`In the middle of December, the Love Cambridge office received an invitation to comment on the proposed changes to advertising conditions in taxis. Unfortunately the short timescale, compounded by the Christmas break, did not allow us the opportunity to circulate the proposal to our members.The comments which were submitted were therefore as officers of the Partnership only and it was not intended that these should be represented as a formal response from Love Cambridge as a body. The officers agree that this should have been made more explicit in their response.

In general the approach of Love Cambridge is as follows; given the broad range of stakeholder representation and the complexity of issues it is rare that the partnership will be able to speak with one voice. Where we are made aware of consultations and consider that they might be of interest to our membership, we will forward details onto them but we ask them to respond individually.

Love Cambridge aims to “add value” by raising awareness of formal public consultations where it is made aware of them and has done so on a number of occasions over the past 10 months, including Consultation on Cambridgeshire’s Local Transport Plan; Cambridge city council’s open green space strategy, sports strategy and cyle route improvements”.

Nicky Morrison has also written:

I also suggest you come to the Love Cambridge members meeting on 23 February 6-8pm, where we can meet in person and we can discuss further your concerns about resident involvement with Love Cambridge. You will also hear about all the various initiatives that in place to engage with residents.

I fear she may not have grasped that Love Cambridge meetings are not open to members of the public. I will write again to clarify and see if she’ll tell me where the meeting is.

The reason I’m raising this is I wouldn’t want to see people signing contracts with a product name; and I want to point out that the fact Cambridge City Council have reviewed their policy following a request from Mr Sharifi (in whatever capacity he was acting) isn’t a sign of endorsement; even though the letter says: “I look forward to your response and look forward to working with you”. Cambridge City Council have a track record of not conducting basic checks on companies.

I wrote to Mr Sharifi, using the email address given in his letter, at the time I wrote the article. I have invited him to comment or respond but he hasn’t yet.

When an in-patient at the Rosie, there was a large screen by my bed (broadcasting until about 9 p.m.) which I as a patient could not switch off even when I wished to sleep … as you do when in hospital. You could pay to have different channels; if you didn’t pay you got a mixture of different screens, including government messages about the NHS!

This was six years ago. If anyone knows anyone going to hospital soon I’d be interested to know if this is still in place.

His reply: “The answers are yes and no” suggests he was surprised to learn council officers think CCTV in taxis is currently unregulated; and perhaps that he doesn’t agree the position stated by officers is accurate (I think he believes; as he suggested to the licenseing meeting that there are some regulations in place which officers ought be aware of and be enforcing). Cllr Rosenstiel reiterated the, unadopted, proposal he had made at the meeting “that only relevant council officials and the police should have access to the footage.”

As far as I’m aware the heads of non-limited companies are free to call themselves “director”, although it’s meaningless in law.

On the issue of small vs large companies, my point vs Cllr Hart’s was that it is a valid concern, but that the Cabcast system would help the small operators, as Cabcast were financing the CCTV, instead of operators having to cover the £400ish cost of installation themselves.

My personal views on advertising are probably stronger than I came across at the meeting: I really think that advertising is out of control, and perhaps the worst part of our economic system. Advertising is so often to create a perceived need where none exists. It’s part of the “growth economy” measuring progress as GDP growth. I personally think it should be taxed in exchange for reduced VAT.