Tag: Peterborough City Council

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?
Continue reading “Care home closures at Peterborough hustings”

Peterborough students left in limbo after college opening is cancelled

07:08 Tuesday 24th March 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: Twelve million pounds has been invested. Students have applied for the courses. But now with six months to go, the opening of Peterborough’s University Technical College is being delayed by twelve months. The UTC Trust Board says it’s to” give more certainty to prospective students”, but with only forty applications in the first place, questions are being raised about how well it’s been publicised, and how effective consultation has been. Let’s talk now to Dr Alan McMurdo, who is the Principal Designate of the Greater Peterborough University Technical College. Explain first of all Dr McMurdo just what a university technical college is. It’s not a description that everyone will be familiar with.
Continue reading “Peterborough students left in limbo after college opening is cancelled”

Peter Breach – North Westgate in a nutshell

09:26 Thursday 19th March 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PETER BREACH:

“Well Peterborough’s a special place. It’s a major city, and North Westgate has been as you’ve indicated in serious need of regeneration for quite a long time. Now’s the time to get on with it.

“The concept is a new regional leisure centre caught in the heart of Peterborough city, driven by a multiplex cinema, eight screens or more, a large piazza around the church, restaurants, shops, bars, a food hall, and a large number of apartments. And indeed some offices and possibly even a health hub.

“The aim is to make it somewhere that not only Peterborians but others living within a twenty or thirty mile radius will see as an attractive place to visit and spend time, popping into a coffee shop or a restaurant as they stroll through the piazza.

“A lot of effort has gone into this. There’s support from all parts of the city. Marco Cereste the Leader, Stewart Jackson the MP, and all the councillors we’ve met have been extremely supportive, and indeed everyone we’ve met. So I have every hope this is going to be delivered now.

“At this stage we are starting discussions with major funders for this sort of scheme. It may even be overseas funding. We’ll have to see. But it’s too early to strike a deal until the outline consent is secured, which we hope will be before the end of this year.”

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Easy sale for lucky locals as North Westgate plans are resurrected

11:37 Thursday 19th March 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: We’ve also been talking this morning about this what could be a fantastic proposal for North Westgate in Peterborough. It’s been on the cards developing that area of the city centre for years and years and years and years. And some of the proposals, well there’s going to be a new cinema in the complex, £100 million leisure-led development, which would be bounded by Queensgate on one side Bourges Boulevard on the other Lincoln Road and Westgate. Expected once planning goes in in the summer work will start on it early next year, and it should be completed by 2017/2018. You also get a new public square. There will be some housing there. There’ll be a hotel and loads of eateries as well. But it also involves knocking down around ten or fifteen houses on Cromwell Road. Well Johnny D. has been to visit Cromwell Road this morning to see what it’s like and to see what one resident thinks of having to lose her house.
Continue reading “Easy sale for lucky locals as North Westgate plans are resurrected”

Graham Casey on a cultural strategy for Peterborough

07:19 Monday 23rd February 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: Peterborough’s new cultural strategy for the next five years goes before the City Council Cabinet for approval later. The proposals aim to increase the number of people taking part in cultural events, attracting people with talent, and making better use of the city’s green spaces. The hope is that the Council can achieve this despite investing less in Vivacity, the Trust that runs cultural services in Peterborough. Councillor Graham Casey has been driving the development of Peterborough’s cultural strategy 2015 to 2020. Now Graham, I think one of my favourite sentences in the strategy document is that this strategy “is not about spending more money.” Because you’re actually having to try and do more with less, aren’t you?
GRAHAM CASEY: We are. Yes. Good morning Dotty. Yes it’s difficult times really, and I’ve always been aware that culture has been one of the soft targets for cuts. But actually people involved in culture are incredibly creative people, and we’ve just got to use that creativity to keep doing what we do best, and that is actually providing cultural services to the city.
DOTTY MCLEOD: So what are your goals for the next five years? Continue reading “Graham Casey on a cultural strategy for Peterborough”

Tough at the top – Wayne Fitzgerald on executive pay at Peterborough City Council

17:22 Wednesday 18th February 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: It’s been a big day for the restructuring of local government backroom staff in our county, with the two biggest authorities merging resources in what is a landmark deal. Cambridgeshire County Council and Peterborough City Council have announced the formal merging of some senior jobs in the past couple of hours. Peterborough are claiming it will save them half a million pounds. Let’s bring in one of the men behind this, councillor Wayne Fitzgerald. Hello Wayne.
WAYNE FITZGERALD: Hi. Good evening Chris.
CHRIS MANN: A member of the Employment Committee on Peterborough City Council, and also Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care. Just in round terms, tell us why you’ve had to do this and how tough it’s been. Continue reading “Tough at the top – Wayne Fitzgerald on executive pay at Peterborough City Council”

Council upbeat despite colossal deficit and millions written off on failed solar projects

08:19 Monday 16th February 2105
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: So let’s go back to Peterborough and the subject of solar farms, which we haven’t spoken about for a while regarding Peterborough. The City Council has announced it’s going to investigate a potential solar farm project at America Farm. Last October it scrapped plans to build two out of the three parks it had been backing for farmland outside the city, Newborough Farm and Morris Fen in Thorney. Those plans have now been cancelled, but the project for America Farm always remained a possibility. Now back in October we worked out that the total cost invested in the three projects was just short of £3.1 million. Let’s talk again to Gavin Elsey. Why is America Farm different from the other two sites Gavin. Let’s start with that.
GAVIN ELSEY: Firstly there are a number of differences Dotty. Firstly it’s a solar farm, not a wind and solar farm. Secondly the size of the project. And thirdly it’s the quality of the land. It’s not Grade 1 land, it’s Grade 3 land, so it makes it entirely different on those grounds.
DOTTY MCLEOD: And do you have an estimate of how much money a solar farm, just one solar farm at America Farm could bring in without these other two parks?
GAVIN ELSEY: I haven’t got the figures off the top of my head but I know that it would bring in several million pounds a year over the life of the contract.
DOTTY MCLEOD: Because you have already spent, we just mentioned the figure, £3 million on these solar parks. How much more are you going to be spending on this? Continue reading “Council upbeat despite colossal deficit and millions written off on failed solar projects”

Fletton Parkway overspend – the devil in the detail

08:08 Monday 16th February 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: There are calls for an investigation into why improvements to the Fletton Parkway in Peterborough will end up costing over 30% more than planned. Widening of the road hit problems in January when soil contamination was discovered, adding £4.5 million to the project cost and delaying completion. Now three counclllors say the decision to approve that extra spending needs to be looked at closely or called in. One of those councillors is David Harrington, an Independent councillor who represents Newborough. David, what’s your issue with the way this decision’s been made?
DAVID HARRINGTON: Good morning Dotty. Well the purpose of the call-in is not to question the need for the scheme. I fully appreciate that growth has got to take place in the city, but it’s has to be measured and it has to be sustainable. And it’s to look into if the Council can demonstrate if it has understood the terms of the contract it’s entered into, and effectively managed the obligations of the running of the contract. There are a number of discrepancies in the Cabinet report. It says that the fixed price contract option is a lot more complex than the preferred target cost model, which they went along with. And it’s actually not true. Both are very complex in their respective detailing and I want to question, did the Council fully understand their obligations in the contract. Because the type of contract, this target cost contract, effectively means that the Council enters into a partnership with the contractor, and they do it on an equal 50/50 basis. And all variations of that contract should be fully identified before the scheme starts, to see what proportionality of any risks have taken place. Now it appears that the Council have been fully loaded with all of the costs, and the contractor, as far as it appears, has no obligation in any of this. So it needs to be demonstrated why the contractor had no costs that it had to meet.
DOTTY MCLEOD: Because this is a considerable extra cost, £4.5 million to get this road finished.
DAVID HARRINGTON: Exactly. And there’s a number of things that are interwoven in the report that was put before Cabinet. It was already identified that this road would need a major upgrade. That was identified in 2011 at a cost of £9 million. Well that must have been apparent then, that there would have been significant money to upgrade drainage etcetera, to make that amount of money costing to be viable. So they must have known that there were going to be problems with the building of this new extension. So I can’t see why those weren’t taken into effect in the first instance, why this £9 million wasn’t identified and put in with the contract that we have now.
DOTTY MCLEOD: OK. Well let’s talk to Gavin Elsey, who is Peterborough City Council’s Cabinet member for Street Scene, Waste Management and Communications. The basic charge Gavin is that the City Council took their eye off the ball when they were signing up to this scheme. Do you think that’s fair? Continue reading “Fletton Parkway overspend – the devil in the detail”