Following our complaints about the last minute changes to the Cambridgeshire boundary review, which split parts of the St Matthew’s Area from Petersfield into the County Council Abbey Ward, we got a response!

“At its meeting on 15 March, the Commission acknowledged that, despite following the statutory procedure governing reviews and its own guidance, some residents and groups could feel that there had been insufficient opportunity for their views to be communicated during the consultation process. Accordingly, the Commission has agreed to hold a new phase of public consultation on new electoral arrangements for Cambridgeshire County Council.

The consultation will open on 10 May 2016 and close on 20 June 2016. The Commission will re-publish the boundary proposals it agreed in February and invite local people and organisations to comment on them. Publication of these recommendations will give local people and groups the chance to comment on the boundary proposals for the whole county. Once the consultation has closed, the Commission will carefully examine all the evidence presented, both that received during this period and earlier submissions. The Commission has an open mind about potential changes to its recommendations as a result of the consultation. It will welcome views in support of the proposals and suggestions for alternative boundaries that meet the criteria set out in law. It will then publish final recommendations in September 2016.”

So this is good news. We don’t know yet how to improve the proposals – the number data that the decision was based on isn’t available to us yet – but we hope to propose ideas & discuss with local councillors.

We’re more than happy to hear from anyone and as usual hope we can use the small amount of credibility that the PACT name gives us to champion some good suggestions.

For some time now the Local Government Boundary Commission has been running a consultation on new boundary proposals in Cambridgeshire. We’ve kept quiet – all proposals seemed more or less OK, even a radical one to split Petersfield into St Paul’s and St Matthew’s areas. We felt there was nothing proposed which would do damage to local democracy or provision of services.

However, the final recommendations are a different matter. Apparently due to a last minute discovery of a mistake (see section 26 of the final report), the commission has recommended a new northern boundary for Petersfield, randomly wandering down to Norfolk Street. It’s basically ridiculous, slicing into the historic core of the St Matthew’s area to take out a chunk to make the numbers work.

We believe the plan to send these proposals to parliament is clearly wrong and a further round of consultation or withdrawal of these proposals is needed.

The LGCBE website publishes the email address for their chief executive, Jolyon Jackson jolyon.jackson@lgbce.org.uk, please do email him and the key contact Karen Cleverly at Karen.Cleverly@lgbce.org.uk . Feel free to cc Daniel Zeichner too – since the proposals face going to parliament next.

So we had a productive community meeting and thanks to the local councilors who attended (Kevin Blencowe, Richard Robertson & Dave Baigent). We also had some expert comment on the Chisholm Trail from Jim Chisholm.

If you have feedback which you would like to communicate to Allies & Morrison, who are preparing the Supplementary Planning Document on behalf of the City Council, you can forward it to Nicola Hillier (Nicola.Hillier@cambridge.gov.uk) at the council who will forward it.

The summary report to the East Area Committee on January 28th is really pretty good – see it here. It goes so far as to note the desire for low carbon energy generation site, after key issues which cover our concerns.

In our meeting, some opinions did become clearer on reflection and with further discussion.

• Traffic is a huge local concern. Access must be via Mill Road. The existing access restrictions (Gwydir St, Hooper St) work well although their abuse by some motorcyclists was noted. Emergency vehicle access to the depot site from the north is fine but we need to avoid any chance of it being misused.
• Everyone would like to see a low car development, which is possible due to the excellent local transport links for all but cars (car access being a problem). This needs to be demonstrably realistic to avoid overspill of unwanted cars onto the surrounding area, however. “No car” development is generally not considered realistic. The need for provision for visitors isn’t noted in current proposals.
• Any loss of parking resulting from the development – such as the removal of the on-site garages or losses on Hooper Street – needs to be replaced like for like. There will be more pressure on parking from other minor development, Sturton St’s new Islamic College, the possibility of residents’ only parking, etc.; we can’t afford this scheme to contribute to that.
• It was noted that much local car use is at the “every other weekend” level. There was strong support for allocated car club spaces on site, for the benefit of the site and surrounding area.
• The Chisholm Trail route as proposed has issues; the tight (> 90 degree) turn onto Hooper Street is a problem in particular. Jim Chisholm notes that the 6m or so of space used for the Chisholm Trail could be placed more centrally in the development and would hugely open up the central space, to a big overall benefit.
• The Kingston St – Devonshire Road crossing of Mill Road is a noted accident blackspot and it is hoped that measures related to this development can improve that.
• Housing for the elderly and disabled could well support some of the low traffic aims – and would be popular locally.
• Social housing would be widely supported as would provision for live-work spaces which we consider a characteristic of this area.
• The need for community facilities is clear and the combination with CWRC and much needed nursery provision is again mentioned as a very strong approach. The buildings shown on the proposals are fantastic, but the shortage of facilities in the area is really very heavily tilted to the North end of Petersfield, so we would really like to see the major community facilities (including nursery) provision at that end. It may not seem like a huge distance, but with children especially, it matters and there is a real problem right now with even basic things like children’s birthday party bookings, not to mention the shortage of nursery places for the dense central area of Petersfield.
• We urge Allies & Morrison to consider underground possibilities, particularly for a car park, but recognize cost and benefits may not add up.