Short holiday

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology I was able to file a report for the parish council meeting from my hotel room in Hong Kong. Here it is:

Station Road: I briefed the district planning enforcement officer and the tree officer about concerns expressed by Station Road residents regarding the continued use of the scrap yard as a vehicle depot. Charlie Swain has been out to visit them and given them notice to put a change of use planning application in by the end of March or face an enforcement notice. The enforcement officer also attended the meeting with the Highways Department, which I assume Tim will provide an update on. The tree officer has visited the sites being developed on Station Road and has copied his report to the chairman of the parish council, indicating that there do not appear to be breaches of the tree orders controlling the developments there. He has also made some suggestions to the parish council regarding how it comments on tree order applications, which I will leave to Paul to discuss with parish council members;

Tickell Arms: I understand that the Tickell Arms has closed. I will raise this with the planning department so that if there is any application for change of use of the property (as happened recently with a listed pub in Sawston) the parish council has early information.

Road and footpath conditions: I have passed on a number of queries to Tim. I have asked the footpath team at South Cambs about the path from the Station Road to the Mill Lane. However, I suggest we form a parish council work party and do any clearing up ourselves;

Sheltered Housing at Butts Green/Lawn: The district council voted its budgets through in February, and while rent increases for council tenants have increased, this does mean that there is sufficient budget to retain the warden support which is what the people in the sheltered housing at Whittlesford were looking for and which I have been arguing in support of. The sheltered housing tenants are grateful to those people who signed the petition in the village shop, which helped to demonstrate the level of public support for this provision.