David Sanders – costly errors and accountability at Peterborough City Council

09:23 Wednesday 25th October 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: Today marks the end. It’s a momentous day, the end of Peterborough City Council’s solar dreams. Let’s call it that. The plan to use Grade I farming land to build a big green energy park, or a series of them. At today’s Cabinet meeting, which is underway right now, the Council will confirm they’re dropping plans for the third and final site on America Farm, the last strand of this three-pronged dream. It means all three plans are now dead in the water. But the whole venture has cost the taxpayer, you and me and everybody else, over £3 million. And not a penny’s coming back from it. The original proposal from the Council claimed the project could make millions of pounds, but the project was constantly hindered by objections from locals, reductions in the tariff from the Government, and the fact the land is right next to Flag Fen, so it needed to be excavated. Councillor David Sanders is the councillor for Thorney and Eye, and he’s with us this morning. David, morning. David morning.
DAVID SANDERS: Good morning. Can you hear me OK?
PAUL STAINTON: Yes I’ve got you now. I’ve got you now.
DAVID SANDERS: OK.
PAUL STAINTON: Now this was at one time billed as the Leader Marco Cereste’s vanity project by Stewart Jackson MP and others. There were accusations farmers weren’t listened to. I was still doing Breakfast at the time when it was first mooted. I had a lady in here crying, who’d lived on a farm for many many years, saying they’d not been consulted. Was this just a bad idea from the start? Was it a good idea that was badly managed? Or was it just a punt?
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Council admits that a costly solar energy scheme has failed

07:07 Wednesday 25th November 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: The final chapter in Peterborough’s controversial solar farm saga is set to be written today after three years and a cost of over £3 million to the taxpayer. The proposed scheme for America Farm will join those for Newborough Farm and Morris Fen in the City Council’s history books, after being judged financially unviable. later on the Council is expected to accept proposals to drop plans for thousands of solar panels at America Farm. Sara Varey has been looking back on the solar saga.
SARA VAREY: The opening line as delivered by Council Leader Marco Cereste in October 2012 promised an annual income of £7.5 million for the next twenty five years, to be achieved through the Government’s generous feed-in tariff scheme, that offers cashbacks for generating green energy. Three Council owned plots were identified, America Farm, Morris Fen and Newborough Farm. The tenant farmers clamoured their families’ futures were in jeopardy. John Harris voiced his feelings during the debate here on Radio Cambridgeshire in December 2013.
JOHN HARRIS: It’s just absolutely devastating for the countryside and obviously for myself and my family. We’ve not had a good night’s sleep since this plan came to fruition.
SARA VAREY: Peterborough MP Stewart Jackson took on the role of clairvoyant.
STEWART JACKSON: Based on the predictions in this business plan, if the funding regime for subsidies changed drastically, that will leave Peterborough City Council taxpayers on the hook very significantly for this project.
SARA VAREY: And so it has come to pass. The Government’s enthusiasm for subsidising renewable energy has waned. In October 2014 Morris Fen and Newborough were written out of the script as financially unsustainable, and the show is now over for America Farm too. But the audience is still waiting for the punchline. How much has it all cost? Newborough resident Alex Terry says it’s time for the big reveal.
ALEX TERRY: You should release the financial data. You’re earning money to save the people of Peterborough you say. So prove it. (APPLAUSE)
DOTTY MCLEOD: Local resident of Newborough there Alex Terry finishing that report from Sara Varey. We did ask Peterborough City Council to come on this morning for a chat. They’ve sent us this statement instead. It reads: “The decision to withdraw plans for the two largest sites followed a Government announcement that it was withdrawing support from large-scale solar projects. America Farm was the scheme’s smallest site. Cabinet will this morning consider a recommendation to cease this project. This is because DECC the Department of Energy and Climate Change is set to significantly reduce the level of feed-in tariff payments to ground-mounted solar by around 80% in the New Year.” Well Dale McKean will talk to us. He was the Conservative councillor for the Eye and Thorney ward when plans were first put forward for these schemes three years ago, and he also sat on the Rural Scrutiny Committee at Peterborough City Council. Morning Dale.
DALE MCKEAN: Good morning Dotty.
DOTTY MCLEOD: Now did you realise .. did you realise when these schemes were mooted three years ago that these feed-in tariffs might drop off? Did you consider that as a possibility?
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Supermarketgate – no immediate prospect of a Sainsburys in Whittlesey

10:24 Wednesday 25th November 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: So it’s official this morning. The confirmation has come through. The final site of Peterborough City Council’s big solar park dream scrapped. Councillors have confirmed that plans for America Farm won’t now go ahead, alongside Morris Fen and Newborough which have already bitten the dust. It’s the end of the whole project, which has cost the people of Peterborough over £3 million. In return they’ve got diddly squat. So bad news. And there could be even worse news for people in Whittlesey. Remember two supermarkets fighting over the chance to open a big supermarket in Whittlesey? Well we understand there’s a possibility that the whole Sainsbury’s development, the winners in this struggle, might now be pulled. Let’s speak to John Elworthy. He’s Editor of many Cambridgeshire newspapers. It’s easier to say that John than list them all I think.
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Alcohol and violence against public sector workers

07:41 Friday 20th November 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: New figures from the East of England Ambulance service show a small rise in the number of staff at the NHS Trust being attacked. There were 195 physical assaults reported in 2014/15, compared to 188 in the year beforehand. 36 of these assaults last year were reported in Cambridgeshire. This included a Cambridgeshire paramedic who was bitten on the arm by a drunk patient. 90 people were found guilty of attacks. Joining me now is Tim Roberts, who is the regional organiser for the public service union Unison. Tim this must be a horrible thing really, if you’re out and about trying to help ill people and you get bitten on the arm by someone who has had too much to drink.
TIM ROBERTS: Yes. This is the problem which many of our members face working in the public services, particularly those in the emergency services such as the ambulance service. They face a range of problems, and it’s invariably down to people’s over-consumption of alcohol.
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Routes into Language – the Foreign Language Spelling Bee

17:47 Wednesday 18th November 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: My next guest is a Cambridgeshire language teacher, who has started a national petition to try to save a project, under threat she says from spending cuts. Two years ago Jane Driver was on the show with one of her students to talk about the Foreign Language Spelling Bee which she created and has watched and helped develop. She’s here now to tell us more. Jane, welcome back.
JANE DRIVER: Thank you.
CHRIS MANN: So the Foreign Language Spelling Bee is what?
JANE DRIVER: It is a spelling Bee project, but for spelling into the foreign language. So it’s there to develop students’ knowledge of phonics, of pronounciation, of basic grammar, when they begin secondary school in their language learning.
CHRIS MANN: You’re the Head of Language at the Voyager Academy in Peterborough, and your little idea has reached 75,000 students last year. That’s incredible.
JANE DRIVER: Yes, it is incredible. It started with a very small pilot here in the Eastern Region, and it’s grown at a huge rate each year. So year on year we have more and more pupils participating in the competition. And this is only one of the projects that Routes into Languages funds and collaborates with teachers and students.
CHRIS MANN: So a simple idea. Is there anything complicated in it, or do you just have to spell?
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Council may delay debt repayment to avoid cuts

17:42 Tuesday 17th November 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: It’s particularly challenging for councils this year, because of a big cut in the amount of money they get from central government. And it is the time of year when our councils reveal how they’re going to balance their books in next year’s budget. Today it was the turn of Peterborough council, Peterborough City Council, who need to save £19.5 million next year. Our political reporter Hannah Olsson has been looking over the proposals and joins me now. Hannah, this is just phase one of these proposals.
HANNAH OLSSON: Yes good evening Chris. Today the Council announced its first round of plans, which total just over £12 million in savings. We’ll hear about the rest in the new year, after they’ve found out exactly how much they’ll be getting from central government. I use the word savings rather than cuts, because Peterborough City Council believes it can achieve this first round of savings without any reduction in services. This is of course in stark contrast to Cambridgeshire County Council, who told us a couple of weeks ago they would have to make significant cuts to their services in order to balance the books.
CHRIS MANN: So where are they finding £12 million from?
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Stewart Jackson on HMRC restructuring

17:09 Thursday 12th November 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: Over 400 jobs are to go at the tax offices in Cambridge and Peterborough, as part of a restructuring for HMRC. The tax authority is planning to close 137 offices across the UK and replace them with 13 regional centres. In a moment we’ll get reaction from the union which represents HMRC workers in this region (see note), but first of all let’s bring in the Conservative MP for Peterborough, Stewart Jackson. Hello to you Stewart.
STEWART JACKSON: Hi Chris.
CHRIS MANN: Another jobs blow. Your reaction to this, which of course coming from your own government.
STEWART JACKSON: Well naturally I’m very sympathetic and sorry for the staff who are going to lose their jobs, or at least lose the location of their jobs. I know that some will take voluntary redundancy, and some will choose to commute to London. But it is a blow, particularly before Christmas, and not good for the city, because these are very good high quality white collar jobs, and I’m very disappointed. And I do think that we need to work together, the regeneration agency, the Jobcentre, the City Council and local MPs, to work with Ministers to make sure that the number of compulsory redundancies is an absolute minimum.
CHRIS MANN: It’s going to happen over four years, a big shake-up of the tax system. Does it need that?
STEWART JACKSON: Well I do think it needs a bigger focus on customer-fronted services. The complaints I consistently get are about the lack of responsiveness and customer care from HMRC. It has improved over the years, but it needs to do better, particularly for businesses and individual taxpayers. I think there’s still a problem. Having said that, I want to see the detail, because I’m not entirely convinced that if you’re running a business in Peterborough, that you really ought to be dealing with a regional centre in east London. And I want to see the details. But in the first instance, my job is to try and make sure that this process is handled sensitively and that there are jobs for people that want to continue to work for HMRC.
CHRIS MANN: Yes because the Government spoke about empowering people in the regions, and moving power away from the centre. And yet the tax is at the centre of all of our society isn’t it, and this is being moved to East Stratford of all places. That would be the centre for the whole Eastern Region. Seems odd.
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Julian Huppert in support of research funding

08:20 Thursday 12th November 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: The future of scientific research and invention in Cambridgeshire could suffer as a result of the Government funding freeze. This is the warning from former Cambridge Liberal Democrat MP Julian Huppert, who says companies like microchip designer ARM may have never got off the ground if it wasn’t for research investment in their early days. Government funding for science and research programmes has been frozen at £4.6 billion since 2010. Julian Huppert joins me now,. Morning Julian.
JULIAN HUPPERT: Morning Dotty. How are you?
DOTTY MCLEOD: Yes fine thank you. £4.6 billion does seem like quite a lot of money doesn’t it?
JULIAN HUPPERT: It is in some ways a lot of money. But it’s not as much as is needed if we’re going to make the advances in all areas of science and research, if we’re going to get the benefits we can get in medicine from being able to create new treatments, in physics, in computing. We have lots and lots of evidence that actually the country makes a profit from this investment. We get really good financial returns, as well as the social returns, and the advancement of knowledge for its own sake.
DOTTY MCLEOD: You know what though, we do get some pieces of research, and we talk about them on this programme. You know the other week we had this research into the vocal chords and the testicles of howler monkeys. There’s research out today from the University of Cambridge about the strength of the jaws of a cockroach. And I hear about this and I think well it’s a bit of fun, but what’s the actual point? Is it really worth the money?
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