From District Councillors

From District Councillors Cllr Val Barrett and Cllr Janice Guest

We have been approached by many Melbourn residents over the past few months with a lot of different concerns varying from planning, housing, environmental health issue to name but a few.

As you will be aware South Cambs District Council consulted with all council house Tenants with a view to transferring the properties to a housing association. Regular newsletters and informal meetings were held to give Tenants a full appreciation of the situation with regard to their homes remaining with the Council or moving over to a housing association. The Tenants were balloted which gave every household the opportunity of voting and at the end of the day, the Tenants moved to remain with the Council. With this decision being made, the Council will have to look carefully at the budget for the next five years. The Council have taken this decision to mean that Tenants are happy with the service they receive. It has to be pointed out that 50% of the monies collected by South Cambs has to be paid to the Government and as we are all experiencing hard economic times, this continues to impact heavily on the services that are provided to the Community. Therefore, it will be necessary for the Council to make cuts in a lot of areas.

The BMX Trials at Grinnel Hill Pocket Park has now received planning permission and arrangements are in hand to bring this trial into operation soon. We are working closely with the Parish Council and in particular with Cllr. Dean Hardingham who has a lot of knowledge with regard to BMX Trials.

The yellow lines in Station Road are proving to be a difficult issue, as the painting of these lines is the responsibility of the County Council and to date they have not been installed. We have engaged the help of our new County Councillor Mrs Susan Van de Ven and with her assistance let us hope we can get some action. At the time of writing this report, plans are being prepared to improve the Flint Cross junction on the A505, together with the introduction a 50mph speed limit. It is hoped that the improvements could extend to the New Road junctions. We will support this work, which is to be carried out by the County Council. Also we are continuing to harass the County Council to reinstate the road markings in The Moor now that the development at Moorlands Court and Moorlands Close has been completed.

As District Councillors we would urge you to participate in and/or attend SCDC meetings at Cambourne, as all published meetings are open to the public. The Scrutiny and Overview Committee meetings are usually held in the villages. On 1st October this committee will be meeting in Melbourn, at Vicarage Close Community Centre both of us are on this committee and we would be especially pleased if you could attend. The agenda for the meetings are on the website.

In the meantime, if you have any matters, which you feel we could assist with, there are issues that you would like further information on, please do not hesitate to contact us.