We have been sent this document which lists Liberal Democrat achievements in Government and compares them to what we said in our 2010 General Election manifesto. It makes interesting reading, and proves that Liberal Democrats are as good at delivering on their promises in Westminster as they are here in Cambridge.
Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrats have launched a petition to reverse the Tories’ 100 per cent cuts to rural bus services.
The petition, called “Stopping the cuts to bus services in Cambridgeshire” reads:
“We the people of Cambridgeshire are opposed to the Conservative County Council’s decision to scrap 100% of funding for subsidised buses, which led to an application for Judicial Review.
“Socially necessary bus services are vital to the whole of Cambridgeshire, especially for young people who need to access to centres of employment, those with mobility issues who wish to access the wider community and its resources, and for tackling the root problem of “rural isolation”.
“We also believe that the “Cambridgeshire Future Transport” project, to which half of bus funding has been transferred, is fundamentally flawed and not capable of delivering an adequate replacement for the existing public transport network, never mind the improved system that has been promised.
“We call on the Conservative administration to reinstate 100% of the cuts to bus funding and to conduct a systematic view of Cambridgeshire residents’ transport needs before making any changes to it.”
The petition can be found here: http://epetition.cambridgeshire.public-i.tv/epetition_core/view/Buses
Cllr Tim Bick, Street Outreach and Mental Health Team Manager, Rachel Everitt, Alcohol Community Psychiatric Nurse, Malcolm Stork and Cllr Catherine Smart
Outreach workers are hoping to extend a successful project and take more drinkers off the streets of Cambridge.
The £33,000 scheme, backed by Liberal Democrats on Cambridge City Council, would increase the number of successful detox programmes offered to alcoholics who cannot maintain normal out-patient treatment.
Street Outreach and Mental Health Team workers have asked for half the funding from Cambridge City Council and half from the GP consortium, Camhealth following successful working with street drinkers which has led to 30 a year treated under the detox programme. If both partners agree to funding this number could be increased to 50.
The money would pay for a Project Worker to support the Community Psychiatric Nurse.
City Councillors Catherine Smart and Tim Bick, responsible for housing and community safety respectively, are set to approve extra funding from the city council and are hoping Camhealth will follow their lead.
“Over the past two years, these community detox programmes have built an impressive track record,” says Cllr Smart. “It now looks like we can capitalise further on the effectiveness of the Community Pyschiatric Nurse with a modest additional investment.
“With support from the city council we can increase treatments to at least 40 a year. If Camhealth come on board too and make this a full-time position, we could make it at least 50.
“Alongside education and training, interim accommodation and housing, these detox programmes fit into the Council’s endeavours to rehabilitate those often seen on the streets, sometimes creating a nuisance by their behaviour,” says Cllr Bick.
“I don’t think there’s a more sustainable alternative. One more individual getting their life back on track is one less potentially living on the streets: it’s a win-win approach.”
Rachel Everitt from the charity, Crime Reduction Initiatives, which manages the Street Outreach Team said: “”Our nurse does really positive work and secures some great outcomes. “But the time-consuming engagement and follow-up work with clients tends to hold back the capacity of his clinical role.
“With a Project Worker to support him, we think we can significantly increase the number of successful detoxes.”
Subject to Council protocols, the city council will provide an immediate 12 months grant for half of the Project Worker’s costs paid for from budget under-spending elsewhere.
It plans to assess the impact as part of a major review of policies to combat anti-social behaviour from the street life community in October.
Cambridge City Council Leader, Sian Reid is to call on the government to give the city the power to play a larger part in its future.
Cllr Reid will speak out today (Monday January 23) at the launch of a new report by Centre for Cities, which names Cambridge as one of five cities well placed to drive the country’s economic recovery.
She will tell Minister for Cities, Greg Clark, to take notice of the Cities Outlook 2012 report which calls on the government to give Cambridge the financial and political powers it needs to make the right decisions for growth.
The report, compiled by the Centre for Cities, shows how well Cambridge has fared in the downturn compared to other cities and spells out how well it is placed for economic growth.
Sian will tell Mr Clark that his City Deal programme, which gives cities the chance to play a much bigger part in determining their own futures, must be offered to all cities prepared to step up to the challenge not just the larger ones.
“This includes Cambridge,” said Cllr Reid. “We, with our neighbouring areas form an exciting and dynamic city region keen to take charge of our own future. We need a new relationship with government so we can act and invest for our area.”
The Cities Outlook 2012 report compares the economic performance of 64 cities in the UK. On the measures used, Cambridge is shown to be the UK’s most successful city, coming top in six out of the fifteen measures of success, and second in three others.
The runner-up is London, coming top in three measures of success.
The six measures on which Cambridge comes top in the UK in the study are:
Cllr Reid added: “But there is absolutely no room for complacency over unemployment figures in the city, especially for young people. That’s why we are very pleased that our Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire Local Strategic Partnership has agreed that getting young people into work should be one its top priorities for spending its last round of grants money, about £100,000.”
Close the Door, an environmental campaign part founded by Leader of the City Council, Cllr Sian Reid with two others, and supported by the city council, has got to the four finalists for a national £10,000 funding competition!
The Close the Door campaign aims to stop retailers wasting energy by closing their doors when using heating or air conditioning. This voluntary campaign works at both street and head office level to get shops to reconsider their door policies. Independent University of Cambridge research proves that closing a shop door reduces energy usage (and resulting costs) by up to 50% and cuts a shop’s annual CO2 emissions by up to 10 tonnes, equivalent to three return London to Hong Kong flights or 31,000 air miles. The campaign is supported by MPs of all parties and various local authorities. It links directly into the local community by being a positive and business friendly campaign. It began in Cambridge and is now active across the UK including in London, Birmingham, Bristol, Bath, Chelmsford, and Guernsey.
This funding would enable the campaign to further raise awareness of high street energy waste on a national basis and persuade more retailers to commit to saving energy. Funding would be used to highlight the discrepancies between how consumers save energy at home but not when shopping, as well as paying for stickers to go in participating shops and posters to publicise the campaign.
The last and crucial stage is an online vote -if it wins Cambridge will benefit, so Liberal Democrats are asking everyone to vote for it.
To vote, go to http://www.greeninsurancegiving.co.uk/vote/ and click on the “Close the door” link on the page.
Hopefully the cuts will be stopped, not the buses
A legally challenged Tory decision to cut millions of pounds from bus services across the county has resulted in Cambridgeshire losing a £5 million government transport grant.
Cambridgeshire County Council has been told that its latest bid to the Local Sustainable Transport Fund, to help schemes such as Cambridge Dial a Ride, could not be justified in light of the decision to cut bus subsidies.
“This fund would have injected badly needed cash into community transport schemes which ironically were identified by the Tory administration to fill the gaps resulting from bus subsidy cuts,” said Lib Dem Shadow Cabinet Member for Transport, Susan van de Ven.
“This decision to cut bus subsidies has cost the county dearly. The government has made it quite clear that it has no intention of making up the money taken away by the Tories to plug holes in their budget caused by years of financial mismanagement.
“This ill-thought out decision is preventing the county council from securing government money which could have helped some of the county’s most crucial services survive.”
Jessica Matthew, Deputy Director of Sustainable Travel at the Department for Transport invited the council to put in another bid but warned in a letter: “The community transport component was not felt to be justified in the context of other local decisions and the revised bid should not include this component.”
Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrat Leader, Kilian Bourke said: “The publication of this previously unseen letter is the first evidence that the government explicitly rejected the bid for £5 million of transport funding because of the Conservatives’ local decision to scrap 100 per cent of bus funding.”
A sustained campaign by Liberal Democrats against last April’s decision to cut £2.7 million from bus subsidies led to the Tories making a dramatic U-turn and calling a public consultation.
“This is the first clear-cut evidence that the local decision to scrap 100 per cent of bus funding is costing Cambridgeshire money,” added Cllr van den Ven. “I urge the Conservatives to reinstate in their forthcoming budget funding for buses in whatever form, otherwise the council risks missing out on further funding opportunities from central government.
“Sadly admitting they were wrong came too late to save this grant.”
The City Council has refused planning permission for a mobile telephone mast next to the Shell garage in Newnham. Ward councillors and residents were delighted to hear the news, having objected to the application. The proposal was one of a number that have been put forward over the last year or so.
Cllr Sian Reid commented “it is important that the West Cambridge conservation area is maintained and enhanced, therefore mobile companies must consider very carefully the location of new masts”
Small businesses in Cambridge are being offered free energy saving advice including how to tap into the government’s ‘green’ grants through an event promoted by the city’s Liberal Democrats.
The drop-in event will take place at the SmartLIFE Centre following a request from East Chesterton County Councillor, Ian Manning who is concerned about the problems facing small businesses across the city.
It will take place on January 16 between 8am and 11am and offers free advice to local businesses with fewer than 250 employees.
Topics covered will include:
Cllr Manning said: “I hope businesses will support this extremely worthwhile event which could help them to save money and cut their carbon footprints at the same time.”
MP Julian Huppert said “I’m pleased to support this event which backs up work we have been doing to support the character of Cambridge and small businesses in particular.”
Cllr Sian Reid, leader of Cambridge City Council added: “Improving energy consumption can save small businesses money and ultimately give them more chance of surviving these tough economic times.”
You can download a poster for this from here.
MP Julian Huppert has joined a fight to save Cambridge’s pubs by giving landlords greater protection from tied tenancy agreements which push up prices.
Tied agreements mean licensees have to buy beer from pub operators, which often leads to inflated prices and steep rent hikes.
Julian is one of the proposers of a debate occurring in the House of Commons today (Thursday, January 12) calling for landlords to be free of tied tenancy and for an open market rent review.
He also wants an independent adjudicator appointed to resolve contractual problems between pub companies and their tenants.
The motion calls the Government to commission a review of self-regulation of the pub industry by an independent body this autumn and to agree a statutory code of practice for the pub trade, if this is needed.
In the last eight years Cambridge has lost around a fifth of its pubs including the Penny Ferry in Chesterton, which had operated since the 1850s, and The Jubilee in Romsey. Both have been sold off for housing.
Julian said: “The government has taken some steps, such as making the code of practice legally binding and enforceable through the civil courts, but it needs to go further.
“If we don’t act to make trading fairer for publicans tied into tenancy agreements, we will see more and more pubs going to the wall, as landlords – and their customers – are abused by predatory PubCos.
“In Cambridge and across the country as a whole, these publicans are struggling because they have to pay excessive prices for beer and they have no choice but to pass those inflated prices onto their customers. At the same time rents are going up and up with insufficient regulation.
“Our pubs are a crucial part of the very fabric of our society. Not only are they a vital community resource, but many of the buildings are an integral part of our history; once lost they are gone forever.
“I hope this motion will be passed by the Commons today so that we can offer real protection to landlords struggling to stay in business.”
Cllr Rod Cantrill (right) joins (from left) Clare Blair, Lil Speed and Mike Pitt to take a look at the site for the new allotments in Kendal Way.
Cambridge City Council has dug deep into its finances to provide £15,000 for new allotments in the city.
Seventeen allotments will be created off Kendal Way in East Chesterton and by up to 50 plots by potentially extending Empty Common in Trumpington.
The Kendal Way plots will be allocated to people who have registered on the council’s 290 strong waiting list for allotments.
Cambridge City Executive Councillor for Art, Sport and Public Places, Rod Cantrill said: “We are committed to helping people who want to grow their own produce. This helps them maintain a healthy and sustainable lifestyle and I am delighted that we have been able to invest in creating these new plots.
“Our waiting list is testament to the fact that people are recognising the benefits of growing their own food.”
East Chesterton residents, Clare Blair, Lil Speed and West Chesterton resident Mike Pitt, joined Cllr Cantrill at the site of the new allotments in Kendal Way.
Mrs Blair said: ““We have campaigned for this on behalf of local residents and I am delighted to see that the city council has acted on our request.
“With all the pressures on people’s incomes, it is a real bonus if they can grow their own fruit and vegetables rather than paying supermarket prices.
Mrs Speed added: “These new allotments are going to be really great for East Chesterton and I am very pleased that the council has found money in these difficult times to help some of the people on its waiting list here for allotments.”
Your Newnham Team
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| Julie Smith | |
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| Sian Reid | |
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| Rod Cantrill | |
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| Lucy Nethsingha | |
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