Your District Councillor

Charlotte Cane Tel. 742509

District Council Notes (Apr/May 2001)

The Easter Farmers Market went ahead with special precautions to prevent the spread of Foot & Mouth, which meant that there were no meat stalls. Since then we have been given clearance to have the meat producers back. So the market on 12^th May had the full range of stalls and the full range of produce will now be available twice a month on the 2^nd and 4^th Saturdays. The next two markets are 9^th and 23^rd June.

For some businesses that have been affected by the Foot and Mouth outbreak we can give various forms of relief on the business rates. We can immediately delay payments due to us, which will help with the cash flow. If the business can show hardship we can reduce the rates or even waive them entirely for a period. If you think you may be eligible for a rate reduction or a delay in payment, please contact Andrew Manning, our Revenues Manager, on 01353 665555.

As you will know, the General Election will be held on the same day as the County Council elections – Thursday 7^th June. You should have had your polling cards in early May. If you have mislaid them, don’t worry you don’t need your card to vote. You just go to the Polling Station and give your name and address and the clerk checks you off against the electoral register. Your Polling Station is the Village Hall and it is open from 7.00 in the morning until 10.00 at night. If you have children to look after, you can take them with you while you vote. You will get two ballot papers, one to vote for your MP and the other to vote for your County Councillor.

One advantage of the General Election being called in June is that we get an extra month to consult on our ward boundaries. We have to revise all our ward boundaries as part of a Periodic Electoral Review. The aim of this review is to have each Councillor represent the same number of people (within a 5-10% margin). We have drawn up a draft map and sent it to Parish Councils for their comment. The current draft shows ‘The Swaffhams’ ward as unchanged – ie Reach, Swaffham Prior and Swaffham Bulbeck with one Councillor. But some wards are being combined so that they have several Councillors. It is important that people let us know whether they are in favour or against, as the Commission, which makes the final decision, will take all views into account. If you would like to see the maps and give your views, please contact Kate Peacock on 01353 665555, or look at the East Cambs web page www.eastcambs.gov.uk.

We had just 209 responses to our ballot on which form of new Council people preferred. But several of these were from Parish Councils and therefore represented more than one person’s views. 54% of responses wanted us to keep a Committee structure, 23% wanted a Leader with a Cabinet, 14% wanted a directly elected Mayor with a Cabinet and 9% wanted a directly elected Mayor with a Manager. By the time you read this we will have elected Councillors to the new Committee Structure. There will be four Policy Committees that will take most of the decisions about how we run the Council, once Full Council has set the budget and the policy framework. These Committees are Policy and Resources, Community Services, Environment and Transport and Strategic Development. Their work will be supported by the Personnel Committee and monitored by the Scrutiny Committee. In order to ensure that the Scrutiny Committee does hold the Policy Committees to account we have asked the opposition parties to nominate two of their members to be Chairman and Vice Chairman. Planning and Licensing will be dealt with by two further Committees and there will be a Standards Committee which will set a Code of Conduct for Councillors and carry out enquiries into any accusations that a Councillor has broken this Code of Conduct.

The government has given us £634,000 for CCTV Cameras in Ely, Soham and Littleport. These will be monitored 24 hours a day, at a cost of about £106,000 a year. Raising this amount of money every year would have a significant impact on our Council Tax – a further £4.60 on a Band D (a 7% increase). So we are considering introducing charges for Car Parks in Ely to raise the bulk of this money. If you have any views on this, please let me know on 742509, charlotte.cane@eastcambs.gov.uk or 34 Swaffham Road, Reach, CB5 0HZ.

Charlotte Cane (Liberal Democrat Councillor for the Swaffhams and Reach

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