Police report to councillors at area committees and councillors approve policing priorities for the next few months.

I observed Cambridge’s South Area committee on the 11th of March 2010 where the first thing councillors turned to was deciding policing priorities for the South of the city. The police presented their report on the last three months of policing activity in the area. One of the key points revealed by the report was a rise in burglary rates. Queen Ediths has had low burglary levels but in the last period they had almost doubled to a figure almost approaching that seen in Kings Hedges in the North of the City. This was blamed on repeat burglary offenders who had been let out of prison on probation and were offending again. The police said this has a cyclical a problem for some time in the South of the city and said they had no control over what the probation service did. When asked to what degree the police can monitor known burglars out on probation Inspector Kerridge indicated that they had to be very careful and ensure their actions were proportionate and justifiable.

Omissions from the Police Report

Cllr Taylor, as she has done at previous meetings, complained about the lack of statistics on matters such as speeding. The police claimed they didn’t want to overwhelm councillors with information and would only provide additional data on request. Cllr Taylor explained she had requested reports on speeding before and when wanted to know why the North and East area committees were now getting reports on speeding but the South wasn’t. Inspector Kerridge committed (as he did last time) to bring speeding data next time.

On a different point of omission Cllr Al-Bander called at a previous South Area committee for a separate, specific, reporting on domestic violence but the police had not acted on this request many months later at the February 2010 South Area Committee. In the South, unlike Chesterton, reported violent crime is down compared to last year. The council leader reported to the North Area committee that it was a community safety partnership priority to increase recorded domestic violence so the rise in reported violent crime ought be regarded as a good thing. The problem though is that the statistics are not broken down into domestic and non-domestic violent offences. The only location where such a breakdown has been provided is within Cherry Hinton where six of nineteen offences were domestically related and concerned violence between partners in a relationship.

As background to the current state of reporting when I met Mr Fuller the police staff member responsible for public consultation in Cambridge, he claimed councillors had been pushing for less and less in their reports, he said for example it was councillors who were directly responsible for them no longer containing crime maps of problem areas as they said it made the reports too large. Initially Liberal Democrats were not keen at all on getting involved in setting local police priorities it is excellent that public pressure, and the lead taken by the East Area committee, where the Lib Dems are not in a majority, is changing this and they’re starting to get a grip.

Suggesting New Priorities

• Cllr Geoff Heathcock was instrumental in lobbying the committee to set burglary as priority. He spoke persuasively about the amount of upset and disruption a burglary causes. A member of the public complained that when he was burgled the police told him they had likely suspects but never got back to him to let him know the outcome of their investigations. Cllr Heathcock asked for more frequent communications assuring the public that the police were actually taking action to deal with burglaries
• Member of the public Stephen Oliver asked if future reports could include statistics on the amount of time officers had spent patrolling in the area. He said that having lived in Cambridge, on the Accordia development, for four months he had never seen a police officer where he lived.
• Cllr Sanders suggested a priority relating to cycling near Addenbrookes, stopping people cycling without lights and people cycyling through red lights on the roundabout outside the hospital.
• As usual in Cambridge a member of the public asked about verge parking. The police said this wasn’t really a matter for them. Cllr Baker said the best thing to do was to call the council who he said would send a parking enforcement officer on a scooter out to the location straight away to issue a £60 fixed penalty ticket.
• A member of the public called on the police to deal with “anti-social behaviour” and another asked what deterrents were in place to prevent it. In response the police pointed to their dispersal powers under Section 27 of the Violent Crime Reduction at (those which the council doesn’t have to approve and apply everywhere). I was astounded to hear Inspector Kerridge’s explanation of how Cambridge Police are using this power. He said the police targeted people early in the evening who they thought might cause problems later and order them out of the area. A member of the public, spoke against the use of dispersal powers, questioning where people were being dispersed too.
• A member of the public suggested the police shouldn’t take problem causing youths home, but to make their parents come out and get them, as a means of getting through to parents and making them take responsibility. Inspector Kerridge responded by saying that the police can’t do much about parents who don’t agree with the police that what their children are getting up to is a problem

The Priorities

The meeting ended up with I think it was six possible priorities and the police asked for the top three while noting that everything raised would be considered to some degree.

The three chosen were:

1. Antisocial Behaviour; particularly as per the police suggestion of: “Youth related anti-social behaviour (ASB) on Paget Rd, Foster Rd and Anstey Way”.
2. Burglary.
3. Cycling offences - cycling without lights and jumping red traffic lights, around Addenbrookes.

Prioritising Burglary

Councillors at the South Area committee prioritised tackling burglary. I strongly support this, and I’ve been lobbying my own local councillors in the North to do this too. In the North councillors have refused to do on the grounds it is a city wide priority despite being told of the extra work which would take place if it was also a local priority. This is despite the north having much higher burglary levels than the south.

Dwelling Burglary - South vs North Cambridge

Burglary levels in the South are much much lower than in the North yet in the South but not the North councillors are supporting the police in tackling the problem.

I was burgled last year, but have been campaigning for it to be a police priority for a long time before my house got broken into. Living where I did, with the police and councillors apparently tolerating the high burglary levels in the area, it was almost inevitable.

Now councillors are playing a bigger role in setting police priorities perhaps people in the North, in Arbury, Kings Hedges and Chesterton, will bear that in mind and if they want burglary tackled won’t re-elect the current councillors.

The Priority Setting System in Cambridge

There are a couple of current problems with the priority setting system which mean we don’t quite yet have direct local democratic influence over the police; though what we do have is fantastic and much better than elsewhere in the country. Councillors don’t have the final say on the priorities; a secret meeting of council, fire and police officers called the Neighbourhood Action Group has the final say. But I, and some councillors, have been trying to ensure that the police are held to account against the priorities actually approved by councillors, and that often now happens. The leader of the council has promised a number of times over the last few years to try and get some more openness in the system, both with respect to the Neighbourhood Action Group and the city wide Community Safety Partnership - both of which are currently highly secretive and uncommunicative. I think this is urgently needed and would give local involvement in policing a significant boost. Only rarely for example are dates of the NAG meetings revealed to councillors at the Area Committees. Sometimes the Area Committees have met just after a NAG presumably meaning their decisions will have taken months to formally take effect.

At the moment I think in practice the system is working better than perhaps it looks like it should from the outside. The area committees to appear to be a mechanism which work and have real noticeable effects and where councillors are willing to use it there have been results.

See also

• February 2010 South Area Committee Agenda
• Police City South Neighbourhood Report - February 2010
• How local police priorities are set in Cambridge

Cllr Amanda Taylor advertised the meeting on her website as starting at 19.30. It actually started at 19.00.

At Cambridge’s South Area Committee meeting on the 11th of March a proposal to spend a substantial amount of public money buying Local Secrets discount cards for all children in years 7 and 8 (11 and 12 year olds) was presented. Cllr Clare Blair, who made the proposal, explained that these cards would then give the holders discounts at swimming pools including Parkside and Abbey as well as The Corn Exchange, The Junction and Ice Skating.

Cllr Blackhurst who was chairing the meeting was allowing members of the public to ask questions. I used this opportunity to put a question to Cllr Blair. I asked:

Is Local Secrets a for profit company? If so why is there a proposal to put public money into this private company’s profits on the basis of them having negotiated discounts with organisations which the council has more direct routes of influence over? The council either owns, manages, or funds all these facilities and is surely in a position to arrange discounts with them directly without making a contribution to a private company’s profits.

Cllr Blair responded to say Local Secrets was a for profit private company. All she was able to say in explanation was that the council had a long standing arrangement with Local Secrets and said the city council’s leisure card had “turned into” the Local Secrets’ “Cambridge Card”. For some reason she also suggested I visit the Local Secrets and city council website to look for more information on the card and consider buying one myself.

Youth Summit

The proposal to spend public money buying these cards has come about following each area committee in Cambridge having allocated £5,000 to be spent on, and by, young people. The total amount available across the city is £20,000. A “summit” attended by 33 children from wards across the city was convened to decide how the money ought be spent; councillors from each area were invited to attend too. It has been reported now to successive area committees that what the children asked for was leisure discounts; particularly on ice skating.

It appears that Cllr Blair may have decided that simply spending the money with Local Secrets is an easy option; its one which doesn’t address some of the other points raised by the children such as requests for discounts on busses.

On interesting point arose during the discussion when an officer speaking at the South Area committee said the ice rink on Parkers’ Piece operates under a “service level agreement” negotiated with the City Council. It was a children’s and young people’s participation officer though so I don’t know how true it is.

Discussion in the East

Whereas the South Area committee did not have a written report on the children’s summit linked from its agenda the East Area did.

When the proposals were presented to the East Area committee on the 18th of February councillors asked what the difference was between a Leisure Card and a Local Secrets card. Then Cllr Blair said she didn’t know; so her knowledge has clearly progressed in the last three weeks; I hope that by the time she actually comes to spend the £20K of public money she has got a grip on exactly what it is she is buying with it. At the moment I’ve not got the sense that she’s spending my money as carefully as I would spend it myself.

Councillors at the East Area also asked if the cards would be distributed through schools and if children in school in the city but not resident in the city would be excluded. Cllr Blair said that cards would go to those attending schools in the city and not those living in the city. Cllr Blair said it was not easy to get the number of children in the city.

At the East Area Cllr Blair identified the question of “Are we willing to fund corporate activities?” eg. Ice Skating or the Cinema as one councillors had to answer.

Cllr Howell complained that Cllr Blair wasn’t bringing a concrete proposal at the East Area Committee. Cllr Bradnack expressed concern that the views of the children were being channelled through a single executive councillor with ulterior motives. From exchanges at the East Area committee it appeared that the idea of giving out Local Secrets discount cards to children had been floated with the children who had responded to say they felt that local secrets targeted adults; they said they’d like to see more things of interest to younger people covered.

Local Secrets

Local Secrets Ltd. runs the Local Secrets website and discount card. The company is largely owned by Mr Neal Robbins of Halifax Road in Cambridge with minority stakes in the company held by other members of the Robbins family and others.

A BBC interview with Mr Robbins is available via this link.

I cannot find details of the City Council’s relationship with Local Secrets. I don’t know if the council gets a cut every time someone buys an upgraded card; I don’t know if the pools and other facilities charge Local Secrets every time a discount is claimed.

The local secrets website states:

The City Council maintains the policy and direction of the scheme

The “Cambridge Card” is cited as an “area of uncertainty” in the City Council’s budgeting document the “Medium Term Strategy“. The note states:

The Council has recently introduced the Cambridge Card and is working in partnership with a number of organisations regarding this item. It is hoped that the scheme will be successful and financial implications minimised.

For 2009/10 a budget of £0 is given for the Cambridge Card but £2,160 is shown as spent *. From that I presume that perhaps the the deal is designed to mutually beneficial to the council and Local Secrets with little money passing between them; though that’s clearly the status prior to including this new potential £20,000 going to Local Secrets.

Council Discounts

I have been asking for almost a decade now why the City Council has such a crazy way of giving student discounts on things like swimming. University students have to have an NUS card first, then buy what used to be a Leisure Card and is now a Local Secrets Cambridge Card. Quite why the student ID cards issued by the city’s universities can’t be accepted is something I’ve asked a large number of people, including the current Executive Councillor responsible, Julie Smith, with no substantive or explanatory response.

Children Concerned about Dispersal

Interestingly another rather different outcome of the children’s summit is a proposed meeting between police and young people to explain the use of and implications of the Section 30 dispersal powers which Cambridge Liberal Democrats have allowed the police to use in the city. These powers are particularly strong when applied against under 16s; though some councillors thought they had an agreement with the police not to use them on children. Older children at the summit meetings reported getting moved on from leisure centres, parks, and shopping centres. I think Liberal Democrat councillors ought join the police when they meet young people and explain why they’re approving the use of these extreme powers.

Around 150 people attended a public event for Cambridge city residents to discuss the potential for tall buildings in the city. .

On the 3rd of March I attended a series of talks, and a workshop, discussing tall buildings in Cambridge. Kati Preston, the wife of Cambridge City Council’s Historical Environment Manager, John Preston, explained the background to the event. She said that through her husband she had become aware that secret discussions between city council planners, architects, and developers were taking place about tall buildings. City Council officers are working on creating a “Supplementary Planning Document” on the subject of Tall Buildings which will form part of the city’s planning policy. While there are proposed public consultations to be held in future years as part of the process of adopting (or rejecting) the proposed policy Mrs Preston said she thought the public ought have input right at this early stage so prompted Cambridge Past Present and Future to hold the event aimed at city residents.

The public event on the 3rd of March followed a private one held on the 17th of September 2009 to which only by the city and region’s elite were invited. In the evening following the CPPF organised element of the September event Cambridge City Council hosted an, also private, presentation and debate on Tall Buildings as part of “Urban Design Week”.

Cambridge Past Present and Future recorded the presentations made on the 3rd of March on video. They said that they will post them, along with views on tall buildings submitted by attendees, on the CPPF Website and they will also send them to Cambridge City Council.

Robin Pellew - Chair of the Event

Mr Pellew introduced the event talking about the challenge of expanding Cambridge while retaining the character and appearance of the city. He said that tall was a possible option for containing the city’s creep into the countryside. For the purposes of discussion he raised the possibility of “height zoning” an asked “Do we have an agreed vision for Cambridge in 20/30 years?”. Using photographs he pointed out that “dreaming spires still dominate”.

The recent concerns that Cambridge City Council’s planning policy, and planning decisions, are starting to drive away developers was raised. Mr Pellew expressed particular concerns that developers of properties which it is hard for developers to make a profit on, but which the city needs, are finding it difficult. He cited the “low budget hotel” and “affordable housing” as examples.

The meeting was told that Cambridge was following in the footsteps of London and Oxford in looking to create a planning policy which gave consideration to the skyline. He told the meeting that London Mayor Boris Johnston had introduced the “London View Management Framework”, which among other things protected the view from Richmond Hill. Mr Pellew suggested the views of the college backs, and the views of the city from the top of Great St. Mary’s Church could be considered equivalents in Cambridge.

Peter Carolin

Mr Carolin was introduced as the chair of the City Council’s Design and Conservation Panel. He didn’t explain the role of this panel, or how he was appointed. He was accompanied by three colleagues and each discussed reasons Cambridge might want tall buildings. Mr Carolin first spoke about the view of Cambridge as one approaches the city. He showed slides showing what you see approaching via main roads - essentially my impression of what he was saying is the city is pretty much invisible as you come in on the M11 or A14 due to the flat landscape on which the city is built.

Commenting on a photo he noted that most of Cambridge is below the tree line, with the exception of the college chapels and university library. Mr Carolin showed a photo of the new Thompson’s lane hotel taken from Jesus Green. The audience groaned and shouted “no” and “terrible” when presented with this example of a new tall building in the city. Mr Carolin asked the audience if they would feel differently about the building if they knew the top floor was an art exhibition space and accessible to local people. (Is it to be?!)

Giving examples of heights of buildings Mr Carolin said Kings College Chapel is 45m high, and Church spires in the city reach 65m. He gave examples of the materials science building on the new museums site, Peterhouse accommodation blocks, and buildings at Addenbrookes as examples of what he described as unseen towers in the city. He talked about the possibility of 9-16 story buildings away from the city centre and suggested that was what was realistically under consideration when considering tall buildings for Cambridge in the near future. Carolin said that high density housing in such buildings offered an opportunity to maintain vitality at ground floor level.

The presentation continued with four options (being raised to promote discussion) for tall building development in Cambridge:

1. La Defense. To follow the example of Paris where tall buildings are clustered in one spot away from the historic core. The suggestion was a cluster of tall buildings on the airport site could be Cambridge’s equivalent.
2. Mini local centres. This suggestion was for high rise living above local shops such as those at the Cherry Hinton Road / Perne Way junction. The suggestion was the tall buildings would serve to mark these local centres
3. Entrances to the city. The example given here was the station site, the idea being tall buildings would be used to indicate where the city centre begins.
4. Having tall buildings around the perimeters of Cambridge’s green spaces was the last suggestion. This was illustrated by a photo of Central Park in New York. An argument was made that large open spaces demand appropriately scaled buildings on their borders. It was suggested that as well as applying to open space in the city this could also apply to the edge of the city where it meets the countryside.

Other notable elements of the presentation included a slide showing an image from about 1960 illustrating a plan for the New Museums Site - the idea was for a cluster of towers which, like Ely Cathedral, would be a landmark in the fen. The “Tim Brinton” garage site - was also discussed as an opportunity to complete the square at the Cambridge Leisure development; this was presented as being a potential improvement to a gateway to the city.

Peter Carolin showed the output of a computer model of the city of Cambridge which is being developed.

A slide showing work in progress towards a 3D computer model of buildings in the city was shown. At the moment every building is illustrated with a height corresponding to its highest point, but Mr Carolin thought there was a great deal of scope to improve the model and use it in relation to planning the future of the city.

Mr Carolin returned to where he had started - the view of the city from outside. He pointed out that Cambridge is typically pictured from within, he illustrated this with a photo of a punter on the river as it passes through Kings College, whereas Oxford is typically depicted from outside with a photo of the City from above.

He finished by sounding a note of caution about the City’s current plans for expansion saying he worried that new low rise housing surrounding the city may lack a sense of space.

Ian Gilder

Mr Guilder said he had been invited to put a point of view from a developer. He jumped straight in to highlighting the costs of providing infrastructure and services as a consequence of new developments. He estimated these costs were £25-40K and said there were not all met by the developer at the moment. I’m not too sure what Mr Guilder was saying - he appeared to be avoiding making a specific comment for or against current levels of S.106 taxes on development. He seemed to me to raise the question but not address it.

Mr Guilder said that residential property prices in Cambridge were not high enough at the moment to justify the construction of tall buildings. He said that “tall could be part of a scheme if desired” but said that there was no economic drive to build tall.

Mansion blocks were cited as being better than tall buildings at achieving high densities of homes. He suggested it was harder to create mixed and balanced communities in tall buildings than in other options for high density housing.

Mr Gilder suggested “sweeping away” the Newmarket road retail park and said that some tall buildings could be possible as part of its replacement.

Richard McCormac

Mr McCormac started by saying tall buildings are bad for Cambridge. He said that building high was not the same as building at high density and gave vanity and showing off as more significant drivers for building tall than an aim to provide as many homes as possible on limited space. He backed up what he was saying with statistics, he said traditional terraces were as dense as typical 12 story buildings. He showed slides of various arrangements of homes along with the number of “dwellings per hectare” achieved. The highest density being achieved by blocks of flats around a square (as seen in parts of London) which achieves 187 dwellings per hectare.

Mr McCormac called for a national database of housing densities for various ways of arranging homes to be created; councillors in the audience indicated they too thought this was needed.

Having shown various options for high density housing Mr McCormac concluded: “There is no reason to invade the green belt”. Talking about commercial buildings he cited extension to BBC Broadcasting House as an example of a ground-scraper and described how light wells enabled skyscrapers to be essentially built next to each other and achieve very high densities.

Commenting on the new, world’s tallest tower in Dubai, Mr McCormac put up a slide and said “That’s just silly really”.

Mr McCormac said that ideally a developer would build on a site where they are able to maximise profits by making use of existing infrastructure around them. He said there was a need to “densify not build tall”, though he noted that some people were attracted to high rise living - as some people want anonymity - though he questioned if it was good for society.

With respect to planning Mr McCormac warned against doing something along the lines of allocating an area of a new development site for tall buildings. He said that would artificially affect land prices and he said he thought it would be hard for planners to stick to their policy and avoid “developers creep” - someone with adjacent land seeking to build tall there too. He proposed imposing a minimum of rules.

Workshop Sessions

The outcomes from the workshops were shared in a plenary session.

We then had an hour of workshop sessions where in small groups of ten or so people we discussed tall buildings in Cambridge. The organisers had put all the councillors together in one group, along with the speakers.
At the end of the hour one member of each group had a minute and a half to comment on the group’s discussions. It was notable that while all the other groups were pretty consistent the councillors’ table was certainly the odd one out when it came to reporting back. The councillors claimed that it was inconceivable to build tall to densify areas where people are currently living, such as the area between the Airport and the City Centre. They explained that this was due to the fact it might result in complaints from residents - to which they are very sensitive. All councillors present were Liberal Democrats and this does accurately reflect what I’ve seen of their attitude to running the city. The councillors’ group said they thought if tall buildings were to be seen in Cambridge they could form a part of new development sites where there are not existing residents to oppose them.

My View

I don’t think we ought be relying on Mr and Mrs Preston’s chats across the breakfast table as a means of getting information out of Cambridge City Council. I can’t find any information about the Cambridge City Council’s website about a proposed supplementary planning document on tall buildings.

I think we ought keep an open mind about tall buildings. If someone was to come to Cambridge and propose building the new Kings Chapel - a new landmark building for our generation then I don’t think we should have ruled that out before we hear the plans.

I think maintaining some of Cambridge’s fabulous views is a role of planning; I’m not sure we need a specific planning policy to protect views of and from the backs, but I can’t see any harm in one. I wouldn’t like to see development along the river frozen though; there have been some fabulous new buildings created in some visually sensitive spots such as Trinity Hall’s Jerwood Library.

Cambridge has a real, problematic, lack of quality housing at an affordable price. I think if we are to have tall buildings they ought address problems we have in the city such as providing accommodation, but as was reinforced by this event - they’re typically not the best way to go about providing high density living.

If a proposed tall building is acceptable or not is all about context. There are some existing fairly tall buildings in the vicinity of the station. I see no reason why the redevelopment of that area ought not include some reasonably tall buildings of a similar scale to those already built there. If the beehive centre was to be put to a more dense, use then perhaps some taller buildings would be appropriate there - mirroring the new flats on the opposite side of the railway line.

I think there is a lot of potential to make residential areas denser and to redevelop areas; we need to be bold and not take the easy option of sprawling out into the surrounding fields; especially not if we’re going to to it badly as we’ve seen with Arbury Park.

Attendees

Attendees were generally older, especially if the handful of students who had offered to attend and act as timekeepers for the workshop sessions were taken out. That planning the future of the city appears to interest the older generation more than the young appears rather ironic to me.

I’d estimate about a hundred and fifty people attended, including Cllr Baker the Chair of the City Council’s planning committee, City Cllrs Dixon and Blair and County Councillor Harrison. Cllr Rosensteil registered but did not turn up. I noticed a couple of Milton Keynes councillors on the registration list.

Notably despite the need for changes in planning law being discussed, along with questions relating to funding infrastructure required to support development, none of the main party’s Parliamentary candidates attended.

A few days ago I noticed that Belinda Brooks-Gordon, the Liberal Democrat County Councillor for Castle Ward in Cambridge, had blocked me from following her on Twitter. This piqued my interest so I made sure I monitored her public twitter feed carefully. On Friday she posted a tweet saying she was in Haverhill and I noticed her Twitter “Bio” had been updated to read: “Lib Dem PPC for West Suffolk”.

An article published on Monday the 1st of March in the East Anglian Daily Times confirms that Brooks-Gordon has been selected as the Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate for West Suffolk in the next general election; the constituency includes Haverhill, Mildenhall and Newmarket.

Brooks-Gordon has launched a new website dedicated to her Parliamentary campaign. Interestingly that site as a whole, and particularly the biography where it would be expected, doesn’t at the time of writing mention the fact she is a county councillor for a ward in the city of Cambridge. On the flip side Brooks-Gordon’s distinctly separate website, aimed at her constituents in Cambridge doesn’t mention her parliamentary candidature at all. Those electors in Castle following their representative via the original website won’t see any evidence of a new-found interest in Chedburgh, Wickhambrook and Withersfield.

When I first saw I had been blocked from following Brooks-Gordon thought it was just me. (Though Brooks-Gordon has been supportive of some of my campaigns eg. opening up secretive City Council meetings and reforming the police authority). Now I’m wondering if all those based in Cambridge have been removed as a result of the new change in focus as part of attempts to keep it under wraps, or at least not draw too much attention to it within the city. The Lib Dems are well practised at this kind of thing; Julian Huppert managed to stand as a Parliamentary Candidate in Huntington without drawing too much attention to his activities there back in Cambridge.

I think there is marked difference in openness and transparency between Brooks-Gordon’s activities and those of Tariq Sadiq who is both Labour’s county councillor for Coleridge and Labour’s PPC for South Cambridgeshire. Cllr Sadiq is very open about his dual role, with his website tagline of “for Coleridge and South Cambridgeshire”. I recall that during Cllr Sadiq’s election as a county councillor the fact he was to be the PPC for South Cambridgeshire was known and was part of the campaign; those who elected him in Coleridge did so in the full knowledge that he would have a major campaign outside the ward with potential to distract him from his duties there.

I get the impression that as yet many Castle residents are unaware of what their elected representative has been getting up to; I wonder what they’ll make of it.

Cars often park illegally on Church Street in Chesterton. As part of a scheme to make the road more attractive to cyclists Cllr Clare Blair wants parking formally permitted.

At the North Area committee on the 4th of March 2010 I asked a public question about consultation in relation to a proposed Arbury Park to Riverside cycle route. I asked why the Liberal Democrats were not using the area committee system, which they set up, to inform local people about the proposals and to debate them. I asked why the City Council were pro-actively encouraging people to comment on the West-Cambridge to Sliver Street cycle route but were not encouraging input into the Orchard Park to Riverside scheme with the same gusto. As I regularly do; I questioned why the North of the City appeared to be getting a poor deal when compared to Newnham. I said I wanted to find out how the consultation was being run and asked what the current position was.

One reason I asked my question was that I had observed the Transport Area Joint Committee on Monday the 25th of January 2010 where Cllr Blair proposed, and the meeting resolved, that consultation with residents would take place in relation to elements of the proposals affecting the Church Street area. After the Traffic AJC meeting Cllr Blair spoke to those present in the public gallery about her intent to hold a meeting with Vie residents and other constituents in St. Andrew’s Hall in Chesterton to which she said she would invite council officers and others to attend.

Cllr Clare Blair volunteered to answer my question at the North Area Committee and the chair allowed her to do so. Cllr Blair said that in her view it would be inappropriate for the City Council to duplicate what the county was doing, and the county, via the Traffic Area Joint Committee, was leading the consultation on the Arbury Park to Riverside cycle route. That was it; that’s all she said on the subject.

Despite having been asked, in public - at a council meeting, to explain what consultation was underway, Cllr Blair did not reveal the fact that she has in fact organised a local, invitation-only, meeting at which the proposals for the Church Street area will be discussed. I have now learnt this meeting is to be led by a county council officer who will write a report on the outcomes of the workshop for the Traffic AJC. I have not been invited and neither as I understand it have any members of the press or members of opposition political parties. Local residents and cyclists who use the route but are not members of residents associations are being disenfranchised and not being given the opportunity to stay informed and have an early input into plans. When the Traffic AJC approved a consultation meeting I doubt the Labour and Conservative members present envisaged a private, invite only, meeting as part of that. They didn’t specify it ought be an open and inclusive process, but I’d have thought it would have been reasonable to take that as read. Where Liberal Democrats are involved they may have to take more care in-future.

A regular reader of my website, a Labour Party member who lives in East Chesterton, who may well want to stand in the upcoming elections, has asked me to let him know if I find out when this meeting is being held. He expressed an interest in attending and offered to let me know what’s said. I will be getting in touch with him to draw his attention to this article. I will be interested to find out his views on the fact this is not a public meeting and if he has received an invitation.

At the time of the North Area Committee I did not know the details of the meeting (hence my question); they have since been leaked to me (FOI would not necessarily have obtained them from the County Council in time):

Wednesday 10th March 2010, 18:30 - 20:00, St Andrew’s Hall, Chesterton

Officer Brian Stinton of Cambridgeshire County Council’s highways department is to lead the private meeting. When I cycled down Church Street in Chesterton on the 10th of February 2010 I by chance took a photograph which happened to record Cllrs Kerr and Blair walking down Church Street along with Mr Stinton. I have used the image to illustrate this article.

At the North Area committee there was a very brief discussion about the other end of the cycle way near Kings Hedges Road. Cllr Blair there gave an assurance that a new path from the Meadows Community Centre car park onto Arbury road was to be built. Cllr Ward said he wished someone would tell him what the County Council’s plans were in relation to that part of the route (which is in his ward). Cllr Ward often makes rather short and cryptic contributions to council meetings; I think he may have been suggesting that he too wants an answer to the question I asked relating to how the consultations will take place. As I understand it Cllr Ward, who is my local councillor, hasn’t been invited to the private meeting either; had he been aware of it at the time of the North Area committee he might have been able to ensure I got a fuller answer to my question.

See Also

• Vie Residents Highlight Poor Planning - Contains a section on the Vie S.106 funding intended for highways improvements.
• Comment containing my report on the section of the Transport AJC which discussed the Cycle Route

Councillors approved police proposals to confiscate vehicles, like the one pictured, which swerve to avoid the Fen Road speed cushions.

Drivers in North Cambridge who drive between, rather than over, speed cushions are to face confiscation of their vehicles under a new police priority approved by Liberal Democrat county and city councillors at the North Area committee on the 4th of March 2010. Repeat offenders could even see their cars crushed by the police.

The police are proposing to use legislation which has previously been applied in the city mainly to deal with those using mini-motos and motorbikes in an anti-social manner to clamp down on drivers swerving around traffic calming features. The law to be invoked is Section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2002 which gives the police power to deal with a vehicle which is being driven carelessly and which “is causing, or is likely to cause, alarm, distress or annoyance to members of the public”. Those dealt with under this provision are warned on the first occurrence and face seizure of their vehicle on the second.

A major problem with this law is that it gives excessive powers to individual police officers and PCSOs; it doesn’t allow those faced with action under it the opportunity to go in front of a court and argue their case. The use of these powers appears to be an attempt by the police to deal with a criminal act (careless driving) in a non-criminal manner; presumably to avoid pesky court cases where the police would be required to provide evidence and defend their actions. I am astonished and appalled that the Liberal Democrats have approved the police use of yet another draconian and inappropriate police tactic in the city (Earlier this year they renewed dispersal powers). I think those voting Liberal Democrat expect Liberal Democrat councillors to stand up for basic principles of law such as the right to a fair trial, something which I and others who have looked at the implications of the Section 59 powers conclude are denied to those the police use these “S.59″ powers against.

Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate Julian Huppert is standing on a platform of defending civil liberties and at a recent hustings event he said : “I’ve had a bit more involvement in trying to direct it [Cambridge] since we in the Liberal Democrats took control of the City Council”. I cannot see how he can square both his support for civil liberties and his proud association with the Liberal Democrat City Council.

Elsewhere in the country it has been reported that the police are using “Section 59″ powers against speeding drivers; presumably where they don’t have enough evidence to making a speeding charge stick in front of the magistrates. Drivers are understandably furious when they find out that our MPs have given the police the power to issue summary justice in this manner without reference to the courts. I think our legislators need to be a lot more careful that they don’t give excessive powers, without due safeguards, to the police (or others) when they enact new laws.

Drivers who swerve into the cycle lane pose a danger to cyclists.

I drive a car which doesn’t deal with speed bumps very well; where it is safe to do so I always try and avoid them or drive over them in such a way as to minimise the damage they are doing to my car. Now due to the action of the car-hating Liberal Democrats in the city I face the risk of having by car taken away from me, summarily, based on a PCSO’s interpretation of my actions. I am furious, both with the Labour MPs who pushed this draconian and far too widely drafted law through Parliament and with my local Liberal Democrat councillors who have endorsed the police expanding their application of this provision, and avoiding the courts as they do so. When the law was brought in The Labour Government’s Home office spokesperson in the Lords said:

we should trust the police to exercise their discretion operationally as to when seizing a vehicle would be appropriate.

While I want to see well trained, high quality, front line real police officers given the tools and powers they need to do their job; I do not think that “trusting them” ought be the only safeguard in place to prevent abuse of police powers. I question if PCSOs are appropriately trained to deal with offences like careless driving, and do not think that’s what they should be used for, I think money spent on PCSOs would be better spent on PCs.

I have been repeatedly asking the police why they operate a two tier system with respect to policing our roads, with youths being dealt with under anti-social behaviour legislation rather than being charged with offences under the Road Traffic Acts. What we are seeing here is creep of the Anti-Social behaviour laws to apply them in ever increasing circumstances. I am very uncomfortable with many aspects of new Labour’s antisocial behaviour laws, and think their application ought be more limited and not expanded.

I think the police in North Cambridge were trying it on; they were pushing our councillors to see what they can get away with. It was noted that Sgt. Wragg, who presented the police proposals, was grinning from ear to ear when councillors approved the priority without raising any objection to his proposals to use S.59 powers against those swerving to avoid speed humps.

Fen Road

Councillors’ approval of the new use of the police powers came as part of priority aimed at dealing with problems related to driving in Fen Road, Chesterton. This is one of a few areas in the city where I have feel I’ve almost got killed while cycling on more than one occasion. There is a real problem, part of which is cars, vans buses and lorries swerving into the cycle lane as they avoid the speed bumps.

For years now members of the public, and councillors, have been aware the speed cushions have been built badly. Both Cllr Blair, a Liberal Democrat who represents East Chesterton, and Mr Bond, the spokesperson for the Old Chesterton Residents Association have admitted to driving through the middle of the speed bumps on the road themselves. It is an ironic aspect of these events that councillors have asked police to tackle behaviour that they themselves have admitted to at a council meeting.

Cllr Blair was the only East Chesterton councillor to turn up to the North Area Committee on the 4th of March (Liddle and Kerr were absent). I think a lot of the area’s problems are directly due to the election of councillors who perform poorly. Other East Chesterton councillors rarely turn up and rarely speak and while Cllr Blair is regularly present, and talks a lot; I more often than not am left unimpressed by her contributions. On the 4th of March, as well as supporting the police action, she was calling for the contractors who had installed the speed cushions to be required replace them without further charge to the public purse. This was despite the fact that the contractor was not technically at fault had been established in November 2008 - a fact Cllr Blair’s Liberal Democrat colleagues had to remind her of yet again.

Cllr Rupert Moss-Eccardt suggested making a bid for some “Cambridgeshire Together” activity on the street which would bring together various different agencies. He reported this was a very expensive scheme which the County Council were running and he thought the Fen Road area could benefit from its attention.

Cllr Blair reported to the meeting the fact she had been asked by local residents to organise a meeting to discuss the problems; she said she would be in favour of a multi-agency approach.

A police speed survey found an average speed of only 20mph on the road. This doesn’t chime with residents’ (or my own) perceptions. Full details of the survey have still not been released, so it may be the speed detection equipment was located on areas of the road where drivers are slowing for hazards such as parked cars and the level crossing.

From my own observations many vehicles using this road, which is the only access to the travellers’ site, don’t appear roadworthy, they often look over-loaded, occasionally dangerously so. It’s the one part of Cambridge where one can reasonably regularly see people driving even with flat tyres. My impression is there is a particularly high incidence of careless and reckless driving on this road. I don’t think the police ought allow lawless areas of the city to emerge and that’s a key part of what needs to be tackled here. It is really important that everyone is treated fairly and equally by the law and the police; we must not allow one law for some and another for others; which is what the anti-social behaviour laws have resulted in.

Many cyclists, particularly students and rowing coaches, use the pavement in this area.

I think some of the £62,000 councillors used to resurface the parking area could more usefully have been applied to improving the cycle lanes on the adjacent road. When the proposals for that area were under discussion I wrote to Cllr Liddle, the lead councillor, saying: “The opportunity to integrate the cycle paths in this area with the adjacent cycle paths on the road/pavement is being missed.”

See also

• A forum post containing an example of the kind of letter drivers in the North of Cambridge may expect to get from the city’s PCSOs; the example is from Kent.
• FOI request about the placement of the speed cushions on Fen Road - they have been installed “as specified” however the specification did not detail the exact location of each cushion.
• Police Claim 20mph Average Speed on Water Street / Fen Road in Chesterton

Penny Ferry (June 2008) and Missed Opportunity at the Penny Ferry Car-Park

Did Councillors Gag the Local Paper?

Update to article 17.00 5 March 2010
The Cambridge News published a video of the 2009 Strawberry Fair which had been presented by the police to a council licensing committee meeting on the 1st of March. Councillors objected to the publication of the video saying that it should not be made available unless it is presented, as it was at the licensing committee, alongside councillors’ questions regarding its bias. At the time of writing the video is no longer available on the Cambridge News website. I am concerned our local councillors have gagged our local paper.

I think it is right that the video ought remain accessible to the public. I have therefore uploaded a copy to “Liveleak” and am making it available via this article.

Discussing the Video at the North Area Committee

Original Article Continues:
During the Open Forum section of the North Area Committee on Thursday the 4th of March a member of the public asked the police if they thought they’d done the right thing by releasing the video of Strawberry Fair which they had produced to show the City Council licensing committee. At the licensing hearing the police used their video to support their argument that the council ought not licence Strawberry Fair this year. However after hearing a variety of differing views councillors decided to approve the application. Sergeant Wragg, who was speaking on behalf of the police at the North Area Committee, initially just ignored the question but when I pressed him to address it he handed over to Inspector Kerridge for him to respond. The inspector told the meeting he was aware councillors and others had raised concerns about the fact the police video had been released to the Cambridge News. Inspector Kerridge said he was unable to make any comment and suggested those with views on the release ought address them to the officer responsible for the video, he told the meeting this officer was: “Divisional Commander Mr Needle at Parkside Police Station”.

I found the orange epauletted intelligence gathering police an oppressive presence at the 2009 Strawberry Fair

The Leader of the Council, Ian Nimmo-Smith, spoke to say there was: “an issue of what happened with respect to the release of the DVD which raised some public concerns in relation to data protection and child protection”. Cllr Nimmo-Smith stated his view that presentation of the video as part of a package of evidence presented to a regulatory committee was very different to publishing it in a very public, “Youtube like”, fashion on the Cambridge News website. The council leader told the committee that legal advice he has received states that the use of the video is important and using it in the committee proceedings “did not amount to publication” and “did not validate any other public use”. While the Cambridge News have said the police force released the footage to them Cllr Nimmo-Smith was not clear on this point, he appeared to me to suggest the possibility a council officer had released it. If the police have released it I can’t really imagine why the council would be taking legal advice.

Cllr Mike Pitt, one of Ian Nimmo-Smith’s Liberal Democrat party colleagues, attempted to pin his leader down as to what he meant; but no further clarification of the council leader’s position was forthcoming. Cllr Nimmo-Smith argued that when the video was presented at the licensing committee councillors had been able to question its content and the way it had been edited; Nimmo-Smith claimed that outside of that context, making the video available is inappropriate.

Cllr Rupert Moss-Eccardt, a Liberal Democrat who represents Arbury on the County Council, said that the legal principle behind the difference between the online publication and presentation to the committee had its roots in the 1848 Marriage Act, he said that if you phone the registrar and ask when someone is getting married they won’t tell you but let you know you can visit the registry office and read it on a notice board. Cllr Moss-Eccardt said that in his view: “Whoever gave the DVD to the Evening News has broken the law”. By “the law” I presume he means the Data Protection Act rather than the Marriage Act.

Liberal Democrat County Councillor Kevin Wilkins, the only elected representative from Cambridge who sits on the Police Authority and in that role oversees Cambridgeshire Police, is a member of the North Area Committee but was absent from the meeting.

My View on the Video Release

Child Protection

These three kids looked as if they were having fun at the fair.

The public questioner at the North Area committee framed her question citing “pedophiles” and the fact children featured in the video. I think this is utterly ridiculous. Many people will have photographs and video of the fair which include children; it’s an event which attracts people of all ages. The apparent purpose of the police showing children in their video is to show the proximity of children to drug taking. I don’t think that “child protection” is a particularly relevant point. Anyone can take photographs and videos in public places; any footage of Strawberry Fair early in the day will most probably include children.

Openness and Transparency in Council Decisions

As the video has been part of a formal submission by the police to councillors it is absolutely right that it has been released into the public domain. I would like to see all such materials tabled at meetings, be they videos, powerpoint presentations, photographs or papers published along with the meeting’s minutes, I’ve had some success in persuading the city council to be more open with such documents. I think the Cambridge News ought be congratulated on bringing what was presented in the council’s licensing committee out to the public. Councillors don’t make getting information out of their meetings easy, they don’t allow recording (sound or video) of their meetings and appear very reluctant to make it easy to access what they do. I find it astonishing and indefensible that council doesn’t issue decision notices (or press releases announcing decisions) even when matters are of significant public interest such as the decision on the Strawberry Fair licence. Without members of the press and public at these meetings (hampered as they are in their efforts by councillors) the public wouldn’t know what their representatives were up to.

The councillors’ argument that the video should not have been released out of context is nonsense; it is clearly a police video, and to be fair to the police does so some extent portray both positive and negative aspects of the event. Residents of Cambridge don’t need councillor’s commentary to warn them that a video complied by the police might have been edited to, overall, show a particular point of view.

I am surprised that councillors did not focus on video elements which appear to me to possibly be from City Council CCTV on the common; the council policy is, quite rightly in my view, to tightly restrict how images taken by its CCTV system are used. One lamp post mounted camera is now permanently mounted on Midsummer Common, what happens to footage from that camera is something councillors have direct control over. If the police have published video from city council cameras, in breech of an agreement with the council, then that’s something which does warrant following up by councillors. If their complaint was about the police releasing those elements to the press then I would understand their point, but this was not said by the council leader at the North Area Committee. I suspect that the police were quite open about the fact they were videoing people; the council’s CCTV on the common however is poorly signed and hidden up a pole and doesn’t look like a CCTV camera; releasing photos from that does appear wrong to me. That’s where I think there is a reasonable argument - for saying the police were wrong to use footage in the way they have - but once they’ve presented it, in public, to councillors it is right to make it widely available.

My Views on Strawberry Fair

A girl with a chicken’s head at the 2009 Strawberry Fair.

I think illegal drug dealing is always unacceptable; and it is wrong that it appears that for the day of the Strawberry Fair drug dealing takes place on and around the fair site in a blatant and open fashion and isn’t effectively tackled by the police. I hope that all those shown in the video dealing or using drugs were dealt with by the police, but I’ve not seen much evidence of that happening myself when I’ve been at the event, though the 2009 fair appeared to me to have less open drug use and dealing than in 2008. We shouldn’t allow the city to become lawless for a day.

I think there has been a problem with oppressive and inappropriate policing of Strawberry Fair, though in 2009 it was much better than 2008. I have felt the presence of of the police helicopter overhead all day and the orange epauletted intelligence gathering team police officers wielding video cameras to be overbearing and damaging to the atmosphere, yet ineffective.

Another aspect of the police relationship to the Strawberry Fair which watching is charges the police make to organisers of events for policing them. I don’t think it is appropriate to treat a free, open event like Strawberry Fair as football matches are; this is another route through which the police could seek to make it difficult for the fair to go ahead.

In terms of the event as a whole, there were massive improvements last year, what was done then needs to be repeated and improved upon year on year until the negative impacts on the city and local residents are genuinely minimised.

I hope the police’s caution (and I hope it is caution and not outright opposition) at this stage is aimed at ensuring that the council, organisers and others work with them to make sure the event is held peacefully and without serious incident this year. This is something which isn’t down to the police alone; if they feel they need to use the council’s licensing process to make sure the necessary co-operation is in place that’s not a bad thing.

I think we need better, more appropriate and less oppressive policing of the fair. I’d suggest getting rid of the intelligence collecting teams with video cameras, not keeping the helicopter overhead all day (unless there’s a specific reason it’s needed) and having well briefed, preferably local, police patrolling on the site and well into the surrounding areas - including the route between the station and the common - well into the evening.

The underlying nature of the event needs to keep changing for the better - I think it would be fantastic if the council, residents, organisers, schools, local organisations - anyone who’s interested could get together and help steer the event back towards a local community focus.

Midsummer Fair

I find the Midsummer Fair has a much more negative effect on the city, and Midsummer Common, than Strawberry Fair. From my point of view as someone who regularly walks and cycles across the common I have felt much more threatened while the Midsummer Fair is on than I have done when walking through the Strawberry Fair site - which I’ve done at all times of the day. With respect to the Midsummer Fair for the last two years before the event I have calling for the increase in police presence to coincide with when people start arriving on site.

See Also

• The police video on the Cambridge News website
• My photo-illustated article on the 2009 Strawberry Fair
• My article on the conditions the council imposed on the 2009 Strawberry Fair
• Mill Road Tesco Licensing Application - I was refused access to police submissions to the hearing at Cambridge City Council; Cllr McGovern explained this was on the grounds of “Data Protection”, a spurious reason in my view.
• FOI request: Strawberry Fair Police Meeting - February 2009.

Heavily Redacted Invoice for David Howarth’s Press Officer

Ex. Liberal Democrat councillor John Hipkin, who is now an independent city councillor for Castle Ward, today wrote to recipients of his regular newsletter to issue an apology for an article in which he drew attention to some of Cambridge MP David Howarth’s expenses claims. Cllr Hipkin notes that he has agreed to meet Mr Howarth’s legal costs; indicating Cambridge’s MP has engaged lawyers, presumably threatening defamation action, in response to Cllr Hipkin’s article.

The expenses claims which attention was drawn to involve invoices for a “Press Officer”.

The Facts

Page 21 of the House of Commons “Green Book” describes what MPs’ incidental expenses allowance can, and can’t, be spent on. It states:

Expenditure not allowable:
* Advice for individual Members on self promotion, or PR for individuals or political parties.

The staffing allowance, out of which Mr Howarth was paying for his press officer, though has sightly different rules. Those employed using it must be:

“employed to meet a genuine need in supporting you, the Member, in performing your Parliamentary duties”.

The staffing allowance cannot be used to pay for:

Staff who are employed on party political duties or non-Parliamentary duties

It appears that an MP can, if he judges it reasonable, engage a member of staff as a “Press Officer” entirely legitimately from their staffing allowance as long as they’re not employed on party political duties. If the “Press Officer” service was “bought-in” my reading of the rules is that the same rules for the incidental costs allowance then apply and advice for individual members on self promotion, or PR for individuals or political parties is an explicitly disallowed use for the funds.

Cambridge MP David Howarth’s staffing claims include payments to “Effective Communication Strategies” (which is not a company registered with companies house) for “work as a Press Officer for David Howarth MP”.

The invoice is so heavily redacted that we cannot see the details of how Mr Howarth has been spending our money.

My View

People want to hear about what their MP is up to; and we allow MPs to use public money to employ staff to help them fulfil their role. It is pretty clear that administrators to help deal with correspondence and researchers can properly be paid by MPs out of public money and Mr Howarth appears to have judged a “Press Officer” as being legitimate too.

I think Mr Howarth obviously generally provides excellent value for money; he doesn’t have an expensive correspondence management system like some MPs; he appears to use the free offering from GMail for example. I do wonder what a Press Officer would do for an MP though as I would have thought an MP’s actions would speak for themselves.

I find the most useful routes for finding out what my MP is up to are not primarily paid for by public money: The Cambridge News, TheyWorkForYou and The Public Whip.

I think that rather than hiring lawyers Mr Howarth could have simply asked Cllr Hipkin to pass on an explanation for his actions to his readers. As it is avid readers of Cllr Hipkin’s newsletter, like me, have received Mr Hipkin’s apology but no explanation. Mr Howarth’s actions appear from my perspective to have been heavy handed and not in the interests of informing the electorate about what has gone on. I think it is reasonable to ask questions about how MPs are spending public money and to seek assurances from them if the published information does not make the position completely clear.

See Also

• Conservative Richard Normington wrote about Mr Howarth’s engagement of a Press Officer in November 2009.

As it appears that Mr Howarth considers Cllr Hipkin’s article defamatory I cannot republish it here without almost certainly receiving a take-down request and request to apologise (along with a lawyer’s bill) myself. Cllr Hipkin’s newsletter is distributed primarily by email and isn’t made available online.

It used to be only conference attendees and guests of college members who could stay in Cambridge’s colleges when visiting the city; the ability to book guest rooms was a significant perk of being a Cambridge academic. A new service, co-ordinated by “Conference Cambridge”, has been launched offering college rooms to the general public for bed and breakfast starting from Easter this year.

With Corpus Christi, Clare, and St Catherine’s Colleges involved in the scheme from its launch the historic central colleges appear to be involved as much as the more modern ones. Particularly given the access to gyms, tennis and squash courts, broadband internet and other college facilities, the prices, which seem to start at around £60 per night, appear competitive.

Cambridge University and its colleges have historically used their accommodation very inefficiently with full occupancy only for a week or so in early October and huge numbers of empty rooms sitting idle for the rest of the year. There has been pressure, particularly from graduate students, for colleges to make unused rooms in a particular available to those working in the wider university. While I think that using the rooms in a manner related to the colleges’ primary purpose should come first there is clearly a lot of scope particularly with respect undergraduate rooms in holiday periods, and rooms unsuitable for living in long-term, for renting rooms out to the public. Perhaps having colleges working closely in relation to conferences and now the B&B service will result in more co-ordination in core offerings such as student accommodation. Greater occupancy of rooms might well enable colleges to keep rent prices down for students; helping to tackle the rising costs of university education.

Cambridge students have incredibly short terms and spend less than half of each year in the city. I hope this move doesn’t increase the pressure on colleges to prevent their students staying in college just outside of term - a privilege which is already sometimes limited to top musicians and sports people. Such pressure may deny many a well-earned, more relaxed, few days of university experience without the pressures of lectures, supervisions or exams.

Universities elsewhere, including London and Oxford, have been offering their rooms to tourists for quite some time now. Cambridge University is uncharacteristically not too far behind the times with this latest commercial offering. With Cambridge’s special funding for upkeep of its historic buildings under threat more inventive ways of raising money may well be needed. It is a fantastically egalitarian move by the traditionally aloof colleges to now allow anyone who pays to be able to stay the night in some of the city’s most fabulous surroundings. There’s potential for an economic boost to the city both the and country’s tourism sector as a result of colleges opening as B&Bs.

At three minutes to midnight on Thursday, Cambridge City Council got round to discussing the impact of proposed cuts to university funding on Cambridge. By the time the item, towards the end of their full council agenda, was reached many Liberal Democrat councillors had gone home and even the mayor, who was chairing the meeting when it started six hours earlier, had disappeared.

Background

One of the clearest summaries of the proposed £950m higher education cuts is Lord Mandelson’s 14th January 2010 article in the Guardian (his letter to HEFCE provides more detail of Government strategy in certain areas). Also Cambridge University stands to lose £4.2m as a result of the Government scrapping its specific funding for universities’ historic buildings and there is currently an ongoing review, due to report in March, on university museum funding.

Public Statement - Conservative Nick Hillman

At the beginning of the full council meeting Conservative Parliamentary Candidate Nick Hillman used the opportunity for members of the public to address the council. He was aware that a council motion to be debated later during the meeting called on the Parliamentary candidates for Cambridge to defend the Cambridge economy from the risks which Liberal Democrats Bick and Nimmo-Smith, who were proposing the motion, said would arise from the cuts. Mr Hillman came to the meeting to tell councillors in person that he would support them in seeking to protect the interests of the city and its universities. He said he wanted to associate himself with the motion, and said it was in his opinion “regrettable that the two universities in Cambridge were being asked to take the biggest share of the cut”. He said Cambridge was to be the worst affected city, per head of population, due to anticipated cuts in funding for university museums and university’s historical buildings, he noted both UEA and Cambridge University had historic buildings. Mr Hillman supported the idea of the council writing to the government and said he hoped the government would take on board what was being said.

The Leader of the Council, Ian Nimmo-Smith, responded to “broadly welcome” Mr Hillman’s support but said he “noted with regret the partisan tone”. I didn’t spot anything partisan in Mr Hillman’s contribution.

Debating the Motion

Having spoken shortly after six in the evening commendably Mr Hillman, and a couple of his Conservative Party colleagues, were still in the public gallery when the motion was considered at just before midnight. Often when public questions relate to agenda items the items are brought forward and taken early on in the meeting so members of the public don’t have to sit though hours of debate to wait to see what happens when the matter they spoke on is deliberated. This is at the discretion of the chair though and appears to vary depending on who the public speaker is.

The Liberal Democrat motion stated:

Cuts in Higher Education Funding

The Council

• recognises that the higher education sector in Cambridge is a major engine of the local economy, and a key gateway that offers access and opportunity to be part of the educated, qualified and skilled workforce on which local economic development is critically dependent.
• is apprehensive at the prospect of an estimated £2.5b of cuts in funding for universities nationally over the next three years.
• believes that the government’s planned financial retrenchment will have a serious impact not only on jobs in the city’s universities but also on the wider economy.

The Council therefore instructs the Leader and Chief Executive to write

• to relevant government ministers asking them to think again about their proposed cuts in higher education funding,
• to the Greater Cambridge Partnership asking them to monitor the impact of any higher education cuts on the sub-regional economy.
• to local MPs and prospective parliamentary candidates urging them to commit to defend the Cambridge economy, and with it the wider national interest, from these risks.

Cllr Bick introduced the motion saying that 16,000 people in Cambridge, amounting to 18% of the workforce, were employed by the city’s universities. He said they were to Cambridge what Longbridge is to Birmingham and Vauxhall is to Luton. He said 65,000 jobs in the region depend on money spent by the universities and that they were also key to the “Cambridge Cluster”.

He explained that his calculation of £2.5bn had been made by taking account of government promises to ringfence funding for the NHS and schools.

Cllr Bick said he had concerns relating to “excellence and quality”, he said higher education was one of the few areas left where they country still punches above its weight, and does so on a shoestring. He said Cambridge’s endowment is only 20% that of Harvard and said the USA, France, Sweden and Finland spent more as a proportion of GDP on higher education. He said it would be: “a shame to undermine a field where we do excel”.

Cllr Bick claimed that “access” would be damaged by the reduction in funding; pointing to a 6,000 place reduction in the number of university places this year compared to last.

Cllr Bick spoke about the East / West balance of power; he said we need to win our bread in the world. He said that the cuts threatened more scientists leaving the UK and moving to the USA or Singapore.

Leader of the Labour opposition, Lewis Herbert, responded. Cllr Herbert said he agreed with a large amount of what was in the motion, but said that just as Liberal Democrat Ian Nimmo-Smith had accused Nick Hillman of making a partisan statement, he thought that the Liberal Democrats’ motion had a partisan tone. Cllr Herbert claimed the motion implied: “Labour people in this town don’t care about higher education”.

Cllr Herbert, apparently speaking on behalf of the Labour party and the Labour Government (though wearing a pink jumper rather than his more typical red) said that since 1997 the current government has made higher education one of its top priorities. He said that research funding and student numbers had both risen dramatically in the last decade. He accused the Liberal Democrats of trying to use the motion to attack the government. Cllr Herbert said that next year the student intake at ARU would be back to 2008 levels, and said this was “no cataclysm”.

Cllr Herbert also complained that the motion didn’t require the council to actually really do anything beyond writing letters. A Labour amendment proposed the city council expanding its “Draft Economic Development Statement” to include a strategy on increasing the contribution of higher education to the Cambridge economy.

The full amendment reads:

“Delete all after first bullet point and add:

• is committed to retaining the benefits of record current Government investment in higher education in expanding student numbers, in increasing research from £1.3bn to £4bn, and in financing major new higher education building programmes in Cambridge and nationally.
• supports the Government aim of 50% of school leavers attending University and taking degree level courses.

The council therefore instructs the Leader and Chief Executive to write to government ministers asking them to give clear priority to higher education in future national financial reviews.

and also commits the Council to action with the county and Greater Cambridge Partnership, including asking the Executive Councillor for Climate Change and Growth to expand the Council’s Draft Economic Development Statement to include a strategy on increasing the contribution of higher education to the Cambridge economy including to expand Cambridge high tech research and local engineering industries and employment.

Cllr Herbert took the opportunity to attack the Liberal Democrat MP David Howarth; he said that while a council member Howarth had said: “Companies like Marshall don’t need a CB postcode”. Cllr Herbert said Cambridge does need the high quality engineering and other jobs Marshall provides.

Taking a second swipe at the Liberal Democrats Cllr Herbert said: “If things are so bad in universities - why is David Howarth standing down from Parliament to go back into one?”

Cllr Herbert pointed to signs the University of Cambridge was doing all-right for itsself, citing new building projects and drawing attention to fact a £940m endowment had been raised was reported in that day’s paper and the university was on track to reach £1bn two years a head of its target.

Labour’s Cllr Blencowe spoke to second the amendment; he focused primarily on students who would be affected by a drop in the numbers of university places.

Liberal Democrat Leader Ian Nimmo-Smith responded, bizarrely summarising the Labour speeches as “It’s none of our business”, “we’re fine” and “we don’t need it”. Cllr Herbert suggested Cllr Nimmo-Smith ought respond to the amendment as it was written; what was being proposed didn’t say those things.

Only Labour members supported their amendment when it was put to the vote, which was not surprising as it was a partisan pro-governemnt amendment. Conservative Cllr Howell joined the Liberal Democrats in voting against it which prompted jeers from the Liberal Democrat benches, Cllr Howell explained his vote with the words: “terrible amendment”. Cllr Cantrill turned to the public gallery to say: “I hope Mr Taylor’s got that”. I did; Cllr Cantrill knows that my view is that party politics doesn’t add any value at all to Local Government in Cambridge, but if he was trying to make sure the opinion that Labour had been particularly terrible was recorded he’s missing the fact that his own party were massively exaggerating the position to make out, presumably for electoral purposes, that the current government position in this area is much worse than it actually is. I’m not a supporter of the current government, but the election ought be fought on the facts.

I am surprised that Cllr Herbert and the Labour party didn’t seek to amend the motion to one which would have gained unanimous support within the council as that would I expect provide a much stronger signal to central government that the people of Cambridge through their elected representatives really care about the future funding of the universities in the city; as it is what we’ve got is an exaggerated and scaremongering stance from the Liberal Democrats designed for electioneering which was voted for only by the handful of Lib Dems who were still prepared to sit in the chamber and be back bench lobby fodder at half past midnight; along with Green Cllr Margaret Wright.

Interests

A very large number of councillors, mainly Liberal Democrats, declared an interest as either they or their partners work for a university. The council leader “occasionally gets paid for supervisions”, which makes it sound as if he does more than he gets the money for; Sian Reid declared that she works for the Open University (as an associate lecturer in the business school according to her entry in the register of interests). Cllr Rosenstiel announced he was “an MA of Trinity College” and after a pause for affect he added “Cambridge”. Labour members heckled asking what that had to do with anything; I suspect Cllr Rosensteil declared an interest as a result of Cambridge University’s opinion that all those who’ve ever matriculated remain “members” for life.

My View of the Lib Dem Position

I think it is absolutely absurd to compare the possible effects of government cuts to universities in Cambridge with the closures of car manufacturing plants elsewhere in the country. Cambridge Liberal Democrats are infamous for their ludicrous scaremongering, a recent example being Belinda Brooks-Gordon’s campaign against a hypermarket, which wasn’t really being considered, on the North West Cambridge site.

If Cllr Bick really thinks there’s a risk of 18% of the Cambridge workforce finding themselves out of work he’s complete barmy. He’s not completely barmy, but he is a Liberal Democrat, and this is how they campaign.

Quite where Cllr Bick gets his 16,000 staff figure from I don’t know. Anglia Ruskin University has 1,700 staff spread across its two main sites of Cambridge and Chelmsford and the University of Cambridge has about 9,000 staff.

I believe his “18% of the Cambridge workforce” isn’t far wrong though for Cambridge City itsself as the last census showed about 46,000 or 46% of people in Cambridge were employed, 20% of them in Education.

Regardless of the figures the changes proposed to higher education funding are not going to result in universities closing down. There are certainly dramatic changes in higher education funding proposed, but there is nothing which threatens the existence of Cambridge’s universities.

My View on Higher Education Funding

The most recent statistics show 49.8 per cent of sixteen year olds obtained 5 or more GCSEs at grade A*-C. The current Labour government position of seeking to have 50% of school leavers going to university means that they want to see all those who get 5 A-C grade GCSEs or better going to university and taking degrees. I think this is nonsense, and results in people going to university who aren’t best placed to benefit from it and inevitably results in the lowering of standards on degree courses. Expansion in the higher education sector has seen a huge gulf in quality emerge between the best and worst degree courses in the country. Students have not benefited, the country hasn’t benefited, and I’m concerned about the risk of low quality offerings reducing the long term viability of our national higher education “export” business.

I would support the Labour party aim of 50% of school leavers attending university, in fact I’d aim even higher, but only once education at earlier levels has been improved to the point where such a large fraction school leavers are ready to go on to higher education; that isn’t the case at the moment. The number of people leaving UK schools without even decent GCSE grades is awful. Education at early years is where the greatest impact can be had and where efforts need to be focused.

I think at the heart of restructuring higher education funding needs to be a focus on quality, and not social engineering, expanding “participation” and encouraging young people to take out debts to contribute to payments for courses of dubious value which the taxpayers are also putting money towards. Spreading money too thinly is something the current Labour Government has done both in terms of teaching and research. I think Cambridge needs to send a representative to Parliament to argue for investment in excellence, investment in quality, investment in areas which will strengthen the future position of the country’s economy. Departments within all of Cambridge’s universities would do very well out of a government funding scheme for higher education which concentrated resources on the best performing institutions; I think such an approach would also be right for the country. There is no point propping up a huge, but mediocre, higher education sector we need to focus on excellence; and that doesn’t mean paring things down to the “top universities”, excellent researchers in whatever institutions they’re based ought be eligible for research funding and it ought be distributed on the basis of merit. I would disconnect the awarding of research grants for individual projects from institutions. I see no reason why applications for research grants should be limited to those already employed at certain levels in institutions as this just focuses research funding on a elite, those with titles and positions rather than those with the innovative ideas and skills.

We are getting Higher Education funding wrong as a country when we see our top research universities including Cambridge, Imperial and the LSE receiving a reduced share of funding, and in the case of those three real terms declines in funding.

I think one key aim of higher education policy ought to be to maintain, and to some extent regain, the UK’s position as a world leader in medical and life science research.

Where the output of research is to be published the publications ought be made freely available via open access journals. It is not good enough just to allow copies on researcher’s own websites (though that is a good thing); if a balance has to be made between propping up an outdated publishing industry which adds little value to the process of communicating scientific results and revolutionising science by freeing up information sharing between scientists we’ve got to go for the latter. I think publishers will reform and survive, adopting a less leech like business model which involves adding value to the process of furthering scientific and technological progress. As well as opening up access to published results, better data sharing (and equipment sharing) needs to be insisted upon as a requirement of public research funding.

I think we need to see a lot more democratic leadership from our elected representatives. Just as we saw in the USA with the moon landings I would like to see aspirational targets for scientific research clearly set out by parliament and government, and in some areas co-ordination and aspiration ought be at a higher and even global level as we’re seeing to some extent with nuclear fusion research.

As in other areas with what we’ve seen with research funding in the last decade is huge increases in the levels of spending but without enough to show for it; I think the spending has been reckless; it has been spending and not investment.

Cambridge has had a number of special funding schemes; college fees make it more expensive to fund graduate researchers here than elsewhere and for a period the separate £65m Cambridge-MIT institute grant poured money into Cambridge University in an indefensible manner. The fact this indefensible “patch” was needed shows the underlying research funding model was wrong, and not in the national interest.

To a large degree many parts of Cambridge University are coasting along, and are not being pushed to ensure they fulfil their potential. I think the college system in Cambridge could add a lot to the experiences of staff and students, but it isn’t working from the perspective of post-doctoral and post-graduate researchers, or even many (most?) academics; the system needs reform to account for the dramatic changes which have occurred in the last decade or two. To ensure that the colleges are never detrimental to research minimum standards for what they provide need to be agreed and sharing of good practice encouraged; their ability to veto degrees ought be limited to cases where students are in debt to their colleges.

I think universities ought be self governing, democratic, institutions. It is a good thing that the proportion of university funding coming from taxpayers is dropping, but there is still significant public money going into them and we need to use that to have an influence, even if it is primarily to ensure the structures are in place to enable staff and students to run their own affairs. The ongoing debate within Cambridge University on staff disciplinary procedures is the kind of thing which could be avoided if as taxpayers we only funded universities with appropriate arrangements in place, we would get better value from institutions which operated in an open manner with fair disciplinary schemes and protections for whistleblowers.

It is very important that we spend, or preferably invest, public money well. We need to insist that students and researchers funded by the UK Taxpayer are treated as well as those funded from other sources. This doesn’t happen at the moment. Research councils shouldn’t just throw money at universities and forget about it, they need to do a lot more to ensure they’re getting value for money; the relationship between universities and research councils in the UK is bizarre given that the research councils ought be holding the public purse strings; at the moment it looks as if the research councils work for the universities and that needs turning on its head. We also need to stop sending money research funds via Europe and back instead of spending them directly; on a related point it makes little sense to lumber universities with poor quality european post-docs on European Union social engineering schemes which are almost as bad as those thought up by the USSR. In research funding as so many other areas the UK funds schemes which UK individuals and UK institutions get relatively little out of. Back to the general subject of spending public money well in universities as in other areas of the public sector there are large numbers of non-jobs within universities, the holders of many of which simply frustrate the aims of the institution.

I find it particularly galling that “technology transfer”, commercialising the outputs of research at universities, is something which has been tackled very poorly in the UK. Efforts have resulted in a lot of non-job creation - and not much beyond that. Nationwide we should have a clearer position on exploiting the output of research. Too often academics set up companies to essentially allow them to tick a box on a research grant application giving evidence of a route to exploitation. We need to ensure universities’ policies on ownership, and exploitation, of intellectual property for both staff and students are simple, clear and fair; in Cambridge the underlying policy is generally clear though there are areas where it needs to be improved, for example clarifying that the university has no claim at all on collaborations between two or more students outside of research groups and where the university doesn’t have any input and detailing what fraction of the shares in a new company the university has a right to when commercialisation is initially by transferring the intellectual property to a newly formed company.

Organisations like Cambridge Enterprise need to be so good that researchers don’t want to avoid them, but actively want to see them involved in commercialising the outputs of their research. The existence of companies like IP Group PLC shows that there can be success outside of university run commercialisation, but it is a terrible indictment on what’s being done within universities that schemes exist which involve half the university share of the profits (ie. half the public share which could be going towards abolishing tuition fees and reduce taxpayer funding of universities) going to IP Group shareholders. Academics need to be given more options, more choices so they can find the best source of support; there need to be national arrangements, across the university sector perhaps also involving central government or the research councils aimed at keeping the benefits in, and strengthening, public technology exploitation organisations.

Having already explained how I’d like to see it paid for, I should make clear that I am completely opposed to tuition fees for UK students doing their first degrees. A key fees related factor for another university with a presence in Cambridge, the Open University, is cuts which have already happened to funding for those taking university courses aiming for equivalent or lower level than a qualification they already hold; I generally support that policy but think that the exemptions to it ought be flexibly expanded in the national interest (currently the exemptions are teacher training and an MA in Conservation at Camberwell) other professional development focused courses in areas where individuals and employers would be unlikely to be in a position to fund the courses (eg. in the cultural and creative fields) ought be considered for exemptions.

While one aspect UK higher education is now an “export business” that’s a rather disingenuous, albeit useful, description. Students moving between counties is immensely valuable socially in terms of improving understanding of other countries, cultures and ways of running societies. I think that while exporting higher education we are also able to “export democracy”; bringing people from places like China to the UK, and particularly to institutions with strong democratic students’ unions, will have economic benefits but in the longer term. Have two countries with leaders educated in UK universities ever gone to war?

Shorter degrees are one element of the proposed cuts to the higher education budgets. I think this is a good idea as long as standards can be maintained and has the potential to improve the accessibility of university education though reducing living costs and lost earnings. I am concerned that the proposals may result in a reduction of quality of degrees, but don’t think that is a necessary effect of enabling them degrees to be completed in a shorter period.

Lastly I’m going to mention students’ unions; which I think have a huge role to play in keeping standards high, and ensuring students get good value for what they, and taxpayers, invest in their education.

Links to Related Content:

• Protest Against Increasing University Top-Up Fees - Article contains more detail of by views on tuition fees, and views of the party candidates.
• Comment containing more of views on tuition fees and students unions.
• Article containing my suggestions relating to governance of the University of Cambridge.
• Research Funded by the UK Taxpayer Should be Published in Open Access Journals (comments also discuss importance of data sharing).
• Review: The History of Imperial College London - my, criticised, attempt to précis some of the more interesting elements of a rather hefty book.