Category: Peterborough

Stewart Jackson and Daniel Zeichner on the EU referendum

17:46 Friday 15th January 2016
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: The EU referendum represents a once in a lifetime decision according to the Chancellor. He says it’s unrealistic to assume the poll will be repeated. Mr Osborne, who describes himself as Eurosceptic, said he was optimistic about reaching a deal on EU reforms. And today the Head of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker suggested a deal is likely in February which would allow we’re told a referendum as early as June of this year. So how are our local MPs lining up? I spoke to two of them earlier, Eurosceptic Conservative Stewart Jackson, the MP for Peterborough and Daniel Zeichner, Labour MP for Cambridge. I asked Stewart Jackson first if he believed a vote would come as soon as June.
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Priestgate Vaults

A new visitor attraction in Peterborough

07:33 Wednesday 13th January 2016
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: Here’s a question. Should entry to museums always be free? Well it is at Peterborough Museum, and it’s had hundreds of visitors since October. It’s thanks to its Priestgate Vaults tour, which is actually under the Museum itself. The good news comes as the Museum Association says more museums around the country are having to charge entry fees to make their budgets balance, and that the number of museums shutting completely is also growing. The organisation’s director Sharon Heal says the Government must pay attention to the difficulties being experienced.
SHARON HEAL: People want museums on their doorstep in their locality that reflect the culture and the history and the heritage of the place in which they live. London is a cultural capital. It’s bound to have more investment than other areas, but I think there’s a real danger actually that the Government is seen as a patron of the arts in London, and as a Philistine in the regions, if it doesn’t do something urgently about the regional museum funding cuts.
DOTTY MCLEOD: Well our reporter Kerry Devine went along to meet the Head of Cultural development at Vivacity in Peterborough, Richard Hunt, to see how they’re ensuring the city’s museum stays free.
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Peterborough park and ride plans quietly forgotten

City’s Environment Capital costume looking increasingly threadbare.

07:17 Thursday 7th January 2016
BBC radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: When you say park and ride in Cambridge everyone knows what you’re talking about. They’ve been huge successes these car parks based around the city centre in a kind of ring with then buses into town, huge success, thousands of people using them every day. Now there have been tentative plans for something similar in Peterborough for years now, but that could all change. Instead of progress being made on the plans, they could be removed. There was a special meeting of the City Council last night to look at the Draft Local Transport Plan for Peterborough. It was proposed that the year-round park and ride scheme proposals be dropped. Nick Sandford is LibDem Leader on the City Council and chaired that meeting. Morning Nick.
NICK SANDFORD: Morning Dotty.
DOTTY MCLEOD: So can you just outline for us first of all what a Draft Local Transport Plan is? What are we talking about here?
NICK SANDFORD: Well it basically sets out the transport vision that the Council has. They’re trying to project a long term vision forward to about 2030. But it also talks about some of the short term projects that they’re going to implement in order to take that forward.
DOTTY MCLEOD: Now it might be news to some people that there have even been plans for a park and ride scheme in Peterborough as part of this Local Plan for the past few years, but that’s the case isn’t it?

It is a proper tale of two cities this.

NICK SANDFORD: Yes it is. The Council’s been drawing up these Local Transport Plans since about the year 2000 and there’s always been a long term commitment to have a park and ride scheme. In fact the Council traditionally for a number of years had a park and ride scheme in the period running up to Christmas, but it only ran for quite a short period. The population of Peterborough is projected to grow by about 25%, so if we don’t actually do something fairly quickly there’s going to be an awful lot of congestion in the city centre.
DOTTY MCLEOD: So what happened at this meeting last night?
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Bloated bureaucracy bogus democracy

A veteran Independent councillor states plainly what he feels is wrong with our local government.

10:39 Monday 4th January 2016
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: On the subject of this idea that’s on the front of the Peterborough Telegraph this morning, a new Eastern super-council, apparently talks are going to get underway soon which will encompass Peterborough and Cambridgeshire and Norfolk and Suffolk and Fenland and bring all that together. On the subject of that Pete says “I’m in favour of it all in consolidation Paul. Less management, an economy of scale for procurement. It can only be a good thing. Besides, living in Fenland we are ignored. Everything goes to Cambridge, so we have nothing to lose here.” says Peter. Do we need a revamp as to how our county, and Fenland of course as well, and Peterborough are governed? Council bosses in Cambridgeshire have been told that the county is too small to be given devolved powers from the Government. So it’s no good Peterborough and Fenland and Cambridgeshire county councils teaming up. Too small. It could mean that we have to buddy up with Norfolk or Essex or Suffolk, and get all those extra powers. Well the news has left one councillor, a former County Council Leader Martin Curtis, to call for a complete review of how councils are drawn up, and how we’re all governed. Well with me now is Peterborough councillor Charlie Swift. He’s seen it all and more in his years on Peterborough City Council. Morning Charlie.
CHARLES SWIFT: Morning young man.
PAUL STAINTON: Is this the Emperor’s new clothes, or a brand new idea?
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Homeless people empty dwellings – a natural result of market forces

09:40 Wednesday 16th December 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: A few weeks ago on this show we revealed that Syrian refugees were being re-homed in so-called empty houses in Cambridge. Now an empty home is classified as one that has been left empty by the owner for more than six months. Well many of you were surprised to hear that given the current housing crisis, there were so many of these houses just sat empty. So we though we’d investigate if the amount of empty homes was going up or going down. According to figures given to us by local authorities, the amount of empty houses is actually coming down in most areas. But there’s still thousands of empty properties across the county that are just sat there, not being used. In Cambridge for instance, one in seventeen homes are empty. In Peterborough there are over 400 empty houses. Fenland has 250 with nobody in them. Huntingdon over 1,000, some of which have only just become empty. In South Cambs and East Cambs, councils claim they don[‘t have any empty houses. Well joining is now is a man in the know about the problem when it comes to empty homes, Adam Cliff is the Empty Homes Officer at Peterborough City Council. He won the Empty Homes Practitioner of the Year award in 2014 no less. Congratulations.
ADAM CLIFF: Thank you very much Paul.
PAUL STAINTON: I think we talked about it at the time didn’t we?
ADAM CLIFF: We have, yes.
PAUL STAINTON: You came in. So a house becomes empty. When does it become an ’empty home’, and when does it come on your radar in Peterborough?
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City Deal – a sense of engagement

17:39 Monday 14th December 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: It’s worth up to £1 billion and promises solutions to Cambridge’s ongoing transport and housing issues. But eighteen months after the Cambridge City Deal was signed, has any progress actually been made? Hannah Olsson investigates.
(TRAFFIC)
HANNAH OLSSON: Milton Road in Cambridge. The early morning rush hour is a frustrating part of Cambridge life, with plans to improve this road and others coming into the city with millions of pounds from the Greater Cambridge City Deal. But just like many commuters., the plans aren’t going anywhere fast. (CAR HORN) Eighteen months ago the then Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg visited Cambridge to launch the City Deal. It was signed by council leaders, the university and businesses.
NICK CLEGG: Cambridge if you like came to Government and said “This is what we want. We want this money to improve housing, to develop more apprenticeships and to have money to deal with some of the bottlenecks locally.”
HANNAH OLSSON: The Government guaranteed £100 million over the next five years, with more in the pipeline if there’s evidence the money has been spent wisely and generated growth. The first £20 million arrived in April, but eight months on there hasn’t been so much as a spade in the ground. And some councillors and business leaders in the city are getting increasingly frustrated at how the rules and bureaucracy are slowing things down, John Bridge is the Chief Executive of the Cambridgeshire Chamber of Commerce.
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Council squad to target aggressive beggars and rogue cyclists

11:23 Wednesday 9th December 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: Yesterday on the show we were asking whether the targeting of cyclists on Bridge Street in Peterborough or beggars in the city centre was the best way to tackle anti-social behaviour. Peterborough City Council is starting a scheme which involves council workers being given law enforcement powers from April next year. They’ll have staff on the streets tasked with cracking down on many types of bad behaviour. Well after the show yesterday I spoke to Robin Sissons, the Chief Inspector for the Safer Peterborough Partnership. He’s in charge of this new safety enforcement team. And I started by asking why the city needed to tackle beggars and cyclists. This is what he had to say.
ROBIN SISSONS: If the community feel that an issue is really really important to them then we, as a service, should be tackling those issues that make them feel unsafe.
PAUL STAINTON: Well the police say it’s unenforceable, this ban, and that nobody has ever been injured in the last five years because of a cyclist, so what’s the point?
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Fletton Quays proposals ‘bland and indifferent’

07:08 Tuesday 8th December 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: Plans for the Fletton Quays development in Peterborough lack vision and should be deferred until better plans are made. Those are the views of the Peterborough Civic Society, ahead of the decision on whether outline planning permission will be given to 280 homes, 14,000 square metres of office space and a hotel on the huge riverside plot. Peterborough City Council’s planning committee will assess the latest proposals this afternoon. This has been rumbling on for years, and the South Bank is still bare and still really a bit of an eye-sore. Back in July our reporter Will Fyfe went down to the site for a look round.
WILL FYFE: For sometime now Peterborough has been considered one of the fastest growing cities in the UK. But if you step just 500 yards outside of the busy city centre over onto the other side of the River Nene you’ll be confronted with something more like this, no cars, no people and certainly no shops. I’m stood on the South Bank of Peterborough. In theory it’s 20 acres of prime riverfront land, but in reality it’s nothing more than a derelict car park. Just over the water in front of me you can see the outline of the iconic Peterborough Cathedral. The site used to be home to a Matalan and a B&Q about ten years ago, but they decided to move across to the other side of town. And it’s very obvious standing here that in that time nature has risen up and taken back the site. There’s literally buddleia bushes about nine, ten feet high where cars should be parked in the car park. And alongside a lot of the vegetation here there’s also a darker side, graffiti, beer cans or drug paraphernalia. For all the shortcomings however, pretty soon we could see quite a big change on this side of the river. £120 million has been put on the table by investors who want to see this land become the site of more homes, offices and leisure facilities, even including a 160 bed hotel. So what would people think to such a drastic change? I caught up with June and her son, who have been walking their dog down by the site for the past decade.
JUNE: The only thing is it’s been left derelict, and it’s such a shame, because we just think, when we go to York or Lincoln and you’ve got that river and you’ve got some life on there, it’s pleasant, and it draws in the people. So there’s fors and againsts. Maybe if they did do something nice it would attract people to be on the river. It will just go to derelict rack and ruin, and I’m not being funny, and then you’ll get squatters maybe. Like I say it would be nice. It depends what was over there.
SON: They could do up maybe the trees as well and make it look a bit more better, the river front, because everything’s just overgrowing.
WILL FYFE: So describe it for us now. We’re literally stood on the opposite side.
JUNE: Just over-run with overhanging trees and bushes, innit.
WILL FYFE: If the idea makes it through planning then we could very soon see this stretch of waterfront turned from rubble in to riches.
DOTTY MCLEOD: Will Fyfe reporting there back in July. So in terms of who is responsible for these plans which have been put forward for this development, Peterborough City Council is in a joint partnership with a developer called Lucent. Together they form the Peterborough Investment Partnership. Lucent provides the funding. The City Council provides the land. They’re working together to come up with a vision for this area. However, David Turnock from the Peterborough Civic Society thinks there’s not really enough vision going on. Morning David.
DAVID TURNOCK: Good morning Dotty.
DOTTY MCLEOD: What’s the problem then with these plans?
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