Cambridge property – average earners priced out

07:08 Wednesday 29th April 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: A typical working family hoping to take their first steps onto the property ladder would find no homes that they could afford in Cambridge. That is the bleak assessment from a report by the housing charity Shelter. They compared the asking prices for houses on a popular property website with what they calculated would be the average combined salaries of a couple in their 20s, so just over £30,000. And nationally they found families on that money could afford 17% of homes. In Cambridge 0%. Well Kevin Price is Labour’s Executive councillor for Housing on Cambridge City Council. Morning Kevin.
KEVIN PRICE: Good morning Dotty.
DOTTY MCLEOD: And also with me on the line is Catherine Smart, who is the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrat group on Cambridge City Council. Morning Catherine.
CATHERINE SMART: Good morning.
DOTTY MCLEOD: So Kevin, do you accept this research? Is the situation really as bad as Shelter are saying?
Continue reading “Cambridge property – average earners priced out”

Nepal – a colossal task ahead

07:41 Tuesday 28th April 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: Let us travel to Nepal, a country of course that was shaken by an earthquake on Saturday. A lot of the worries are surrounding simply basic facilities, things like shelter, water, food supplies. And in fact a water engineer from Cambridgeshire who has lived and worked in Nepal says that water systems in place in the country were inadequate to start with. Regular aftershocks have made access to the smallest towns and villages especially dangerous and difficult. Rescue teams haven’t been able to reach many places, and where they have, some fear it may be too little too late. Well Jane and Simon Wilson-Howarth join me in the studio now. Good morning. Now you have lived in Nepal. You have worked in Nepal. What took you there Jane?
JANE WILSON-HOWARTH: Well Simon’s work took us there. I did some health and hygiene and diarrhoeal disease control work, and Simon was working on ..
SIMON WILSON-HOWARTH: I’ve been working there since the ’70s, first as a volunteer, working on water supply systems and irrigation systems, and then I’ve been back several times since then.
DOTTY MCLEOD: And just describe the country to us, the country that you knew.
SIMON WILSON-HOWARTH: Well it was a beautiful country. Kathmandu used to be a very small city, but it’s grown very rapidly recently. And with conflict and poverty, a lot of people have moved into the city, which has grown enormously, and overwhelmed the water supply, which has always been very very sparse, very erratic. And now with a disaster like this, the whole system has been completely overwhelmed, and there’s virtually no water supply to anyone in the city any more.
DOTTY MCLEOD: You lived there for over a decade. You must know people still out there. What have they told you about what it’s like there at the moment?
Continue reading “Nepal – a colossal task ahead”

Political engagement – trust in politicians and bothering to vote

07:18 Monday 27th April 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: We’ve been talking today about political engagement. Overall in 2010, the last General Election, Cambridgeshire saw a turnout, the number of people voting, that was actually above the national average, although only just. The turnout varied between 74.9% in South Cambridgeshire to just 63.9% in Peterborough. And you do hear people complaining that all politicians are alike, that politicians just don’t keep their promises, so why should we bother voting? Why should we bother voting when they never do what they say they will do before the election? So lots of people trying to do more to increase the number of people who actually turn up to vote on May 7th, and we’re going to hear from two of them now. Clive Semmens is the Green Party Parliamentary candidate for South East Cambridgeshire. Morning Clive.
CLIVE SEMMENS: Good morning.
DOTTY MCLEOD: And also with me in the studio is Huw Jones, who’s the Labour Parliamentary candidate for South East Cambridgeshire. Morning.
HUW JONES: Hiya Dotty.
DOTTY MCLEOD: So South East Cambridgeshire, at the last General Election it was neither the highest nor the lowest in Cambridgeshire in terms of turnout. Why do you think Clive that still one in three people on average just don’t vote?
Continue reading “Political engagement – trust in politicians and bothering to vote”

Police predict rising crime figures

08:09 Friday 24th April 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: “I don’t feel safe anymore.” Those are the words of a disabled Peterborough veteran as he comes to terms with being the victim of a horrific attack. It comes as the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show there’s been a sharp rise in violent and sexual crime in Cambridgeshire. The number of violent crimes is up 45% from last year. Sexual offences are up 53%. And robbery is up 30%. .. Let’s talk to Ed Murphy. Ed, you’re a Peterborough Labour councillor. You’re also a former candidate for Cambridgeshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner role. Good morning.
ED MURPHY: Good morning.
DOTTY MCLEOD: So we’ve heard from the Police and Crime Commissioner Sir Graham Bright. In a statement he says that these crimes figures are up because people are reporting more crimes. Do you agree?
ED MURPHY: No. He’s actually lying through his back teeth once again on this one. He’s in denial. Three months ago I was talking to your listeners about rising violent crime, particularly in the Peterborough area. We’d had four muggings, including Richard, and he’s just in complete denial. Your figures that you quoted from the Office for National Statistics are really alarming. In Cambridgeshire violence against the person that year up 45%. If you look at another comparable police force, the Police Service in Derbyshire, it went up by 4%.
DOTTY MCLEOD: So what do you think is driving the rises then Ed?
ED MURPHY: What’s driving it is a cut in the number of police officers and waste. I’ve calculated about £7 million on Graham Bright’s office since he came in. Cambridgeshire is the fastest growing county in the country. We need more police officers, not less police officers. And we need to tackle this so people like Richard can feel safe in going out in their own town they live in. It’s absolutely disgraceful that too many people don’t feel safe and secure in their own towns and villages throughout Cambridgeshire. And quite frankly, for police officers to be put on by Graham Bright who’s afraid to come on the radio, and try and make out it’s because more people are reporting crime, is a nonsense. Your listeners have tried ringing 101 and reporting crime. They know it’s a lie.
DOTTY MCLEOD: Well let’s talk now to Chief Superintendent DanVajzovic who’s the Head of Territorial Policing at Cambridgeshire Police. Dan, thanks for coming on this morning. You heard there Ed Murphy saying it is a disgrace that people in Cambridgeshire are afraid to leave their homes at night. Do you agree?
Continue reading “Police predict rising crime figures”

Ed Miliband in Cambridge

16:09 Wednesday 22nd April 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

SAM EDWARDS: The Labour Leader Ed Miliband has today been in Cambridge, trying to whip up support in a region that had on the whole turned its back on him. With just two MPs in East Anglia, life on the Labour campaign trail is tough, especially when it’s trying to convince voters it’s the party of government, and the party of the NHS. Ed Miliband spoke to our News Editor Mousumi Bakshi about the so-called creeping privatisation of the NHS, and why, if Labour is anti-privatisation, is a Labour peer on the board of a private healthcare company, a company that lost control of Hinchingbrooke Hospital.
(TAPE)
Continue reading “Ed Miliband in Cambridge”

Italy bears the brunt as migrants stream across the Med

17:22 Thursday 16th April 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: More than forty people have drowned in the latest sinking of a migrant boat between Libya and Italy. The Italian navy rescued four people. Almost 10,000 migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean have been plucked from the sea in recent days. Earlier today the Italian Government made a plea to other European nations for help in providing more funds for operations to rescue migrants from drowning in the Med. After a major surge in the number of people attempting to make the crossing from North Africa, the European Union’s reply today has been that there is no silver bullet to deal with the problem of growing migrant flows. We can get more now from Brussels and our Europe correspondent Gavin Lee.
GAVIN LEE: Another day, and another rescue operation in the Mediterranean. The Italian Coastguard said 893 migrants have been rescued from overcrowded people-smuggling boars in the past twelve hours. The survivors are being brought to a port in Sicily, but at least 41 are missing, feared drowned. Every day since Friday around 1,000 people have been saved. The majority, who had set sail from the coast of Libya. This number according to aid agencies is unprecedented, (and they are) saying the conflict in North Africa and the Middle East as well as the warmer weather are playing a role. That the system is inadequate is a feeling universally acknowledged. Operation Trident with six ships, four planes and one helicopter, costing £2 million a month, is three times smaller than the previous search and rescue operation Mare Nostrum, which was run by the Italian military, and was activated after a similar tragedy in 2013, when 300 migrants drowned. The Italian Government asked for more financial help from the EU. Here in Brussels in the past hour the European Commission has responded, saying it has no silver bullet or any kind of panacea, adding there’s neither the money nor the political support to launch a European border guard system. But it urged member states to invest more. The question is how much money are the twenty eight member states willing to invest. Only twenty two of the member states are involved. Others including the UK opted out, describing the policy as unintentionally encouraging more migrants to attempt the crossing.
CHRIS MANN: Gavin Lee reporting.

=======

Monitor to investigate financial sustainability of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust

17:20 Wednesday 15th April 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: The Chair of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust has sought to reassure people of the financial sustainability of the Trust. The health watchdog Monitor has today released a statement saying that while the organisation is meeting current targets, the CPFT still faces longer term financial challenges. The Trust recently took over the management of older people’s services in Cambridgeshire as part of a consortium. Well Julie Spence has been speaking to our reporter Emma Maclean.
Continue reading “Monitor to investigate financial sustainability of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust”

Northstowe development decision against minimum room size

07:08 Tuesday 14th April 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: There are fears that Northstowe’s standing as an exemplar new development is at risk. Efforts to set a minimum standard size of rooms in houses built in Phase I of the development have been turned down by a Government planning inspector. The developers Gallaghers appealed against South Cambridgeshire District Council’s planning conditions for up to 1500 of the first homes to be built. Alex Riley is the Conservative district councillor for Longstanton and is on the Northstowe Joint Development Control Committee. Morning Alex.
ALEX RILEY: Good morning.
DOTTY MCLEOD: So why did you want to have this standard in place?
ALEX RILEY: Well in the UK we now have the situation that we have the smallest room sizes in the whole of Europe, and the terrifying thing is that our room sizes keep getting smaller. And people keep finding that they’ve bought houses that aren’t really fit for purpose. And those of us on the Committee really bought into the idea that we wanted Northstowe to be something special, exemplar is the word that gets bandied about. And we thought well the least we can do is ensure that the rooms are of a decent size.
Continue reading “Northstowe development decision against minimum room size”