Category: Peterborough

Peterborough Council and the Section 106 Money

08:08 Monday 5th March 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: A City councillor has expressed his dismay after the City Council agreed a deal with a developer to accept a lower Section 106 contribution. Basically every time a development is built in the city, a fee is agreed between the developer and the Council for how much money needs to be given to accommodate the new facilities. And it means if you get something built in your ward, then you generally get something nice to spend on say a park, or a community centre, or something that your ward needs. This particular deal means that Central ward has missed out on around £39,000. Now earlier we heard from Councillor Nazim Khan. He represents Labour in Central ward. He explained what happened. (TAPE)
NAZIM KHAN: There was a development taking place on Lincoln Road. There was about 23 apartments that were to be built. And the money was allocated, £50,000 towards the Hobson site, that they were going to make use of for children and young people. And apparently, after the completion of the building and everything else, they have decided that they can’t afford to pay £50,000, and they can only make the contribution of £11,000. (LIVE)
PAUL STAINTON: Well the Council says the terms of the development has changed. Well last year the Council revealed that a total of £6.5 million of Section 106 money has yet to be spent, and was lying in Council coffers. Nick Sandford’s here from the LibDem group. Morning Nick.
NICK SANDFORD: Good morning Paul.
PAUL STAINTON: It sounds a bit odd to me, that you make an agreement with a developer. They agree to pay £50,000. Then they go at the end, I can’t afford that. What if we call it student accommodation, and we only pay £11,000? Continue reading “Peterborough Council and the Section 106 Money”

WaterAid Peterborough

08:22 Thursday 1st March 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: How much water have you already used this morning? .. Well we are the lucky ones, because 884 million people in the world this morning do not have access to safe water. That’s roughly one in eight of the world’s population. The charity WaterAid tries to raise funds to lower that number, and it’s now setting up a branch in Peterborough. Victoria Rose is the Community Fundraising Manager for WaterAid. Good morning Victoria.
VICTORIA ROUSE: Good morning Paul.
PAUL STAINTON: It’s a frightening statistic, isn’t it? Things that we take for granted. Continue reading “WaterAid Peterborough”

Leap Day Volunteering

17:55 Wednesday 29th February 2012
Drive BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: In 2008 The National Trust started a new tradition. It’s been encouraging companies to pay their staff for a day off, as long as they spend it doing something to help the environment. Well Rachel Huxley is the Chief Executive of the Peterborough Environment City Trust, and she’s been at the Langdyke Trust today, and joins me on the line now. Rachel, Hello.
RACHEL HUXLEY: Hello. Good afternoon.
CHRIS MANN: All of the above. And so, what have you been doing today? Continue reading “Leap Day Volunteering”

Radical Sportscars of Peterborough Enters the Russian Market

08:18 Tuesday 28th February 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: Gentlemen, start your engines. A Peterborough car manufacturer is expanding its business to Russia. Radical Sportscars, based in Westwood, signed a deal yesterday that will see its cars sold in the country, and may well see a race series set up in the coming years.  Radical Sportscars, going to Russia? We can speak to Will Brown. He’s the Marketing Officer at Radical, and has been celebrating.
WILL BROWN: Yes. Absolutely Paul. Yes, it’s a great thing, and a really exciting time for us. We’re growing all the time. This year is set to be another record year for us, so entering the Russian market is quite timely really.
PAUL STAINTON: How did it all come about? Continue reading “Radical Sportscars of Peterborough Enters the Russian Market”

Peterborough – This Broken City

Monday 27th February 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

07:07
IAN DAVIES PETERBOROUGH SOUP KITCHEN: At the moment, with the economic situation as it is, there are more and more homeless people. In Peterborough, we have the third largest number of homeless in the UK, outside of London. .. In some ways we are part of the problem, because we offer food nearby.
KERRY DEVINE BBC: Sometimes you will see groups of people .. sat here, drinking. You walk back after work and there’s litter everywhere.
BRIAN PEARCE RAILWORLD: We did think about putting a picnic table here to encourage people to sit down here, because it’s so fabulous. But what happens when these people have been here, nothing but rubbish. It does your head in really. You go to the archways, and I can assure you you’ll find probably 200 empty bottles of cider, cans, we’ve got a real big drink problem.
KERRY DEVINE BBC: Peterborough Environment City Trust .. they have a litter pick here once a month.

08:07:
FIONA RADIC GREEN PARTY: I’m not sure we should conflate the migration issue with the homeless issue.  People are not uniquely immigrants who are homeless. We’ve got an increasing number of people who are homeless, wherever they’re coming from, and however long they’ve been here.
PAUL STAINTON BBC: But it does add to the problem.
FIONA RADIC GREEN PARTY: I’m not convinced. .. I think the problem is there anyway. Peterborough has apparently very high figures of homelessness. That doesn’t make sense, because we have empty accommodation. .. I live very near a block of flats which at one point was only one third occupied. So then you have to ask, well why aren’t people living in the accommodation. And I think there’s an element where people are actually opting right out of the system. They’ve had it. They’re seeing through the help agencies, to something which is broken as far as they’re concerned. And if that’s happening, then it doesn’t really matter where they’re from.
PAUL STAINTON: We did ask the Council to come on this morning and talk to us about what is happening down on the Embankment, and they sent us a statement. “We have visited the site in the past few weeks, and although there was evidence to suggest someone had been sleeping rough there, we don’t believe they are currently. We urge anyone who is aware of someone sleeping rough to contact the Council .. so that we can make contact with these people and help them.”

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Democracy the Victim of a Council in Chaos

07:10 Thursday 23rd February 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON:The Mayor kept overruling herself, didn’t she, at various points?
DARREN FOWER LIBDEM CLLR: It’s laughable that you’ve got people in positions, and they don’t know their elbow from other parts of their body. It doesn’t help with the meeting. It’s not smooth and there’s confusion and misiniformation. Some of the councillors don’t know the constitution, and what they can do. There’s also this issue of when an opposition councillor stands up and makes a point, they get shouted down, and told to sit down. And the ruling Conservative administration stand up and they’re entitled or given almost complete carte blanche to make their points. It’s not right, and it’s not fair. I just urge more people to go along to these meetings, because they are free and they are public, and you do have the benefit of leaving when you want, unlike the councillors.
PAUL STAINTON: Well if you were watching the Twitter feed from Matthew Reville from the Evening Telegraph last night, ..
DARREN FOWER LIBDEM CLLR: I was. Yes.
PAUL STAINTON: .. we all got the gist of how ridiculous the meeting was at times.

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Stewart Jackson on DVLA, Royal Mail, and Jobs for Peterborough

17:08 Wednesday 22nd February 2012
Drive BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: The Royal Mail have confirmed to us that they’re considering closing the Cambridge Sorting Office, where 196 people are based. They’ve begun a 6 month consultation, but the likelihood is the work will be switched to other centres, such as Peterborough, by 2014. Royal Mail have declined to appear on this programme, but have told us there will be no compulsory redundancies. .. Meanwhile in Peterborough, there is a fight to save the jobs at the DVLA. Stewart Jackson joins me now, live from our Millbank studios at Westminster. He’s the MP for Peterborough of course. Stewart, good evening.
STEWART JACKSON: Good evening Chris.
CHRIS MANN: The jobs there are threatened because the Department of Transport wants to close the DVLA. Now you’ve made a bid today to get Mike Penning. the Undersecretary of State, to change the consultation on this . Please explain to us. Continue reading “Stewart Jackson on DVLA, Royal Mail, and Jobs for Peterborough”