PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. March 2012
By the time you read this, the Northstowe planning documents and proposals will have been submitted and the consultation open days will have taken place.
However, that is not the end of your opportunity to view the plans and proposals or make comment. The Parish Council have a full set of the documents and you are very welcome to view these. We have and will continue to make them available on a regular basis and if you have specific issues to discuss.
It is inevitable that the subject of the Airfield Road will come up again as this single feature is the cause of all the speeding traffic rat running through our village to avoid jams on the B.1050 and A.14. Our district Councillor Alex Riley has acknowledged this as a concern for all villagers. An electronic traffic count taken by the Police on the week ending 15th Feb 2012 shows 12,073 vehicles illegally using this road over a 7 day period with the usual high volume (31%) of vehicles exceeding the ACPO speed threshold for prosecution. The number of vehicles using the road on Sat/Sun of that week was less than 200. So a simple averaging of the numbers tells us nearly 2,400 per day are illegally using the Airfield Road at the present time, and this can only increase as the B.1050 becomes more congested.
The convenience this road affords to a few who live in the village, may have to be offset against the impact of more and more vehicles avoiding the jams on the B1050 and A14. as part of their daily commute from places as far away as Ely and Huntingdon.
Those living on Home Farm will be aware of the work being carried out to make up the roads to adoptable standards at long last. This has come about following a series of meetings with the Parish Council, Senior officers from SCDC and Barratt Homes MD who has taken on board the responsibly for the work following the demise of Coftons, the original contractors. The residents themselves put pressure on Barratt with a well organised publicity campaign.
We invited two of the Home Farm residents to our most recent meeting with the Jo Mills, Planning & New Communities corporate manager, and other senior planning and S.106 officers, where we discussed the issues surrounding Home Farm, and I believe the residents now have a different opinion on how effective this Parish Council is at dealing with SCDC at a high level.
The outcome of these meetings should certainly please the long suffering residents of Home Farm and your representatives will have no doubt reported back that we are also pushing for resolutions on other issues like the central open space and play facilities and the management of the hedges and paths and other outstanding S.106 matters. We have follow-up meetings arranged to deal with these subjects, however currently there is a log jam due to a lack of cooperation on the part of one of the developers. We are pushing to unlock this and a full report will follow in due course.
The Annual Parish Meeting is scheduled for the 30th April and I hope as many of you as possible will come along and join in, 7.30pm in the Village institute. We will also have a Parish Council election in May.
The Parish Council has some tough decisions to make which will impact on Longstanton for many years to come but we believe the current team are best prepared and capable of dealing with these as we have developed well established lines of communications and mutual respect with SCDC officers and the joint developers, but we need your input to ensure we are promoting the views of and acting in, the best interests of Longstanton.
Making sure Longstanton is properly represented at meetings is vital, and the hard work required and the time dedicated to do this must reflect you views and concerns in order for it to succeed.
Our business plan and proposals for a new community centre is still one of our main objectives, and we hope that as part of the ongoing discussions on the Home Farm s.106, we will unlock the promised extension to the recreation ground to provide a site for this and more playing surface for Rugby, Hockey and other sports.
The need for early sports facilities for the first residents of Northstowe before their own are developed, puts us in a strong position to push for a replacement for our ageing Pavilion, thus providing facilities we either don't currently have or replacing those we do, with modern clean and hygienic ones for our village.
The average age of villagers is tipping quickly toward the younger end of the scale with the young families in the ex MOD properties and on Home Farm, these people and their children need facilities for education, health care, sport and recreation that we currently don't have, or are under increasing pressure, so we need to get on now with making sure we can provide for the youngsters as well as taking care of the needs of the mature and established village residents.
If we don't do these things, Longstanton will simply become the poor neighbour of Northstowe.
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PARISH COUNCIL NEWS January 2012
As we head into the new year, the Parish Council faces some challenges that will effect this village in a way that will change it for ever. The seriousness of what we are faced with has not escaped our attention but we need more and continued input from the people we represent so we can be sure the decisions we make are the right ones for Longstanton.
Parish Councils generally only have to deal with the day to day administration of a village such as the maintenance of bus shelters and the provision of recreation facilities, grass cutting and tree maintenance. Dealing with planning applications is rarely more than checking a single house extension or alterations, important as that is, what faces us now are fundamental changes to our village to accommodate the new town of Northstowe and ensure we don't become just a part of an urban sprawl.
The planning applications will be the biggest ever dealt with by your Parish Council so we must get it right, that means your input must be included in our deliberations.
The proposed new Schools on Northstowe when they come, will materially effect the children and families of Longstanton, as will the provision of health care centres and other life services. The need to provide these services for the first residents will fall in part, on our existing facilities and have an impact on all of us in the short term.
Our surgery for instance will be used by the first residents of the 1500 homes in phase1 of Northstowe. This may bring pressure on appointment availability and additional parking issues for Magdalene Close residents. The same will apply to our primary school.
The new Northstowe School will be managed as a satellite of, and by the same management team as Swavesey Village College and this is seen as a very positive and welcome step. Students who would currently go to SVC by bus will be able to walk or cycle to the new facility roughly at the end of Rampton Road. However, because of the way catchment areas work and the access provided by the CGB we need to understand how the priority for local children will be determined or we could have the ridiculous situation where our children cant get places at the nearest schools.
Recreation and sports provision will also take time to develop and we have the opportunity to provide those facilities in the early days with new planned improvements to our current recreation ground. This should give us what is now referred to as a legacy benefit in the longer term, hopefully providing a new community centre in the process.
The Parish Council has a well developed proposal and business plan for the new Community Centre and sports pavilion on the recreation ground and an exhibition/consultation to allow you to comment on this,will be announced shortly. Our proposals and business plan are predicated on the assumption we will achieve funding, at least in part, from the s.106 agreement with the Northstowe developers, and negotiations have been going on for some time to ensure Longstanton doesn't lose out again.
We have, through hard work and persistence, developed a good dialogue and working relationship with SCDC, the Joint developers Gallaghers and the HCA and we have representatives at all the meetings where Northstowe is being discussed making sure the interests of Longstanton are not overlooked. This will continue and we will report back whenever we can and urge you all to keep up to date with the application as it goes forward.
You can check the news on our website http://longstantonvillage.org and you can ask to be included on the circulation list for our instant email news circulation by sending an email to lpcclerk@btconnect.com
In other news:
As you will probably know by now, the footpath from the Golf course to the CGB P&R site was black topped before Christmas and now provides a smooth surface for walkers, cyclists and other users. We would like to thank our County Councillor, Shona Johnstone for driving this forward and surviving the continuous pressure we applied on her to get this done.
We are now looking at alternate ways we can provide lighting on the section that doesn't currently have it. One possible solution is solar powered up-lighters like the ones installed on the cycle path at Girton, these are lot less costly than conventional street lights and we are more likely to achieve funding for this lower cost option. Street lamps are expected to follow in the fullness of time as the Northstowe development starts.
WE are also working closely with Shona and the highways department to provide some additional traffic calming measures on Woodside/StMichaels and parking restrictions at various locations in an attempt to mitigate the impact of construction traffic in advance of the commencement of Northstowe next year. We are also looking to removing some of the out of date road signs that litter the village and we will move the interactive speed sign from Hattons Rd to School lane.
The subject of the speed limit on Home Farm Road has been discussed again and the proposal is to raise the limit to 40mph which is much more in keeping with the road layout and fairer to enforce. The new speed limit will apply from the roundabout on the B1050 Hattons Road to the roundabout at Over Road where 30mph will still apply.
The 40mph will also apply to School lane as far as the 30mph at the pinch-gates, and on the short section of Hattons Road from Home Farm Road to the existing 30mph signs by the burial ground. This gets rid of all the short 60mph stretches from the by-pass and unifies the speed limits into the village from all directions.
Those living on home Farm will be pleased to know we are at last getting some positive responses to the matter of the unadopted roads and sewers, we hope this will be resolved sooner rather than later and will keep you posted as progress if any, is made. This has been a difficult situation to resolve as currently there is no requirement or legal obligation nationally, for developers to complete these works to adoptable standards, a bizarre situation we believe the Government is trying to change. Our meetings with the District and County Councils continue on the Home Farm Farm issues as a priority and we have an action list which will be posted on the website after 9th January Parish Council Meeting.
It is our intention to invite a representative of all the estate management companies and other resident committees such as those on Home Farm, Rampton Drift, The Leas,Thatchers Wood, Prentice Close, the sports clubs, Church groups and any other village group that would like to be represented at discussions on the subject of Northstowe.
If you are interested, please contact the Parish Clerk, we ask that you should appoint one person to attend and suggest that they also attend Parish council meetings on a regular basis.
The hope is, by regular contact and reporting, we can prevent the well oiled and maintained rumour machine from obscuring the facts and allow everyone a say in what happens in and around YOUR village based on the facts, not rumour.
We also hope to be able to invite those appointed, to sit in on some of the meetings with the joint developers and planners, subject to the agendas allowing this.
It is important that an open channel of dialogue develops and the concerns and views of villagers don't go unheard.
The Pavilion now has a fully operational kitchen compliant with all food safety requirements and a new Chef, Barnie Varga who will be serving up a mix of menu items initially on Friday, Saturday and Sunday Lunch. We will look at restaurant opening times when we can gauge the response from customer for extending the hours.
Monday night Bingo is back at the Pavilion and we are very pleased to see the regulars again and on Fridays, afternoon tea will be held from 2pm till 4pm for anyone wishing to join in for a "cuppa & natter" while the Parish Pantry is closed for its break. We look forward to seeing your there.
We take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year.
Longstanton Parish Council
As you will know from previous reports, we are seeking views on changes to the roads and adding parking restrictions in the village and hoping to install more and better traffic calming measures to deter rat-running through our village. If we don't, the problem will just get worse as construction traffic and the workforce move onto the new site.