Housing development and sustainable water supply in the Cambridge area

08:08 Tuesday 5th January 2016
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: The headlines have been dominated by the devastation that flood waters have brought to the North of England over the last few weeks. Cambridgeshire has been spared the heavy rainfall this year, but one Cambridge academic has warned that instead of floods, the greatest challenge facing this county could be chronic water shortages in the coming years. Of course Cambridgeshire hasn’t always escaped flooding. In 1947 much of Fenland was inundated as rivers and drains broke their banks. These people remember what happened.
ONE: The Sunday night was very bad. Wind, the men had to rope themselves together on the banks to stop from falling into the river. Yes I were out on them banks and breaching them up with sandbags.
TWO: I went up to Earith because I’d heard rumours the bank had blown. When I got there it was really frightening. The bank was really shaking.
THREE: The one journey that I really recollect is the night that I was called out to go to Hilgay. The water in the river was so high that it was coming over.
DOTTY MCLEOD: There were also of course the terrible East Coast floods of 1953, when 300 people died, and as a result of that, a large scale flood protection scheme was introduced. Since then the flooding we’ve experienced in Cambridgeshire, although it’s always awful for anyone whose home is affected, it has normally been fairly localised. Dr Bob Evans is a Visiting Fellow at the Global Sustainability Unit at Anglia Ruskin University. Morning Bob.
BOB EVANS: Good morning.
DOTTY MCLEOD: Are we prepared then for the kind of deluge that we’ve seen in the North of England here in Cambridgeshire?
BOB EVANS: Well the North of England has had about three times its average rainfall in December. That is fairly rare.
DOTTY MCLEOD: Its average annual rainfall?
BOB EVANS: No no. Average for December.
DOTTY MCLEOD: OK.
BOB EVANS: So it’s an enormous amount of rainfall. We’ve had just over the average. So one of the reasons is we’ve had a lot less rainfall, and at the moment we’re coping. The river levels, I cross Jesus Green nearly every day and they’re not very up at all. And that’s been so for quite a long time.
DOTTY MCLEOD: Suppose we did have that kind of level of rain that they’ve seen in places like Cumbria, three times the average. Would we just be inundated here?
BOB EVANS: We would I think be more like what you’ve just been saying on the radio, that it would be local. Because it would be a question of how quickly you could shift the water through the system. And generally when we’ve had big floods it’s because the water can’t get out quickly, because the sluice at Denver is not allowing the water to go out to sea, because the tidal levels are very high. So you’d usually need two things to get really massive flooding. So I think you’ll just get local flooding, which as you say is fairly horrendous for the people who are affected. It won’t be massively around the Fens.
DOTTY MCLEOD: Now you say that actually water shortages are something that we’re more at risk of in the long term.
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Bloated bureaucracy bogus democracy

A veteran Independent councillor states plainly what he feels is wrong with our local government.

10:39 Monday 4th January 2016
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: On the subject of this idea that’s on the front of the Peterborough Telegraph this morning, a new Eastern super-council, apparently talks are going to get underway soon which will encompass Peterborough and Cambridgeshire and Norfolk and Suffolk and Fenland and bring all that together. On the subject of that Pete says “I’m in favour of it all in consolidation Paul. Less management, an economy of scale for procurement. It can only be a good thing. Besides, living in Fenland we are ignored. Everything goes to Cambridge, so we have nothing to lose here.” says Peter. Do we need a revamp as to how our county, and Fenland of course as well, and Peterborough are governed? Council bosses in Cambridgeshire have been told that the county is too small to be given devolved powers from the Government. So it’s no good Peterborough and Fenland and Cambridgeshire county councils teaming up. Too small. It could mean that we have to buddy up with Norfolk or Essex or Suffolk, and get all those extra powers. Well the news has left one councillor, a former County Council Leader Martin Curtis, to call for a complete review of how councils are drawn up, and how we’re all governed. Well with me now is Peterborough councillor Charlie Swift. He’s seen it all and more in his years on Peterborough City Council. Morning Charlie.
CHARLES SWIFT: Morning young man.
PAUL STAINTON: Is this the Emperor’s new clothes, or a brand new idea?
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PM in Brussels to argue his case for reform

08:23 Thursday 17th December 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: European leaders look set to maintain their firm opposition to some of David Cameron’s demands for changes to Britain’s relationship with the EU. The Prime Minister will come head-to-head with his European counterparts later at a summit in Brussels. Mr Cameron wants the UK to remain in a reformed EU, but he’s ruling nothing out if his objectives are turned down. Our Europe correspondent Gavin Lee has more details.
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Homeless people empty dwellings – a natural result of market forces

09:40 Wednesday 16th December 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: A few weeks ago on this show we revealed that Syrian refugees were being re-homed in so-called empty houses in Cambridge. Now an empty home is classified as one that has been left empty by the owner for more than six months. Well many of you were surprised to hear that given the current housing crisis, there were so many of these houses just sat empty. So we though we’d investigate if the amount of empty homes was going up or going down. According to figures given to us by local authorities, the amount of empty houses is actually coming down in most areas. But there’s still thousands of empty properties across the county that are just sat there, not being used. In Cambridge for instance, one in seventeen homes are empty. In Peterborough there are over 400 empty houses. Fenland has 250 with nobody in them. Huntingdon over 1,000, some of which have only just become empty. In South Cambs and East Cambs, councils claim they don[‘t have any empty houses. Well joining is now is a man in the know about the problem when it comes to empty homes, Adam Cliff is the Empty Homes Officer at Peterborough City Council. He won the Empty Homes Practitioner of the Year award in 2014 no less. Congratulations.
ADAM CLIFF: Thank you very much Paul.
PAUL STAINTON: I think we talked about it at the time didn’t we?
ADAM CLIFF: We have, yes.
PAUL STAINTON: You came in. So a house becomes empty. When does it become an ’empty home’, and when does it come on your radar in Peterborough?
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Council braced for savage cuts

08:19 Wednesday 16th December 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: Yesterday Cambridgeshire County Council had their last Full Council meeting of 2015, and they came close to voting for a letter being written to the Prime Minister about the funding cuts. Our political reporter Hannah Olsson was there. A bit of a difficult end of year for the County Council Hannah.
HANNAH OLSSON: Yes morning Dotty. Yes the Council needs to save £100 million over the next five years, because it says it’s expecting to get less money from the Government, whilst the number of people living in Cambridgeshire continues to rise. Now last month they told us how their proposals were going to work for doing this. It included big cuts to care, as well as services including gritting, libraries, even lollipop ladies. Now so far all of the discussions about the proposals have been in the individual committees. So there’s a Children’s committee, a Transport committee, and the idea being that the focus of these is on detailed decisions and discussions rather than party politics. But that all seemed to go out the window in yesterday’s Full Council meeting. One of the Labour councillors, Jocelynne Scutt, suggested the Council write to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, to tell them the effects the cuts would have here in Cambridgeshire. And this prompted a lively debate about austerity, with political colours on full show in the Council Chamber. Here’s LibDem councillor Lucy Nethsingha, followed by Conservative councillor James Palmer and Labour’s Ashley Walsh.
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City Deal – a sense of engagement

17:39 Monday 14th December 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: It’s worth up to £1 billion and promises solutions to Cambridge’s ongoing transport and housing issues. But eighteen months after the Cambridge City Deal was signed, has any progress actually been made? Hannah Olsson investigates.
(TRAFFIC)
HANNAH OLSSON: Milton Road in Cambridge. The early morning rush hour is a frustrating part of Cambridge life, with plans to improve this road and others coming into the city with millions of pounds from the Greater Cambridge City Deal. But just like many commuters., the plans aren’t going anywhere fast. (CAR HORN) Eighteen months ago the then Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg visited Cambridge to launch the City Deal. It was signed by council leaders, the university and businesses.
NICK CLEGG: Cambridge if you like came to Government and said “This is what we want. We want this money to improve housing, to develop more apprenticeships and to have money to deal with some of the bottlenecks locally.”
HANNAH OLSSON: The Government guaranteed £100 million over the next five years, with more in the pipeline if there’s evidence the money has been spent wisely and generated growth. The first £20 million arrived in April, but eight months on there hasn’t been so much as a spade in the ground. And some councillors and business leaders in the city are getting increasingly frustrated at how the rules and bureaucracy are slowing things down, John Bridge is the Chief Executive of the Cambridgeshire Chamber of Commerce.
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Council squad to target aggressive beggars and rogue cyclists

11:23 Wednesday 9th December 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: Yesterday on the show we were asking whether the targeting of cyclists on Bridge Street in Peterborough or beggars in the city centre was the best way to tackle anti-social behaviour. Peterborough City Council is starting a scheme which involves council workers being given law enforcement powers from April next year. They’ll have staff on the streets tasked with cracking down on many types of bad behaviour. Well after the show yesterday I spoke to Robin Sissons, the Chief Inspector for the Safer Peterborough Partnership. He’s in charge of this new safety enforcement team. And I started by asking why the city needed to tackle beggars and cyclists. This is what he had to say.
ROBIN SISSONS: If the community feel that an issue is really really important to them then we, as a service, should be tackling those issues that make them feel unsafe.
PAUL STAINTON: Well the police say it’s unenforceable, this ban, and that nobody has ever been injured in the last five years because of a cyclist, so what’s the point?
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Sian Reid on climate change and local government

17:24 Tuesday 8th December 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: Let’s talk about another big issue that’s happened this week, that’s the Climate Change talks in Paris. And Cambridgeshire had a representative there, because councillor Sian Reid who is a former Leader of Cambridge City Council until 2012, she was there as part of a big group of European local government officials. Sian, welcome., and welcome back from Paris.
SIAN REID: Thank you.
CHRIS MANN: Obviously a particularly poignant time to be there, not just about those talks, but about the whole situation in the city. How was it?
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