Category: Peterborough

All Roads Lead To Rome

07:40 Monday 7th April 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[P]AUL STAINTON: A new programme has been launched aimed at finding innovative solutions to the challenges Peterborough will face in the coming years. Businesses can now apply for funding to develop and test ideas to address problems like spitting in public places and the unhealthy nature of fast food. Let’s speak to Steve Bowyer from Opportunity Peterborough, running the project. It’s called Brainwave. Can you describe exactly how it works.
STEVE BOWYER: Basically you can register on the portal and you can put up any challenge you think the city faces. So it might be around waste. it might be around energy production. Whatever.

………

PAUL STAINTON: So it’s a bit like a dating website for ideas.
STEVE BOWYER: Sort of. Yes. Yes. And then what we also do is if you’re a funder, so if you’re a business angel or a venture capitalist, or anything like that, you too can register on that. And if you tag your interests as things like waste or energy or whatever.

……….

PAUL STAINTON: What sort of ideas are on there already? What are the challenges we’re trying to find solutions for at the moment?
STEVE BOWYER: Good ideas on there, good challenges on there around energy and waste and actually how do we create a circular economy where our waste is used better locally.

=========

Peterborough DNA – Future Cities Demonstrator – Questions Arising

=========

Turmoil As Leader Quits at Cambs County Council

08:25 Monday 24th March 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[P]AUL STAINTON: We’ve been discussing the news that Martin Curtis will step down as Leader of the County Council in May. He said on Friday that it was because he didn’t want to work as Leader within a committee system. Well earlier in the show the Liberal Democrat Leader Maurice Leake said if Martin couldn’t stand the heat then it was best he left the kitchen. Paul Bullen from UKIP suggested that his decision was prompted by a split within the Tory party. Some have accused him of running scared. Well councillor Martin Curtis has never been afraid to come on this show, and he’s here now. Martin, morning.
MARTIN CURTIS: Good morning Paul. A number of things that I want to clarify. First of all, I have said on a number of occasions over this last weekend, I think I even said it on Chris Mann’s show on Friday, that I believe a committee system could work,. I don’t believe it’s the best system of governance. I believe it could work.
PAUL STAINTON: Why walk away then?
Continue reading “Turmoil As Leader Quits at Cambs County Council”

Alan Melton on Wisbech Magistrates Court

08:19 Wednesday 19th March 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[P]AUL STAINTON: The sale of Wisbech Magistrates Court to a private developer has been severely criticised by the town’s MP. It’s been sold for just £150,000, less than you’d pay for an average house. Earlier this year Fenland District Council decided not to buy the site, which is on the Nene waterfront, and could be part of the town’s regeneration. Now Steve Barclay the MP has written a lengthy statement on his website calling for the Council to explain to the town’s residents why they decided not to proceed . Well the Leader of the Council, Alan Melton, joins me now. Morning Alan.
ALAN MELTON: Good morning.
PAUL STAINTON: Go on then. Explain.
Continue reading “Alan Melton on Wisbech Magistrates Court”

Peterborough MP Held Blameless in IPSA Ruling

18:40 Monday 3rd March 2014
BBC Look East West

[A]MELIA REYNOLDS: The MP for Peterborough has won his legal battle with the Parliamentary expenses watchdog. Stewart Jackson was threatened with court action after he refused to repay more than £50,000. But he’s now been told it was all a mistake, and he actually owes nothing. A short while ago I spoke to our political correspondent Andrew Sinclair about the significance of the case.
Continue reading “Peterborough MP Held Blameless in IPSA Ruling”

Robin Page on Development in South Cambridgeshire

17:08 Tuesday 25th February 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[D]OTTY MCLEOD: Heads should roll at South Cambridgeshire District Council. That’s according to the Chairman of the Countryside Restoration Trust. Robin Page says the planned development of Bourn Airfield could endanger important wildlife, and that the Council hasn’t done enough to protect it. It’s possible new development is part of a bigger local plan to build nearly 20,000 new homes in the countryside around Cambridge over the next two years. Robin Page joins me now. So Robin, what is so outrageous about what is going on?
Continue reading “Robin Page on Development in South Cambridgeshire”

Dale McKean On the Reliability of Projected Income from Solar Energy at America Farm

17:15 Monday 24th February 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[P]ETER SWAN: We’re hearing about Peterborough City Council and their plans to build a wind farm and a solar farm in order to both provide power of course and indeed to help their budget situation as well. The only downside is Marco Cereste very keen, unfortunately his own Scrutiny Commission for Rural Communities believe the figures aren’t strong enough to justify the huge expense of setting the farms up, or that the revenue they generate once they’re up and running will be big enough. Dale McKean is from the Committee. Let’s hear from him now. Earlier he expressed his concerns to me and his disappointment that their advice had been ignored.
Continue reading “Dale McKean On the Reliability of Projected Income from Solar Energy at America Farm”

Cereste Warns of Dire Consequences if Solar Plans Thwarted

17:08 Monday 24th February 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[P]ETER SWAN: Let’s begin then with Peterborough City Council, because they’re set to invest millions of pounds into an ambitious project including an energy farm, despite being urged not to. They’ve decided to ignore recommendations by their own Rural Scrutiny Commission not to build a solar farm at the America Farm site, arguing that the figures do add up. The Council face a nineteen million pound gap in their 2015/2016 budget, and they’re confident the combination of solar and wind farms at three sites across the city could help to protect vital services from the inevitable cuts to come. Well I spoke earlier to Council Leader Marco Cereste, who explained the reasons as to why they’re still planning to go ahead.
Continue reading “Cereste Warns of Dire Consequences if Solar Plans Thwarted”

Gillian Beasley – A Question From Richard

09:53 Friday 21st February 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[A]NDIE HARPER: Richard’s in Peterborough. Good morning Richard. What do you make of all of this? You live in the city, and Stewart Jackson was saying earlier it’s been dragged through the mud really. Just after the Dennehy case and this story and yet most people are decent. But what do you make of it?
RICHARD FROM PETERBOROUGH: Well that’s how it occurs to me. The Dennehy case is going to be wound up next week or the week after, when she and her accomplices will be sentenced. And I was just wondering, is it just coincidental that two such cases making Peterborough infamous have occurred so close to each other. You hear hearsay stories that Peterborough is used as a dump by other cities to get rid of their unwanted. And we can’t get a definitive answer on this. Maybe perhaps you can, preferably from the Chief Executive Gillian Beasley.
ANDIE HARPER: So are you making a link then between the Dennehy case, which after all she is from this country. Her victims, with one exception ..
RICHARD FROM PETERBOROUGH: Not from Peterborough.
ANDIE HARPER: No I take your point, not from Peterborough. But you are making a link between that case, if you like home-grown criminals, and people coming in from the Czech Republic or wherever. You think Peterborough is being used as a dumping ground, not just people from abroad, but from this country?
RICHARD FROM PETERBOROUGH: Precisely. I have heard tales of hearsay again that Cambridge .. dossers and beggars and unemployed of Cambridge are invited or leaned on to go to Peterborough. Can we please have an answer from Peterborough Council. Is this the case?
ANDIE HARPER: But people from this country are free to move wherever they want to. And so wherever Dennehy came from ..
RICHARD FROM PETERBOROUGH: But why is it so many of them seem to come to Peterborough?
ANDIE HARPER: Well that is I suppose a good question. So you feel that they are being attracted to the city, or sent to the city? What attracts them to the city then?
RICHARD FROM PETERBOROUGH: Well that’s the question I’d like Gillian Beasley preferably to answer. Does Peterborough agree to take all comers, whatever their histories, whatever their problems? Joanna Dennehy for instance, she was an unemployed unmarried mother who had abandoned her children. She already had drug and drink problems. And yet she winds up in a .. presumably a council property in Orton Goldhay Peterborough. How did she wind up there from Harpenden
ANDIE HARPER: Richard, we will try to find out for you.

===========