’s customer contact centre. Part of the discussion about social networking methods as a means of delivering customer service. Interestingly, I already get text message reminders about appointments from both my doctor and dentist.

2.00 Finish the customer session and check a numbers of points with the district’s planning team so that I am ready for the parish council meeting – there is growing concern about the scrapyard operating at the end of Station Road in Whittlesford. Pass on the concerns about parking in Heathfield to the Planning Enforcement Officer. He has visited the area once about this, but perhaps another visit at a different time may be needed.

3.00 Leave Camborne and decompress, but I’ve got to be back in a few hour’s time for a group meeting of councillors.

8.30 Collect one of my boys from Whittlesford Station. As I’m waiting I notice that the phone box has been vandalized. After all the policy and strategy thinking I’ve been doing earlier today, I reckon there is still the old-fashioned need to make sure services are delivered properly and things get sorted out. So we need to get BT to do the repairs, and hope that the rail station is not going through another of the bouts of vandalism that have impacted it and its users in the past.

Scrapyard at Station Road, Whittlesford

As I reported to Whittlesford Parish Council on Tuesday, after a meeting with the planning officers at South Cambs, the district council has now written to the owners of the scrapyard site setting out the council's view as to what business activity the site has planning permission for, and what it has not.

The owners have 28 days to reply. I've written to the people in Station Road who contacted me giving them more detail. As can be seen from the aerial pic, there is a good deal of light industry in and around Station Road, co-existing with the station and its commuter traffic, and the Station Road residents themselves.

Scrapyard at Station Road Whittlesford and a much needed piece of cake

Went to see the planners and other officers at South Cambs - it makes sense to have a bundle of things to go through each time. Caught up on:
- the position re affordable homes and the council's "waiting list"
- the complex planning history to the scrapyard site (see pic left) at Station Road, Whittlesford, which comes under discussion at the Parish Council this evening. The scrapyard owners have also applied to the Traffic Commissioners for an HGV licence;
- the environmental/emissions improvements that go with replacing the old chimney at the pet crem. on the A505 ouside Thriplow;
- a planning/conservation issue which has a long history, and required the long memories and big files of the planning officers, and after which I needed a piece of the banana, date and cherry cake currently on sale at South Cambs and which certainly sticks to your ribs!

Highways Agency application Station Road East

At the Highways Agency/County Highways compound at Station Road East there is a large metal shed (arrowed) where the workers change and shower after a busy day putting cones on the motorway or whatever.

It was supposed to be a temporary structure when it was put up five years ago, and now the HA are asking for it to be made permanent. And I suppose one more metal shed down there wont make much difference. But it was originally supposed to be a portakabin - looks a jolly big one is all I can say, from the pictures going with the application.

Welcome to Whittlesford's "new villagers" at Duxford Chapel

A welcome break in the weather co-incided with the Whittlesford Society's welcome to the "new villagers" in the two small developments off the south side of Station Road (Knight's Orchard and The Moraine) plus the people who have lived in the existing houses between Station Road and the A505 and who now find themselves officially part of Whittlesford.
A good turn-out, at the ancient Duxford Chapel just next to the Red Lion Hotel.
While the assembled Whittlesfordians - old and new - sipped wine and munched on Christmas cake, there was a brief exposition on the history of the Chapel, and then Robert James, WhitSoc president, made a presentation to Whittlesford Parish Clerk Ian Skellern (pictured right) for all his hard work in driving through the amendment to the parish boundary. It has taken a long time, and several meetings with the district council's boundary committee, and legal officers, and a submission to the Boundaries Commission, for all this to happen, so well deserved thanks to Ian.

Police keep up the pressure on illegal parking on Station Road

Went along to the Neighbourhood Police Panel meeting at Sawston this evening. A good turn-out, and reports from the police led by Insp Savage of drops in recorded crime across the patch, which is encouraging, though car thefts in Whittlesford in May in the High Street didn't help locally. Some rogue traders reported in Hinxton, some lorry parking problems and a few thefts from cars during day-time.

Police issued 21 tickets on Station Road, Whittlesford, during the period, which is a lot - no wonder there are few white vans parked up along there!
Also found out that if a building site is insecure - leaving ladders etc lying around, which might come in handy for some opportune house-breaker, the district council can take action as the site would be breaching the conditions laid down when planning permission granted.