Tag: Peterborough City Council

Assetbank East Cambridgeshire Land For Sale

08:23 Wednesday 16th April 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[D]OTTY MCLEOD: It’s a big question facing all of our local councils today. And this is really what the big debate over councillors in Peterborough revolves around, isn’t it? It’s money. It’s what do we need to spend most money on. It’s how do we balance our books. Well each council in Cambridgeshire has its own ideas for solving the funding crisis. They’ve all had their Government funding reduced. How do you make up the shortfall? In Peterborough the City Council’s introduced a charge for garden waste collections, and they’re still hoping to create a green energy park. Cambridgeshire County Council has introduced a charge for their park and ride service. But the brains behind East Cambridgeshire District Council think they have a better idea. Cllr Bill Hunt is the Conservative councillor for Stretham. Bill, what is your plan?
BILL HUNT: Well it’s one of many. We’ve got a total package which includes what other councils want, which is cutting down perhaps on the number of members, cutting down on the amount of committees. But the particular thing we’re talking about today is Assetbank, which is looking at all our properties, and seeing what’s the best use, and can we make more money out of it, or serve the people better. It’s a matter of saying we want to cut down on bureaucracy, cut down on costs, and try and get some money in, or benefit to the public.
DOTTY MCLEOD: So you’re potentially selling off parcels of land. This is what people call selling off the family silver Bill, is it?
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Boundary Commission on Peterborough Council

07:07 Wednesday 16th April 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[D]OTTY MCLEOD BBC: Our population is growing and therefore we need more councillors to represent us. Or do we? Advice by the Boundary Commission to Peterborough City Council suggests they need at least another three.

07:14
MARCUS BOWELL BOUNDARY COMMISSION: One of the most important things we do in an electoral review is we talk to the council at an early stage about what their expectations are, how they want to run their authority. And the Council came to us and proposed the small increase in councillors.

08:13
PCC CLLR HOLDICH: I’ve got some sympathy for having less councillors. If it was my business of course I wouldn’t want 57 or 61 directors of that company. But that’s not our decision. Our decision from Government is purely and simply that we need so many councillors per so many electorate. And in this proposal, and we did ask them, Charles Swift put it to them that we needed less councillors. But the Boundary Commission insisted you needed so many councillors per electorate.

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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.
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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.
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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.

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Ed Murphy 2014 Budget Scrutiny

08:26 Tuesday 11th February 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: Opposition councillors in Peterborough have spoken out at plans to cut services there. The authority has outlined plans for next year’s budget. We’ve talked about it many times. It includes cutting back on the money it gives to Children’s Centres and many other services. Labour councillor Ed Murphy was at the Council meeting last night. Ed, quite a heated debate was had over some of these cuts, wasn’t it?
ED MURPHY: Yes, it turned into an extremely interesting meeting. It wasn’t just the opposition councillors. Conservative councillors were questioning their budget as well. They were doing scrutiny. It was quite a good meeting, councillors doing their job for a change.
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Sheila Scott on Closing Peterborough’s Children’s Centres

18:42 Thursday 6th February 2014
BBC Look East West

[A]MELIA REYNOLDS: A group of mothers who are fighting to save their local children’s centres want their campaign to become a national one. Some SureStart centres are facing closure in Peterborough and across Cambridgeshire, as councils say budget cuts mean they need to target the most needy. It comes as the Education Minister visited the region today.
(FILM)
EMMA BAUGH: Angela Brennan in Peterborough with son James. She says families are turning campaigners over the threatened closures.
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Many Unhappy With Peterborough’s Cabinet Style Government

09:08 Tuesday 4th February 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[P]AUL STAINTON: Parents in Peterborough say they will not take the decision to close eight children’s centres lying down. Members of the City Council’s Cabinet yesterday approved plans for the change of use of eight centres, and to set up four new hub centres and three new outreach hubs. .. On the line now is Angela Brennan from the campaign group Save Peterborough’s Children’s Centres. Angela, morning.
ANGELA BRENNAN: Good morning.
PAUL STAINTON: Are the Council thinking about children here, or they just thinking about cash?
ANGELA BRENNAN: No they’re definitely not. In fact the decision to vote yesterday wasn’t even a vote. It was led. Basically it’s given us the impression that it was done in the pre-meeting at nine a.m. It was cold, quick, with no emotion.
PAUL STAINTON: Now we were told that there were wide-reaching consultations here. There were worries about this, and the Council said they were listening. Did they listen?
ANGELA BRENNAN: The Council haven’t listened to anything the public said. There’s 2,000 petition names saying what the public want. Scrutiny and the Full Council advised them to read that they needed to explore more options, and defer the decisions, but they still ignored them both. What does it say? It says they don’t care about the people. They care about the money.
PAUL STAINTON: Is this democracy in action?
ANGELA BRENNAN: There was no democratic action there. It was just one person leading the whole lot. It’s being bullied.

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