Peterborough Council Energy Scheme Bowled A Bouncer

08:27 Thursday 6th June 2013
Bigger Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: Now let’s return to our main story this morning, Peterborough City Council’s plans to build a green energy park using both solar and wind turbines. But the whole project could be thrown into disarray this morning after the Government announced it wants to give local residents more power to block onshore wind farms. The new guidelines say that national targets for green energy shouldn’t automatically override the views of local communities. If these guidelines are approved, it could be disastrous for Peterborough City Council, because it’s budgeting on the wind farm aspect of the energy park making nearly four times as much profit as the solar panel part. So without wind, the project will only make around £30 million, and not the £140 million that the Council are banking on. By that take then, they’d have to invest £400 million to get back £30 million, if they don’t get the wind turbines. That’s what we’re saying here.Well here to tell us more about the new guidelines is our business guru Yuan Potts. Morning Yuan.
YUAN POTTS: Good morning Paul.
PAUL STAINTON: This is going to certainly throw Peterborough City Council’s plans a bit of a spanner, isn’t it? Continue reading “Peterborough Council Energy Scheme Bowled A Bouncer”

BBC Cambridgeshire Breakfast Show Programme Summary 6th June 2013

A summary of the final two hours of the BBC Radio Cambridgeshire Breakfast Show broadcast on Thursday 6th June 2013. Topics include Peterborough City Council plans for solar and wind energy from converted arable land, Government attempts to maximise occupancy of rented public housing and sightings of celebrities locally.
Continue reading “BBC Cambridgeshire Breakfast Show Programme Summary 6th June 2013”

PM Praises Southwold Pier Rescue

17:44 Wednesday 5th June 2013
Drive BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: David Cameron has paid tribute to Sufolk’s volunteer coastguards, who rescued more than fifty people during a charity swim that went wrong. Organisers have apologised for going ahead with Southwold’s Pier to Pier swim nearly a fortnight ago, when more than a hundred and thirty swimmers ended up getting into difficulty. Therese Coffey the Conservative MP for Suffolk Coastal, thanked the rescuers during Prime Minister’s Questions. (TAPE)
THERESE COFFEY: The weekend before last Mr Speaker there was a community swim off the coast of Southwold, which actually could have become a tragedy, were it not for the brave efforts of our emergency services, and in particular the volunteer coastguards and the RNLI. Can the Prime Minister My Right Honourable Friend join with me in thanking our volunteer coastguards, and in particular helmsman Simon Callaghan, crewmen Paul Barker and Rob Kelsey, in pulling out fifty six people from the water and averting a tragedy. (LIVE)
CHRIS MANN: David Cameron agreed. (TAPE)
DAVID CAMERON: I certainly join the Honourable Lady that the Royal National Lifeboat Association do an extraordinary job for our country. They are really one of our emergency services and should be treated as such. And I think she’s absolutely right to raise this case, and I join her in paying tribute to those brave people.

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Kings Lynn Incinerator – Option To Cancel

17:18 Tuesday 4th June 2013
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MATTHEW GUDGIN: Let’s hear from County Hall today. The controversial contract for a waste incinerator in Kings Lynn has come under renewed criticism today. Councillors on the Cabinet Scrutiny Committee said they still haven’t had a reliable report on how much it would cost to get out of the contract. They’ve called for an independent report outlining both the costs and the savings which would be made if the County Council cancelled the contract with Anglo-American consortium Cory Wheelabrator. Well our West Norfolk producer Jill Bennett was at the meeting at County Hall today, and is with us in the studio. Jill, why were members of the Committee not happy with the estimates that hed been given by their own officers? Continue reading “Kings Lynn Incinerator – Option To Cancel”

Hempsted Land Marco Cereste

Looking at the article on the row between Gillian Beasley and Stewart Jackson MP concerning backroom plans to import the homeless from Kensington and Chelsea,  there is a PDF file of documents that relates to that which includes a document which runs as follows:

“News from Peterborough City Council Communications Team PR4121 Open Letter Kensington & Chelsea An open letter from Marco Cereste Leader of Peterborough City Council about the recent reports about a partnership etc. etc.

6th March 2013″

It talks about development land, building houses, bringing people in etcetera. The full version is available at the PDF link above. It is difficult to copy all of it into text from that PDF so view there if you wish.

It’s listed as a PCC media statement, but doesn’t seem to appear at the date of writing on the media archive at PCC.
Continue reading “Hempsted Land Marco Cereste”

Proof Of Concept – The New Listener

[U]sing only a simple website and Twitter feed, this site appears to have clearly shown that valid projects can be conducted using broadcast interviews, and that there is a significant audience for the text output. Audio and video output is becoming increasingly prevalent, but its current disadvantage is that the information cannot easily be fully indexed by search engines. In this respect, text is paramount. Google loves text.

This particular project set out to examine broadcast output from BBC local radio, with a view to quantifying the weight that BBC local radio has within the local media theatre. In retrospect, it appears to have been channelled to an inquiry into Peterborough’s green ambitions, since from the beginning they featured largely in the local content. At the beginning of the project, BBC local radio broadcasts were confined to the North of the area. These were later combined into a single Cambridgeshire-wide station. One abiding conclusion drawn from the transcripts, together with some 1,200 engagements on Twitter and numerous comments, appears to argue that these green ambitions are in a state of decay and possible collapse, and may prove to be effectively an illusion, based on a fiction, supported by the valiant efforts of those involved. This will be unwelcome news to those who owe their living to one or other aspect of those green ambitions, but ultimately the truth is there, and it’s usually better to deal with the truth rather than flights of fancy. This conclusion may be proved wrong at a later date, and if so that news will be published right here.

The final pieces in the jigsaw appear below the line. Continue reading “Proof Of Concept – The New Listener”

NHS Reforms – Whistleblowers Come Forward

08:48 Monday 3rd June 2013
Bigger Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: We’ve been talking about ambulances this morning, and asking whether private ambulances are putting lives at risk. A number of whistleblowers contacted the show. We also spoke to the head honcho from the East of England Ambulance Trust earlier in the show, which has garnered much comment from you today.
PRODUCER BEN STEVENSON: It certainly has, and a number more whistle blowers have come forward. It’s very difficult Paul, because obviously they’re very keen not to come onto air, because they don’t want to reveal their identities, so I’m scribbling down what they’ve had to say. And what we might do tomorrow on tomorrow’s show is get them in more detail again, so we can just go over some of these remarkable stories. I’ll just quickly zip through a couple. Continue reading “NHS Reforms – Whistleblowers Come Forward”

The Cereste Shuffle

08:22 Thursday 23rd May 2013
Bigger Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: Well the Leader of Peterborough City Council has reshuffled his Cabinet team, following an extraordinary two weeks at the Town Hall. Marco Cereste will work without a Deputy, following a failed Leadership challenge earlier this month by his then Deputy Matthew Lee. Cllr Lee has been dropped from the Cabinet, along with disgraced Cllr Peter Hiller, who was recently convicted of causing criminal damage. Elsewhere, Cllr Gavin Elsey has been moved to the position of Culture, Recreation and Waste Management, and Cllr Nigel North moves to Environment Capital and Neighbourhoods, while Cllr Irene Walsh adds responsibility for Public Health and Communications to her Community Cohesion and Safety brief, and Cllr Matthew Dalton has left the Cabinet for family reasons. Well we can now speak to the man himself, Marco Cereste. Morning Marco.
MARCO CERESTE: Good morning Paul. You OK?
PAUL STAINTON: Yes I’m good, thank you. Very very good. memories of wrestling flooding through my mind this morning.
MARCO CERESTE: Oh well you see I’m old enough to remember all of that. It used to be great. You should have seen my grandma when they were wrestling. (HE LAUGHS)
PAUL STAINTON: Was she the one with the handbag?
MARCO CERESTE: She was in the ring with them. You should have seen it. It was great fun.
PAUL STAINTON: Anyway, you’ve had a bit of a wrestle with your new Cabinet, haven’t you? Two falls and a submission for Matthew Lee. Continue reading “The Cereste Shuffle”