Fairer Funding For Cambridgeshire – The Leader Goes To London

17:07 Tuesday 14th January 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: The Leader of Cambridgeshire County Council is to make a personal appeal to the Prime Minister over the raw deal he feels the county gets in education. Martin Curtis is meeting David Cameron at Downing Street tomorrow. He’ll tell him that a generation of children’s education is being blighted, because Cambridgeshire is the most underfunded in the country, and it’s getting worse. Today the Council Cabinet agreed the latest budget, as part of the £149 million in savings over the next five years. And afterwards Cllr Curtis told me exclusively of his meeting with the Prime Minister, and the reasons behind it.
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Tony Juniper On Fracking

10:37 Monday 13th January 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[A]NDIE HARPER: The Government is offering councils that give the green light to fracking increased tax incentives worth millions of pounds. Now it comes as the French oil and gas giant Total says it’s become the first major energy company to invest in Britain’s shale and gas industry. Minister Michael Fallon explained how local authorities would benefit.
(TAPE)
MICHAEL FALLON: Instead of going to central government, it will get money to spend on local services that could amount to £1.75 million pounds per well site. They’re also being offered, by the operators today, 1% of the revenues once the well starts to flow, and that could be quite significant. That could be five, six, ten million pounds per well head.
(LIVE)
ANDIE HARPER: Nick Butler the head of Cambridge University’s Centre for Energy Studies isn’t convinced that this will be enough to overcome opposition.
(TAPE)
NICK BUTLER: I don’t think that just giving them a little bit more of the revenue is going to change the minds of those people. I think you need very clear and simple trustworthy regulation, yet at the moment it looks rather complex. I think if you had that, then the exploration would go ahead, we’d see what resource there is, and what it would cost.
(LIVE)
ANDIE HARPER: Joining me is the Cambridge-based environmental campaigner and writer Tony Juniper. Tony, good morning to you.
TONY JUNIPER: Good morning Andy.
ANDIE HARPER: So Nick Butler not convinced that this money being handed over to local authorities will convince opposition. What about you?
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Peterborough Learning Disability Day Service Staff Withdrawal Decision During Consultation On Closure

08:21 Thursday 9th January 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[P]AUL STAINTON: The Bigger Breakfast Show has been told of concern by users that the Learning Disability Day Service at the Gloucester Centre in Peterborough is set to close. It’s funded by Peterborough City Council, which is currently consulting about changes to day services for 18-65 year olds with learning or physical disabilities, but the service is run by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Foundation Trust, which has already decided to withdraw its staff at the end of March. Well Lorna Payne is Director of Service Integration at the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Foundation Trust. Lorna, morning.
LORNA PAYNE: Good morning Paul. Thanks for having me on this morning.
PAUL STAINTON: That’s fine. Why are you withdrawing your staff when we don’t know definitely if it’s closed or not?
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Stewart Jackson On ID Cards And Electoral Fraud

17:22 Wednesday 8th January 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[C]HRIS MANN: Peterborough has been named one of the worst places in the UK for electoral fraud. The city has had a checkered history, with a former Mayor amongst those jailed for vote-rigging. So the solution is all voters should be required to show proof of identity, when they turn up at a polling station, before they can cast their vote. That’s according to the Electoral Commission, who’ve just carried out a report. Tom Hawthorn is the author. I spoke to him earlier.
(TAPE)
TOM HAWTHORN: We’ve carried out this report because every year voters tell us that they’re concerned about electoral fraud. I should just reassure your listeners that we don’t have evidence that electoral fraud is widespread across the UK. But we have identified a particular vulnerability that we do think needs to be addressed. So we’re recommending that voters in future should have to show some form of identification when they vote at a polling station.
CHRIS MANN: Now what are you basing this on?
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NHS Winter Campaign Tougher Than Expected

17:19 Tuesday 7th January 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[C]HRIS MANN: Cambridgeshire’s three main NHS hospitals face bed shortages this very evening. Hinchinbrooke and Addenbrookes say the situation is nearing critical. Peterborough City Hospital has been on Black Alert since Friday, meaning it’s experiencing a severe bed shortage. Khurram Iftikhar is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Addenbrookes. He says they’ve seen a big increase in the number of elderly people coming to A&E who subsequently need a hospital bed.
(TAPE)
KHURRAM IFTIKHAR: We’ve had significant pressures over the last few months, and for similar reasons really we’ve had a 5% increase in walk-in presentations to the Emergency Department. On top of that, a 10% increase in patients arriving by ambulance, and the patients arriving by ambulance tend to be elderly, with more complex medical problems and complex comorbidities. And they’re the kind of patients that generally get admitted into the hospital. Our bed capacity varies, so being on Black Alert is a dynamic thing. You can be on Black Alert early on in the day, and that can change once patients are discharged. And then it can go on Black Alert again once you get the admissions through the door. But from an emergency medicine point of view, we all depend on flow, and if there’s no beds in the hospital to admit patients to, the Emergency Department very very quickly gets overcrowded, and that can pose challenges itself, working in the Emergency Department, for the staff and for the patients as well. The other minor contributory factor is Addenbrookes is now the major trauma centre, so we receive trauma patients from across the region. Patients are living longer now with complex comorbidities, and therefore requiring hospital admissions when they become acutely unwell. There are a few patients that probably do attend inappropriately.
(LIVE)
CHRIS MANN: That’s Khurram Iftikhar from Addenbrookes. Now in just moment or two we’ll be going live to Peterborough City Hospital and talk to the Chief Operating Officer Angus Maitland for an update from them. But a short while ago I spoke to Jane Tombleson. She’s Head of Operations for Hinchinbrooke Hospital’s Emergency Care Department. And this is the update she gave me.
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New Homes Marshalls Cambridge East Consultation

08:20 Friday 3rd January 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[D]OTTY MCLEOD: Plans for more than 1,000 homes on the outskirts of Cambridge are now out for public consultation. The development would go north of Newmarket Road. It’s been submitted by Marshalls of Cambridge, and it includes 40% affordable housing, a primary school, a food store and sports pitches. Cllr Nick Wright is Cabinet Member for Planning and Economic Development at South Cambridgeshire District Council. Thanks for joining us this morning Nick. Tell us a little bit more about what the plans involve.
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David Campbell Bannerman On Immigration Controls

11:38 Thursday 2nd January 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[A]NDIE HARPER: Our question that we’ve been posing to you this morning is, is it racist to have misgivings, if no more than that, about the possible influx of Romanian and Bulgarian workers into this country, now that restrictions have been lifted. In some quarters, people’s criticism has been described as racism. Let’s talk shall we to David Campbell Bannerman, formerly a member of UKIP, but now the Conservative MEP for the Eastern Region. He’s on a train, but hopefully we’ll be able to have a conversation with him. David, good morning to you. Good morning David.
DAVID CAMPBELL BANNERMAN: Hi Andie. Happy New Year.
ANDIE HARPER: Yes. Happy New Year to you David. Now do you think it’s fair to describe people who do have some objections, some misgivings about this possible influx of Bulgarians and Romanians, is it fair to call them racist?
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BBC Cambs Bigger Breakfast Political Review 2013

07:19 Tuesday 24th December 2013
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[P]AUL STAINTON: Before we launch ourselves into 2014, we thought it was time to take a little look back through the Bigger Breakfast telescope on our year in Cambridgeshire. We start with the political scene and our reporter Dotty McLeod. It’s been a busy year Dotty. Where shall we begin, do you think?
DOTTY MCLEOD: Well we begin Paul back in May, with one of the biggest stories in Cambridgeshire, which has been the change in the politics of the county itself. Elections to the County Council happened back on 2nd May, and by early evening the next day things had changed. The Council was leaderless, hung, and 20% purple, with the UK Independence Party holding a total of 12 seats. Pete Reeve, the then leader of the UKIP group in Cambridgeshire, said the other main parties needed to take them seriously.
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