Category: Peterborough

Cambridge Central Library cuts and the shape of things to come

08:20 Thursday 4th June 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: Should a councillor from Ramsey or Whittlesea be able to decide what happens in Cambridge city centre? Well that’s exactly what happened with the controversial decision about Cambridge Central Libray earlier on this week. It’s prompted new calls to make Cambridge a unitary authority, the same as Peterborough.  Let’s speak to the Group Leader councillor Ashley Walsh. So what benefits do you think there could be to Cambridge of a change like this?
ASHLEY WALSH: Well I think Cambridge is now a city of huge national importance, it’s rate of growth, the importance for the Eastern and Southern economies, (such) that we really have to be able to control our own destiny in terms of how we want to grow, what sectors of the economy we want to develop into. And we don’t have the power to do that at the moment, because most councillors represent parts of the county that have very little to do with Cambridge, and centre around places like Peterborough, or places around Norfolk. And they just don’t get what Cambridge needs and what it needs to do in the future.
DOTTY MCLEOD: There is a flip side to this of course, which is that if you became a unitary authority in Cambridge, you would no longer have the power to decide on things going on in Ramsey and Whittlesea and Wisbech. Would you be happy with that?
ASHLEY WALSH: Well I think when councils work together very well, as the City Council and South Cambridgeshire do over developing housing, then you can have the power to do that, because you influence each other and you work together. But the Central Library is ust one eaxmple of where Cambridge has suffered because people representing elsewhere in the county have not been able to develop beyond their own parochial interests.
DOTTY MCLEOD: It’s just democracy, isn’t it, the fact that people in different areas decide on one thing that might affect one other area?
ASHLEY WALSH: That’s true. I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with having two layers of local government. The big problem now is that because cuts have been so bad, it’s now becoming an argument about defending your own local area from the scale of the huge spending reductions. So although it might sound like a high ideal to be democratic and represent the whole county, because we have very little money around, people are just defending their own interests. The reason I think that we’ve had to lose the third floor of the Central Library is because Conservatives have historically underfunded branch libraries in the county. And Cambridge is now having to pay that price.
DOTTY MCLEOD: OK. Well let’s talk about what happens when a council becomes a unitary authority. One man who knows a lot about this is counciilor Charles Swift, an Independent councillor for North ward in Peterborough. Been a councillor more more than six decades, so seen many changes, not least Peterborough becoming a unitary authority. So you’ve been a councillor before and after Peterborough became a unitary authority. Has it been good for the city do you think?
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Lost in the mists of time

17:41 Wednesday 3rd June 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

TIM JONES: We support social enterprises to get going through incubation, innovation and we have something called a future business centre on Kings Hedges Road in Cambridge. That’s a new centre.
SAM EDWARDS: How’s that been going?
TIM JONES: Superb. It is full. We are bursting at the seams. It’s absolutely full. We have cohorts of people coming through the incubation programme. And we have had several hundred now people and enterprises through the doors, many of which have taken root and become enormously successful.
SAM EDWARDS: So you’ll be hoping to bring the same success then to Peterborough.
TIM JONES: Absolutely. The idea is that we can replicate what we’ve done in Cambridge, and do that in Peterborough. Peterborough as you know is a growing city. It’s growing very fast. It is a very successful dynamic city, but quite different from Cambridge, and quite different needs. So we see there being a need for us to bring our sort of social inclusion agenda to play in Peterborough as well.
SAM EDWARDS: And how many businesses Tim could you have at this future business centre at Peterborough United’s stadium?
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Council elects old school Tory Leader

07:19 Thursday 21st May 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: John Holdich is the Leader, the new Leader, of Peterborough City Council. The long-serving Conservative councillor for Glinton and Wittering has been appointed unopposed. He’ll replace Marco Cereste who lost his Stanground seat in the recent local elections. Our political reporter Hannah Olsson was at Peterborough Town Hall for last night’s meeting.
(TAPE)
HANNAH OLSSON: The General Election may have surprised pollsters and parties alike, but this evening in Peterborough Town Hall everything went as predicted. Conservative John Peach is the new Mayor, and Conservative John Holdich is the new Leader of Peterborough City Council. We were expecting a nomination from the Labour Group, but it didn’t come, so John Holdich was elected unopposed. The councillors nominating him described him as Peterborough through and through, a team player qualified and respected pair of hands. He said it was time for a clean slate, and he would do his best to represent the people of Peterborough. The only drama of the evening came as the new Leader began announcing the Cabinet members. Two members of the Labour Party Ed Murphy and Jo Johnson walked out of the Council chamber. Ed Murphy at one point was asking for nomination to run a cross-party Cabinet. I asked both Ed and Jo why they left the chamber.
JO JOHNSON: The Labour Group and followers of the Labour Group whip, because we were going to put a position up, and we didn’t do it.
HANNAH OLSSON: That came as a surprise to you?
JO JOHNSON: Yes it did. We weren’t told. We had a pre-meeting before and we weren’t told that there was no opposition.
HANNAH OLSSON: The Leader of the Labour Party Mohammed Jamil told me that simply, things had changed.
MOHAMMED JAMIL: The support I’d been promised, or I thought I had the support, prior to this meeting certain group members came to me and said look I’m sorry we’re not supporting you. Now I felt I could go ahead with this, or I could try and work with John Holdich to secure a better deal.
HANNAH OLSSON: So it may be a new era for Peterborough City Council, but it seems the drama continues.
(LIVE)
DOTTY MCLEOD: Hannah Olsson there reporting from the annual Council meeting in Peterborough last night. John Holdich the new Leader of Peterborough City Council joins me now. Morning John.
JOHN HOLDICH: Good morning Dotty.
DOTTY MCLEOD: Well congratulations. What is first on your list of to do tasks?
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Across the great divide

08:20 Tuesday 19th May 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: Around 180 people attended a discussion in Peterborough last night, aimed at improving relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. Teachers, police officers, NHS staff and schoolchildren were among non-Muslim attendees at the Holiday Inn’s Thorpe Wood hotel last night. The event was called The Answers to your Questions, and it was organised by the Masjid Khadijah and Islamic Centre. Our reporter Tom Horn went along to listen to the discussions.
(TAPE)
TOM HORN: A flyer for last night’s event at Thorpe Wood in Peterborough reads “it’s an unfortunate fact that past and recent world events have caused some ill feelings towards Muslims, and to misunderstanding of the true Islamic faith.” Organisers of the discussions no doubt had several headlines in mind.
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Peterborough Conservatives predict a coalition of the willing to rule the city

07:40 Monday 11th May 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: Quite a lot of upsets in general as the results of the General Election came out on Friday, with the Labour Party doing a lot worse than many people thought, the LibDems doing far worse than many people thought. You had Nigel Farage resigning,. You had Nick Clegg resigning. You had Ed Miliband resigning. And then of course Marco Cereste the former Leader of Peterborough City Council lost his council seat. The person likely to step into councillor Cereste’s shoes will be chosen this week. He lost his seat of course in the local elections. Here’s what he said on Friday afternoon.
(TAPE)
MARCO CERESTE: Of course I would rather have been the victor, but you know, God’s will is God’s will and that’s what he’s decided. He’s probably got a different path for me to take.
(LIVE)
DOTTY MCLEOD: So a new Conservative Leader will now be elected. Councillor Wayne Fitzgerald of Peterborough City Council joins me now to talk more about this. Morning councillor Fitzgerald. .. So what happens next? Because at the moment the Conservative Group and indeed the City Council is without a permanent Leader.
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Cereste toppled

17:17 Friday 8th May 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

WASEEM MIRZA: There’s been a day of drama already today. Let’s start with Peterborough, where there were 20 out of 57 seats up for election. Technically 56, because a councillor had resigned about a month or so ago. Today the Leader of that city council Marco Cereste lost his seat. A little bit of background, back in May 2013 Marco Cereste survived a leadership challenge, after being criticised for his support on major projects, including a multi-million pound solar and wind farm near the city. He survived that surprise challenge back then, but in today’s elections he lost his seat to the Conservative Ray Bisby, and UKIP’s John Whitby. Now the new make-up of Peterborough City Council now looks like this. Largely unchanged from the last election, Conservatives with 26 seats, losing 2 on the previous election. Labour 12, the same as before. The Independents 7. Again no change there. UKIP 4, that’s up on the previous 3. Liberal Democrats 4, again no change there. The Liberal Party 3, the same as before. So what does that mean? Well no party has overall control of Peterborough City Council, again, the same result as in the previous election. But with Marco Cereste no longer at the helm, there could be big ramifications there for the future. So, what next for Mr Cereste? Well he told this programme earlier the public will decide his legacy.

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Care home closures at Peterborough hustings

11:45 Friday 1st May 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: Is it time we talked about adult social care in a serious way Stewart Jackson? Is it time we looked after our elderly in a better way, and spent more money on it? Surely not the time to be closing care homes, is it?
STEWART JACKSON: Well I’m not going to defend the City Council’s decision on care homes. They’ll have to come on and defend that themselves. My view is that in a sense adult social care and the co-ordination between acute district hospitals, GPs and the City Council is almost an issue above politics. Because none of us can stop the demographic change, the number of over 85’s doubling in the next twenty years.
PAUL STAINTON: And it’s time to do something now isn’t it Lisa Forbes, and everybody get together on this before it’s too late In thirty years time we’re all going to be looking after each other on zimmer frames, aren’t we?
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