Your County Councillor

COUNTY COUNCIL LETTER

 Mid October/November  2001

Appropriately, as we move into the seasons of long dark nights, the first threatening Council Tax forecasts are being made by leaders of the County and District. Keith Walters, the Leader of Cambridgeshire County Council, is revealing the stark problems his administration faces in the light of:

• expected low government grant;

• no adjustment to the Cost of Living Allowance (known as the Area Cost Adjustment);

• inflationary pressures, such as wages;

• rapidly increasing population, particularly old people.

He foresees that unless you, the electors, are willing to see cuts in education, roads arid transport or Social Services, the Council Tax will have to rise by over 9% next year (7% and 5% in the following 2 years).

All: three parties on the County Council have approached Secretary of State Stephen Byers requesting face to face meetings in order to explain the peculiarly difficult situation in which Cambridgeshire finds itself. So far there has been a negative reply with the added bad news that no significant changes to local government finance can be expected before 2003/4.

The County is therefore consulting with us, electors, to find out whether we wish to keep, services much as they are with the inevitable result that Council Tax will rise as-indicated above or whether you would wish some services cut to avoid significant increases, and if so, which .

A 4-page leaflet called "Cambridgeshire Services - the case for equal funding" is being published from Shire Hall and copies are available on request (Freephone 0800-243916, in libraries, on the Internet or via me). As time passes and more information becomes available I shall return to this subject in future magazine articles.

Another leaflet going the rounds is about the Shire Local Waste Plan. This is out for consultation until 13 November and details are available from Ted Clover (01223 - 717630) or on e-mail Waste Local.Plan @ cambridgeshire.gov.uk.

Briefly-between now and 2011 we shall have to find -a way of disposing of the colossal amount of 42 million tons of waste. The plan is outlining how we can recover material for recycling, composting, burning for energy and recycling building materials. However, there will be disposing of other waste in various places within the County. There are no new waste sites round here other than part of the Cambridge Sewage Works site and for inert (non-household) waste only the old Gt. Wilbraham quarry.

Your views will be most welcome at Shire Hall.

No one will forget the wonderful, selfless actions of the New York fire fighters on and after September 11th. The CAMBRIDGESHIRE FIRE SERVICE quickly recognized their dangerous work with sympathy and support. Within a month our service was faced with its own .extraordinary crisis in the form of unexpectedly severe floods months before they would normally be expected.

Within 48 hours our fire fighters were responding to an unheard of number of calls (700) which turned out to involve the rescue of a hundred people and many animals from frightening and hazardous situations. As always the whole of the service, uniformed or not, responded superbly to the demands on their skills and no lives were lost.

Whilst on the subject of the Fire Service. may I remind you that an average 270 people killed in accidental fires each year (66%) don't have a smoke alarm and over the last five years more than 70 people have been killed every year because their smoke alarm didn't work or the battery was flat or missing: Test your battery now:

ROADS AND TRAFFIC concerns feature at the top of my list this month since there are some encouraging matters to report.

First, the County in partnership with other local bodies such as the Police, Health Authority and the Fire Service will now be able to recover from the Government the cost of providing and running safety cameras across the area. In Cambridgeshire accidents have dropped by a fifth at sites where safety cameras have been installed and seriously injured down by almost a half.

The extra money to finance more cameras will come from the fixed penalty fines imposed on drivers who are speeding past the existing cameras. Research has proved that every l mph reduction in speeds leads to 5% drop in accidents. Last year there was an increase in casualties on the county's roads of about 350 to 3.689 - a figure that surely alarms us all.

Second, after the Police responded to several requests I have made for speed checks (cables across the road) to give useful evidence that more traffic calming within our local villages is essential, bid for substantial work has been made to the cabinet for money to traffic calm the three main entry roads into Burwell. I will report further on this when the decision as to which projects go forward becomes clear.

Obviously, we are up against stiff competition for limited resources. Accident records have considerable bearing in the result. Over the last 3 years 7 injury accidents have been reported on these three roads. Meanwhile, I am now pressing for calming in North Street, Burwell and Mill Road, Swaffham Prior.

Third, the long awaited cycleway programme has now started at the Cambridge end. The path from the city centre to Barnwell Bridge is now nearly complete. Barnwell Bridge to Marshalls will start around Christmas and be complete by end March 2002.

The "Millennium" route across Stourbridge Common/Ditton Meadows to the Park & Ride will be finished by next Spring. Airport Way to Quy has already started. Reckon on 12 weeks. Quy to Bottisham should start today (12 Nov.) and together with traffic lights control on junction B1102/A1303 looks like ending in March. Lode to Swaffham Bulbeck will start in December and I have hopes that we may get the go ahead for a short path round the railway bridge between Reach and Swaffham Prior.

James Fitch

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