Peterborough squatters on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

11:56 Friday 12th June 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire:

PAUL STAINTON: This was the message from the people that call themselves the Peterborough Squatters Autonomy group, who are currently they say fighting for the homeless, those on zero-hours contracts, and those with mental health problems. They’re taking action. This was their message to MPs and councillors, and people in charge.
(TAPE)
ACTIVIST 1: I’d ask them where they slept last night, and if their bed was warm.
ACTIVIST 2: I’d literally say to them that if you’re not going to do anything we’ll keep doing it, and eventually it’s just going to get to the point where people like yourselves are going to be made accountable for your actions. And whether it’s today, tomorrow or in ten years time, you will be held accountable. Because what you’re doing is genocide against the indigenous people of the UK. And once people start walking up to that, you will be arrested, and proper justice will be done.
PAUL STAINTON: That’s the last word today.

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Listen to full coverage here. Starts at 20 minutes 50 seconds in.

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CityLan Expo 2015 – putting Peterborough on the digital map

08:07 Tuesday 9th June 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: A digital revolution is happening in Peterborough that could see it become a world leading tech city. That’s the view of one company in the city, who say improvements to broadband infrastructure are helping digital companies thrive. A campaign is underway to lure some of the world’s largest technology firms, and as Waseem Mirza now reports, if Peterborough Tech City is fully realised, it could mean a massive boost to the whole region’s economy.
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Council library plans on hold after new facts emerge

08:19 Monday 8th June 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: Less than a week after a controversial decision was made to convert the third floor of Cambridge Central Library into an enterprise centre, the plans appear to have been put on hold. This comes after reports that the man who was leading the negotiations with the County Council appears to have been banned from being a company director in the UK. Businessman and architect Roger Perrin from Kora is the man behind the scheme. There’s no suggestion that he has done anything illegal or wrong, but there are questions being asked about the County Council’s actions on this. Lucy Nethsingha is the Leader of the Liberal Democrat group on the County Council. Morning Lucy.
LUCY NETHSINGHA: Good morning Dotty.
DOTTY MCLEOD: So what’s your reaction to what’s happened over the weekend, or what’s been revealed over the weekend?
LUCY NETHSINGHA: Well it has been an amazing fast-moving story in the last week. I’m delighted that the decision to let out the top floor of the library has been reversed. It was a bad decision, pushed through by the Conservative group on Tuesday, and if that’s now not going to happen, that’s fantastic news.
DOTTY MCLEOD: Now this is a blogger, Phil Rodgers, who actually did a bit of digging, and unearthed that Roger Perrin was in fact banned from being a company director in the UK, which seems to have been what’s prompted this slight hiccup in the County Council’s plans. What do you think it shows about the way the County Council has done their research?
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Lewis Herbert on George Osborne’s spending cuts

09:26 Friday 5th June 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

LEWIS HERBERT: I don’t think we’ve heard the worst of it. We’ve basically lost about half of our core Government grant. So we spend about £30 million. We used to get about £10 million. We’re under £5 million in grant now. We are making considerable service efficiencies, working with South Cambridgeshire, changing the way we deliver services, protecting those who need our help the most. The biggest concern is probably for the County Council. I think some of their expenditure cuts are going to be far worse.

We’ve been working on this for five years. So it’s like another five year prison stretch for local government. We’ve already survived five. It’s not simple, and I’m not sure we’re going to survive the next five. I think the worst of it is still to come. Concerned that the Chancellor will save up some of the pain for when he has a Budget Statement in July. We’re a growing economy. We’re a £12 billion a year turnover place. We create more wealth for the Treasury than they put into Cambridge. We’ve got a bigger population. It’s crazy to cut budgets like transport, because we need improved transport, we need more homes for rent.
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Cambridge Central Library cuts and the shape of things to come

08:20 Thursday 4th June 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: Should a councillor from Ramsey or Whittlesea be able to decide what happens in Cambridge city centre? Well that’s exactly what happened with the controversial decision about Cambridge Central Libray earlier on this week. It’s prompted new calls to make Cambridge a unitary authority, the same as Peterborough.  Let’s speak to the Group Leader councillor Ashley Walsh. So what benefits do you think there could be to Cambridge of a change like this?
ASHLEY WALSH: Well I think Cambridge is now a city of huge national importance, it’s rate of growth, the importance for the Eastern and Southern economies, (such) that we really have to be able to control our own destiny in terms of how we want to grow, what sectors of the economy we want to develop into. And we don’t have the power to do that at the moment, because most councillors represent parts of the county that have very little to do with Cambridge, and centre around places like Peterborough, or places around Norfolk. And they just don’t get what Cambridge needs and what it needs to do in the future.
DOTTY MCLEOD: There is a flip side to this of course, which is that if you became a unitary authority in Cambridge, you would no longer have the power to decide on things going on in Ramsey and Whittlesea and Wisbech. Would you be happy with that?
ASHLEY WALSH: Well I think when councils work together very well, as the City Council and South Cambridgeshire do over developing housing, then you can have the power to do that, because you influence each other and you work together. But the Central Library is ust one eaxmple of where Cambridge has suffered because people representing elsewhere in the county have not been able to develop beyond their own parochial interests.
DOTTY MCLEOD: It’s just democracy, isn’t it, the fact that people in different areas decide on one thing that might affect one other area?
ASHLEY WALSH: That’s true. I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with having two layers of local government. The big problem now is that because cuts have been so bad, it’s now becoming an argument about defending your own local area from the scale of the huge spending reductions. So although it might sound like a high ideal to be democratic and represent the whole county, because we have very little money around, people are just defending their own interests. The reason I think that we’ve had to lose the third floor of the Central Library is because Conservatives have historically underfunded branch libraries in the county. And Cambridge is now having to pay that price.
DOTTY MCLEOD: OK. Well let’s talk about what happens when a council becomes a unitary authority. One man who knows a lot about this is counciilor Charles Swift, an Independent councillor for North ward in Peterborough. Been a councillor more more than six decades, so seen many changes, not least Peterborough becoming a unitary authority. So you’ve been a councillor before and after Peterborough became a unitary authority. Has it been good for the city do you think?
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Lost in the mists of time

17:41 Wednesday 3rd June 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

TIM JONES: We support social enterprises to get going through incubation, innovation and we have something called a future business centre on Kings Hedges Road in Cambridge. That’s a new centre.
SAM EDWARDS: How’s that been going?
TIM JONES: Superb. It is full. We are bursting at the seams. It’s absolutely full. We have cohorts of people coming through the incubation programme. And we have had several hundred now people and enterprises through the doors, many of which have taken root and become enormously successful.
SAM EDWARDS: So you’ll be hoping to bring the same success then to Peterborough.
TIM JONES: Absolutely. The idea is that we can replicate what we’ve done in Cambridge, and do that in Peterborough. Peterborough as you know is a growing city. It’s growing very fast. It is a very successful dynamic city, but quite different from Cambridge, and quite different needs. So we see there being a need for us to bring our sort of social inclusion agenda to play in Peterborough as well.
SAM EDWARDS: And how many businesses Tim could you have at this future business centre at Peterborough United’s stadium?
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Council elects old school Tory Leader

07:19 Thursday 21st May 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: John Holdich is the Leader, the new Leader, of Peterborough City Council. The long-serving Conservative councillor for Glinton and Wittering has been appointed unopposed. He’ll replace Marco Cereste who lost his Stanground seat in the recent local elections. Our political reporter Hannah Olsson was at Peterborough Town Hall for last night’s meeting.
(TAPE)
HANNAH OLSSON: The General Election may have surprised pollsters and parties alike, but this evening in Peterborough Town Hall everything went as predicted. Conservative John Peach is the new Mayor, and Conservative John Holdich is the new Leader of Peterborough City Council. We were expecting a nomination from the Labour Group, but it didn’t come, so John Holdich was elected unopposed. The councillors nominating him described him as Peterborough through and through, a team player qualified and respected pair of hands. He said it was time for a clean slate, and he would do his best to represent the people of Peterborough. The only drama of the evening came as the new Leader began announcing the Cabinet members. Two members of the Labour Party Ed Murphy and Jo Johnson walked out of the Council chamber. Ed Murphy at one point was asking for nomination to run a cross-party Cabinet. I asked both Ed and Jo why they left the chamber.
JO JOHNSON: The Labour Group and followers of the Labour Group whip, because we were going to put a position up, and we didn’t do it.
HANNAH OLSSON: That came as a surprise to you?
JO JOHNSON: Yes it did. We weren’t told. We had a pre-meeting before and we weren’t told that there was no opposition.
HANNAH OLSSON: The Leader of the Labour Party Mohammed Jamil told me that simply, things had changed.
MOHAMMED JAMIL: The support I’d been promised, or I thought I had the support, prior to this meeting certain group members came to me and said look I’m sorry we’re not supporting you. Now I felt I could go ahead with this, or I could try and work with John Holdich to secure a better deal.
HANNAH OLSSON: So it may be a new era for Peterborough City Council, but it seems the drama continues.
(LIVE)
DOTTY MCLEOD: Hannah Olsson there reporting from the annual Council meeting in Peterborough last night. John Holdich the new Leader of Peterborough City Council joins me now. Morning John.
JOHN HOLDICH: Good morning Dotty.
DOTTY MCLEOD: Well congratulations. What is first on your list of to do tasks?
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