Mixed feelings in Fenland on Tesco retrenchment

08:26 Friday 9th January 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: A £22 million Tesco store which was due to open in Chatteris last year has been binned by the retail giant. The sprawling store had been earmarked to open its doors to customers two months ago, but has ended up on the scrapheap without serving a single customer. The store is one of 49 planned new-builds shelved by the retailer, including stores planned for Ely and Whittlesey. Martin Curtis is the Conservative county councillor for Whittlesey North. Martin, what did you think about this, this news that there will be no Tesco store now in Whittlesey?
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SPICE project – weather modification for global temperature control

07:50 Thursday 8th January 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: All this week on the Breakfast Show we have been casting our minds back to 1989 and ‘Back to the Future 2’, which showed us a fictional 2015, the very year that we have arrived at now. In that year in the film you might remember the American weather service actually controlled and scheduled the weather. We’ve not quite reached that point in 2015 in the real world, just like many of the other inventions anticipated in the film. But could it one day be achieved? Well there is a research project called SPICE, which stands for Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering. It’s investigating whether releasing micro-particles into the atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays could reduce the earth’s temperature and rewind global warming. Dr Hugh Hunt is the Lecturer in the Department of Engineering at Cambridge University who is working on the SPICE project. Hugh, this sounds quite high-tech. Explain how it actually works.
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Cambridge Cleantech – third wave of technology in Silicon Fen

07:22 Wednesday 7th January 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: We’ve all heard of Silicon Fen of course, part of Cambridgeshire, brought us major international development right here in our county. It’s been through various sectors over the years. In the ’60s and ’70s IT and telecommunications, ’80s and ’90s it was life sciences. Well now we’re hearing that the third wave has arrived, and it is cleantech. For the past three years the industry has grown rapidly, and now Cambridge is seen as the go-to place for green energy development. Martin Garrett is the CEO of Cambridge Cleantech. Martin, you’re going to have to explain first of all what comes under this bracket of cleantech.
MARTIN GARRETT: Yes, good morning Dotty and happy new year to you. I’m quite happy to do that. Our definition for cleantech covers three categories. First of all, renewable energy, so that’s new forms of energy using no or low-carbon. So that would be wind, wave, solar, tidal and so on. Then we also have a low-carbon category. Think of that as using less energy. So that could be smart building materials and metering, so that people use less energy in a building. And electric vehicles would come into that category as well. Then we also have the third category, which is environmental, and that would include recycling and water treatment.
DOTTY MCLEOD: I can appreciate that this is probably quite a hard thing to quantify, but do we have an idea of how many people are employed in this kind of sector in Cambridgeshire now?
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Cambridge scientists develop the lie detector suit

17:41 Tuesday 6th January 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: Cambridge scientists have helped develop a new lie-detector suit, which helps find out how much you fidget under pressure. This breakthrough has developed a method with a success rate in tests of over 70%. It could be used in police stations around the world within a decade. Professor Ross Anderson of Cambridge University helped develop it and he joins me now. Hello Ross.
ROSS ANDERSON: Hi.
CHRIS MANN: Really interesting, a lie-detector suit. Does it go all over the body?
ROSS ANDERSON: Well in our prototype what we’ve got is a body-motion sensor suit, which is what actors use if they’re acting in cartoons. So you can run around, jump up and down, and the suit records exactly to the millimetre where your arms and legs move. Now in future versions it will be a bit less intrusive, because we’re going to be starting experiments on using W band radar, which is what you get in airport screening, and also in using gesture detection devices such as the Kinect to do the body motion measurements.
CHRIS MANN: Everybody thinks of the polygraph, which I think started in the ’20s, didn’t it? How accurate is it?
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Cambridge bloggers on Election 2015

17:13 Monday 5th January 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: So in case you hadn’t noticed, there is a General Election coming up this year. The campaign, well it’s been a slow-burner until now, but it’s beginning to produce more than a few sparks. Let’s find out what we think is going to be in prospect locally from two leading Cambridgeshire bloggers on politics, Richard Taylor .. hello Richard.
RICHARD TAYLOR: Good afternoon Chris.
CHRIS MANN: .. and Antony Carpen, known to many as Puffles. Hello Antony.
ANTONY CARPEN: Good afternoon Chris.
CHRIS MANN: So gentlemen, how much do you think there will be Cambridgeshire issues in this election campaign? Richard first.
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Election year 2015

08:24 Monday 5th January 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: MPs return to the Commons today after the Christmas break with a little over four months to go before the General Election. And this morning each of the three main parties are holding key news conferences to focus on their priorities. Joined by our political correspondent Paul Rowley. Paul it feels like the General Election campaign is already in full swing. Just looking at some of the papers this morning, you’ve got David Cameron wooing UKIP on the front page of the Times, you’ve got one of the Labour Shadow Justice Secretaries on the front page of the Independent. It is all getting very political.
PAUL ROWLEY: It is, even though officially the campaign only begins at the end of March when Parliament is prorogued as they call it, to allow formal campaigning to begin. But let’s be honest Dotty, it’s underway. The sequence begins at ten thirty this morning, when Ed Miliband will host a Labour event in Greater Manchester. When he stops talking, Nick Clegg will hold his London news conference at Westminster, not in a Government building for once but at the Liberal Democrat’s headquarters, primarily because he’s going to be slagging off his Coalition partners the Conservatives. And then around mid-day an array of Tory cabinet ministers led by George Osborne the Chancellor will join forces to have a pop at Labour. All this a matter of one hundred and twenty two days before election day itself on May 7th.
DOTTY MCLEOD: So what are the opening sallies looking like?
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Dr Elaine Storkey on the appointment of the first woman bishop in the Church of England

17:09 Wednesday 17th December 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: ‘An unexpected joy’. That’s how the Reverend Libby Lane described her appointment as the first woman bishop in the Church of England. The Church changed its rules last month, overturning centuries of tradition. She’ll become Bishop of Stockport, an assistant post in the Diocese of Chester. .. The reverend Libby Lane will be consecrated at a ceremony at York Minster next month. Well joining me in the studio to discuss this is the senior laywoman on the Church’s General Synod, from Ely, Dr Elaine Storkey. Hello Elaine
ELAINE STORKEY: Hello.
CHRIS MANN: So a big day. How did you react this morning?
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The English Question

17:20 Tuesday 16th December 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: Plans to give English MPs a greater say on laws that only affect England have been put forward by the Government today. David Cameron promised English votes for English laws when he unveiled new powers for the Scottish parliament after Scots rejected independence. The Leader of the Commons William Hague says that means things have to change at Westminster too.
(TAPE)
WILLIAM HAGUE: MPs representing constituencies outside England may vote on legislation which does not affect their constituents, while English MPs are not able to influence these policies in other nations where they are devolved.
(LIVE)
CHRIS MANN: Four options are on offer from the Government. Continue reading “The English Question”