Reflecting on 2013

an ideal summer venue for children’s parties, clubs, family groups/reunions and businesses functions for employees. It will also become a summer Youth Club which will giving the younger members of the village a great place to enjoy themselves.

Recreation Shelter

The inside of the shelter situated in the New Recreation ground has now been painted, using ideas from students at MVC, with positive feedback from members of the community. The rear will be completed in the near future, depending largely on the weather.

At the time of going to press the long awaited Bluetooth speaker was due to be fitted late November. Peter Simmonett, Play & Recreation committee

The New Year is often a time for reflection and 2013 has certainly been a year of note and excitement to look back on. Melbourn is a really interesting and vibrant village right now and there has been so much activity during 2013, resulting in some really positive assets for the village and great community spirit. Here are a few of the highlights and major events of 2013:

Building began at the old police site in the High Street, of our Community Hub which will offer a café, library, various advice and support services etc. On the same site, construction also began of 13 new affordable houses which we negotiated with the housing association to be offered first to Melbourn people who are in need of a home.

Melbourn residents were able to voice their opinions in force, via a locally implemented and managed consultation process in response to a proposal for a large housing development in the village as part of South Cambs Local Development Plan (LDF). The outcome of the public consultation was that the community considered this to be over development and were against it. We worked very closely with the residents group to ensure that the opinions of our village were heard and the outcome is that the original proposal has now been removed from the LDF.

The surface water relief drain in the High Street was completed - and some of the flooding issues that residents of the High Street had suffered for so long have hopefully been addressed. This was possible only because of the strong working relationship established with the housing association and the village college, which enabled the drainage to be tackled as part of the development work at the old police site.

The incredibly successful Celebrating Ages event was launched (and repeated) during 2013, with fantastic attendance, showing the strength of our Melbourn community. Both our village college students and older villagers have benefited in so many ways from being brought together at this event which is sponsored by the Parish Council and hosted by MVC. Local businesses such as the Co-op, Leech’s and Fieldgate Nurseries have also contributed to the event, adding to the community flavour and more events are planned into 2014 and beyond. I felt very privileged to have been involved with such an enthusiastic team of volunteers from our community and most of all take pride in the fantastic work that was done by the staff and young people of our village college to make this event possible.

As chairman of Melbourn Area Youth Development (MAYD), it has been a wonderful year in that we have successfully gained lottery grant money to introduce a course called ‘bike bank’ which gives our young people cycle maintenance training. We also won funding to continue to employ a youth services provider, a role which has greatly enhanced the activities available to our young people. This successful programme has now more than doubled the attendance at the youth club.

Melbourn is a great place to live and the coming year is promising, with yet more to look forward to. I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy New Year Jose Hales District Councillor for Melbourn 01763 221058 / 07703 262649 jose@josehales.me.uk

County Council

Highways questions

If £300K has been found for a stretch of cycle path one might well ask: ‘Why can’t we have that money to fill pot holes and repair pavements, and why does a cycle path cost so much?’

The first answer is that funding sits in different pots. Everyday maintenance work on roads, pavements and drainage comes from the County Council budget, while the cycle path funding comes from a central government initiative. Yes it can all seem incredibly disjointed and sometimes even contradictory, and it is always a matter of finding out how the system works and gaining what we can from wherever we can find it!

Anything to do with roads and pavements is inordinately expensive. To put the new cycle path into context, one kilometer of new single carriageway road would cost somewhere in the region of £4 million – 12 times the cost of the same length of cycle path. The long-term thinking around the benefits of cycling is that it is much less costly than driving, both for the individual in running a bicycle versus a car, and in terms of highways maintenance. Health benefits including exercise and air quality weigh in too, as does the economic cost of reducing vehicle traffic congestion – so the more people persuaded to get around by cycling the better.

Nevertheless, as is plainly evident, the County Council is facing a massive crisis on pothole and pavement repair and it is reckoned that about £300 million is needed to get on top of things – that is equivalent to about three-quarters of the council’s entire budget. This crisis is the result of years of under-budgeting and a runaway rate of deterioration. Together with other councillors I’ve asked for a strategy for prioritizing works in a sensible manner, and for guidance on how to deal with the problem in the longer term… though I don’t think anyone really has the answers at this point. Reporting faults