A spring evening in Babraham!

This my report to the Babraham annual village meeting. It was good to hear from the Police Community Officers, the head teacher, various village bodies and the Babraham Institute, and to talk to people afterwards about traffic signs on the A1307, the new village website (www.babraham-net), bus problems re getting students to school, and to wish the new landlady of the George all the best!

Summary of the year for the village AGM

A year of significant change and challenge for the County Council. Moving to committee system in May 2014. Continued challenge facing the county to make savings. The County has, along with the City Council and South Cambs, secured the funding from the government known as the City Deal which will allow major infrastructure investment - in tranches of £100millions.

County finances. The county council set a budget for 14/15, increasing rates by 1.99 per which will see the average band D household’s rates pay an extra £21.89 annually. To protect transport services, an additional sum has been allocated to that area, but given that the council’s Government grant is expected to drop by £30 million – 21 per cent – over the next two years, the county is facing very tough decisions.

Bus shelter. Babraham was successful in getting funding for a real-time bus sign for Cambridge Road as a result of an application to the county's Better Bus Area Fund (BBAF). 

Cycleway running down A1307 is close to completion. I worked with the highways team to ensure that this cycleway is open to horse-riders and provides them access to the Roman Road. The cycleway is for people on mobility scooters too, so not just for cyclists.

Local traffic issues.

I have learnt a good deal about traffic issues from being on the panel looking at parish bids for funding earlier this year under the County's Local Transport Initiative Scheme. The amount of money from this scheme is set to increase and will become the main means by which traffic improvement is managed. 

So for example if there is an aspiration for improving traffic safety near the school, this will require early liaison with the police (who may need to see a traffic survey done) and the county highways authority, as well as being able to demonstrate public consultation and backing for the scheme. This would then form a good grounding for a bid to the County's Local Transport Initiative Scheme in late 2014. 

On getting children to school in Sawston, I did speak to the county education team but was not able to persuade them that we needed more than the cycleway. I did get the commitment that the cycleway to Sawston which young people use would be gritted during the winter, and took action to ensure the county got a youngster with a broken leg to school after that seemed to have become blocked.

A1307.  The County Council's long term transport strategy highlights the importance of access along the A1307, and wants better bus services along it, with long term proposals for a bus lane.  More recently proposals to improve the A1307 especially around Linton have led to suggestions that funding it could be by house building on a large scale at the Abingtons. I attended the joint meeting with Suffolk CC where this was mooted.  Although this is unlikely, I will continue to monitor this very carefully.

Water. A number of drains could not cope under the pressure of the incessant rain in January, and I got the County Highways team to jet them out. 

Streetlighting changes in 2014. I will be checking to see if Babraham will  lose any of its existing streetlights that belong to the County Council under the agreement that the lights would be upgraded via government funding but that there would have to be a ten per cent across the board reduction in street lights. I have met with officers to assess the proposed impact on local villages. 

Broadband. The junction boxes are being upgraded ready for superfast BB to be made available later in 2014 or early 2015 in this part of Cambridgeshire. All suppliers, not just BT, will offer the service, though BT provides the infrastructure. I am the local broadband champion and will take issues to the team at the county as they are raised with me. 

Police panel. I regularly attend the police panel which has met at Sawston. In future, the size of area covered by the police panel will be three times as big, which means there will probably be less time available to discuss specific local parish issues.

Babraham Institute - future plans and their impact

Last week I went over to the Babraham Institiute, to hear Derek Jones, their CEO, talk through the plans for expansion on the site. It is a very successful incubator for bio-tech start-ups, and part of the huge growth in this sector in and around Cambridge, which now accounts for 10% of Europe's bio-tech businesses. It isnt in the commercial sector, as it gets its funding from the government. 

The site fills up with new companies as fast as space becomes available. The next expansion would have to be on green belt land and the balance is between the success of the site and protecting the green belt. Iasked about the spread of jobs locally and any analysis of traffic increases as a result. Other questions were primarily about the impact on Babraham village, which has fears that this would not be the last application for further building.

This week I went along to Babrham Parish Council meeting as the Institute was presenting to the residents of the village, with the same issue of green belt land coming up in the Q&A session afterwards.

Better bus stops - hold very tight, please!

I'm pleased that a number of small villages around here are getting new bus shelters and/or real-time bus stop displays after bidding to the County Council for them.

Babraham, Pampisford have been successful, and I was happy to help move things along for Little Abington, where progress was discussed at the PC meeting this evening - we hope the village might now be getting both! 

Bus stop for Little Abington, and Babraham gets one too!

 Very pleased to hear that Little Abington is getting a bus shelter for the Cambridge Road as a result of an application to the county council under its bus facility improvement scheme.This is known as the Better Bus Area Fund (BBAF) and the money comes from the Department for Transport but it is the county that runs the scheme locally. 

The county confirmed with me today that the offer letter has gone out to the parish. The local community has to make a contribution, but the main thing is to get this going so the parish can plan to have their part of the funding available. 

Cycle way work starts - Wandlebury to Babraham

The cycle way work planned by the County for hereabouts begins with construction of the phase from Wandlebury Country Park to Babraham Research Campus on 20 January. This will take the cycle way to Copley Hill Business Park and will take up to 12 weeks to complete.

To allow for the second phase to be built from Copley Hill to Babraham Research Campus some BT poles need to be relocated. Once this is done the next phase will be completed.

I am working with people keen to ensure the new cycle way also allows riders access to the Roman Way bridle path. This isn't straightforward because these are major roads and you wouldn't want to mix fast moving traffic, horses and so on, but the county project team have been willing to do what they can.

Ickleton and Babraham - roads as rat-runs, roads unmaintained, roads you can't get onto...

In the beautiful villages of Ickleton and Babraham this afternoon, where the consistent issue was the speed and press of traffic using narrow village streets as rat-runs, either to get to Sawston industrial area in the case of Babaraham or to shave some time off an M11/A11 journey by jinxing through Ickleton via Frogge Street.

The road surfaces themselves are not brilliant, and Babraham has real issues with the busy roads surrounding it that make it difficult to get onto or turn off from, especially the A1307, but the main point was the speed of the cars and vans trying to get through these villages, oblivious to polite speed signs. More robust traffic calming and re-routing of HGVs seems to be what is needed.
 

Thru the ford to Babraham

Even though the A505 is just a mile back along this road, sometimes taking the back road to Babraham village is like stepping into another dimension. That's what keeps the villages special - they are distinct and distinctive, and we need to keep them that way.