South Cambridgeshire faces one threat after another another from people who want to cut our services, damaging both our way of life and the planet. Everyone is telling us to look after the environment, be greener, and reduce carbon emissions. But at the same time, cutting or reducing services forces villagers into their cars, or takes away links to the outside world.
This week people in Heathfield who depend on the C7 bus linking them to Sawston and Cambridge face the prospect of a cut in the service to one bus an hour. This is because the County Council is now consulting on reducing the service from half an hour to an hour. The service is already a poor one, with delays and long waits while the bus goes in a huge one-way loop.
At the same time Thriplow Parish Council is fighting to save its Post Office. We spent an evening last week presenting the evidence for keeping the Post Office to PO managers who have been ordered to cull a percentage of local post offices by the government. In the summer we were all out along the A505 demonstrating what the huge Hanley Grange "eco-con" would do to our roads and local infrastructure. It goes on and on.
I am vice-chair of South Cambs District Council Climate Change Working Group, and we want to work with villages and parish councils to find ways of supporting local schemes reducing green house gases and energy consumption. But all our efforts will be neutralised by these constant reductions in basic services, that force people out of their villages and onto the roads to do the most basic of things, like posting a parcel or going shopping. For people who can't drive, or don't have access to a car perhaps because their partner needs it to get to work, all these proposed cuts reduce access to the outside world.
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