BBC transcripts
The Leader of Peterborough City Council, Marco Cereste, is the owner of a private company, PREL, that wants to build a modern version of an incinerator in the city.
Meanwhile, Peterborough City Council is in negotiation to build another publicly owned incinerator, alongside the PREL version, using older technology.
What might be the advantage or disadvantage to PREL of having two incinerators side by side?
(Peterborough City Council is currently unavailable for comment.)
07:20 Thursday 21st June 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
PAUL STAINTON: Another person from Peterborough has announced their intention to run for the post of the Police Commissioner of Cambridgeshire. Elections to the post, which will replace the Cambridgeshire Police Authority, will be held in November. Labour announced last week that city councillor Ed Murphy has been selected by the Party as their candidate. Let’s speak to the latest person to announce their intention to run for the job, Ansar Ali, who’s been an independent member of the Cambridgeshire Police Authority since 2008. Morning Ansar.
ANSAR ALI: Good morning Paul.
PAUL STAINTON: Why do you want this curious position?
ANSAR ALI: Because I think I’ve got the right qualities to deliver the expectations of the public of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.
PAUL STAINTON: What are they? Continue reading “Ansar Ali Independent For Police Commissioner”
07:15 Tuesday 18th June 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
NICK SANDFORD LIBDEM: PREL are building a high technology waste treatment plant. What the Council are proposing is a conventional old-fashioned incinerator where you don’t sort the waste out you just throw it in.
RICHARD OLIVE FRIENDS OF THE EARTH: The PREL one will be absolutely state-of-the-art, a much better process. It is almost 100% recycling, the PREL one.
============
07:08 Tuesday 19th June 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
PAUL STAINTON: A meeting has been held to discuss how the health services which will be inherited by Peterborough City Council next year will be dealt with in the future. The Council will run some of the services currently being operated by NHS Peterborough, when the Trust is abolished next year. Well Nick Sandford is Leader of the LibDems. He was at yesterday’s meeting. We need to start by simplifying this and clarifying it. What services will the City Council be running when it comes over to them next year?
NICK SANDFORD: Good morning Paul. What’s happening is there’s going to be a split really. The Primary Care Trust is being abolished from April 2013. The commissioning services that the Primary Care Trust used to fulfil will go to these new GP consortia, whereas the actual public health responsibilities, that’s the development of a public health strategy, control of drugs, that sort of thing, that will go over to Peterborough City Council. And that aspect of it is something I very much support.
PAUL STAINTON: What are you unhappy about then? Continue reading “Councillors Bicker Over Committee Places”
08:08 Monday 18th June 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
PAUL STAINTON: This city has been described as one of the best destinations to live outside of London. For years now people from the Big Smoke have been coming here of course. Many remember the Peterborough Effect, and those great adverts from the Peterborough Development Corporation and Roy Kinnear dressed as a Roman centurion. Well now it seems that more people can be set to make the trip from London to settle here. Earlier Catherine Penman from Carter Jonas explained why our fair city was such a good place for Londoners to come to. (TAPE)
CATHERINE PENMAN: I think Peterborough is an extremely convenient commuter location. Short journey times, the second shortest of all of the various towns and cities that we included in our survey. And also, most importantly I think, house prices are relatively affordable, compared to most other commuter towns around the UK. (LIVE)
PAUL STAINTON: We also spoke to Tina Bramhill, from the 40 Years On project in Peterborough, and she told us what the city was like before the Peterborough Development Corporation campaign in the ’70s. (TAPE)
TINA BRAMHILL: It was really considered a small market town, even though we were a city. It expanded massively. It went from around 80,000 to nearly 140,000 people. But they did expand other things alongside that. They brought in sports facilities, more schools. They had to do everything alongside that to support everybody coming in. (LIVE)
PAUL STAINTON: Well how would we cope, if more people came to live in our fair city at the moment, if we had some sort of influx? Rowen Squibb is from Growborough, an independent group trying to attract private business to Peterborough, and Steve Bowyer is the Head of Economic Development of course at Opportunity Peterborough. Morning gents. Rowen, first of all, can we cope? Have we got the facilities? Have we got the houses? Have we got the infrastructure? Continue reading “Peterborough – Accessible and Affordable”
07:19 Thursday 14th June 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
ANDY GALL: Campaigners in Peterborough want more of the city to be turned into 20mph zones. According to the Twenty’s Plenty campaign, traffic flows more freely at 20mph than at 30. At the moment there are around fourteen 20mph zones in Peterborough, like Hampton, and nine 20mph stretches of road, most of which are near schools. Cambridge already has a number of 20mph areas, and there is talk of the whole city having a speed limit of 20mph. Earlier I spoke to Tim Ward, the councillor in charge of planning and sustainability for Cambridge City Council, and started by asking him how many zones there are in the city. (TAPE)
TIM WARD: In Cambridge we do have a number of small 20mph zones, which mostly came about because of campaigns by people living in the areas. We’ve got a lot more people wanting 20mph zones, and we’ve decided that it’s rather expensive to go about putting in lots of little zones in response to individual campaigns, so we’re looking at seeing how much of the city’s residential areas we want to do over the next couple of years as a single large project. Continue reading “Pressure Mounts for 20MPH”
08:07 Wednesday 13th June 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
ANDY GALL: It’s taken eighteen months, but finally a bidder has been found for the former Peterborough District Hospital site. Since the new hospital opened, the old site in Thorpe Road has been empty, but now the London-based Lands Improvement Holdings are currently in negotiations with the Trust. Last month we heard how the new hospital was left with a budget shortfall of over £54 million, and was struggling to find money to continue operating. Earlier, Peterborough’s MP Stewart Jackson welcomed the news. (TAPE)
STEWART JACKSON: I’m delighted, belatedly, that this project seems to be going ahead, given that, as you quite rightly say, the old Peterborough District Hospital has been empty, and the site vacated, since November 2010. You’d think with that kind of debt hanging round their necks they would have wanted to realise their capital asset as soon as possible. (LIVE)
ANDY GALL: He went on to say that Peterborough is in urgent need of housing, but residents want the right mixture of housing, and the infrastructure to support the project. (TAPE)
STEWART JACKSON: Well they want a mixture of prestigious high-end homes, and they also want more modest shared-equity housing. They don’t want lots of social rented flats near the station. They want the transport infrastructure looked at. (LIVE)
ANDY GALL: Nigel Hards is the Chairman of the Hospital Trust, and we can speak to him now. Good morning Nigel.
NIGEL HARDS: Morning Andy.
ANDY GALL: Why such a delay in getting to this point? Continue reading “Peterborough District Hospital Land Sale Preferred Bidder Found”
07:07 Tuesday 12th June 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
ANDY GALL: It was revealed at a scrutiny committee meeting last night the full extent of the problems faced by Peterborough Children’s Services. Nearly 100 complaints were made last year, and 677 referrals were not dealt with within the ten days target time, between April 2011 and 2012. The latest report on Peterborough’s troubled Children’s Services Department was discussed by councillors last night. The report also highlighted that Children’s Services was in much better shape now, and had improved dramatically. Malcolm Newsam is the Head of Children’s Services at Peterborough City Council, and he told me that they are happy with the progress being made. Continue reading “Peterborough Children’s Services – The Interim Report”