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Cllrs Ditch Planning Rulebook To Let Applicant Maximise Rental Profits to Pay for Care
1 Greystoke Road, Cambridge On Monday the 5th of March 2012 I observed City Councillors on Cambridge’s South Area committee consider a planning application to divide a property into two, enabling each part to be let separately. This was an interesting case because almost all councillors ditched normal planning practice and made a decision on […]
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Liberal Democrat Councillors Approve Garden Grabbing in Cherry Hinton
Liberal Democrat councillors have approved building a new bungalow on the site of this tree in a Cambridge back garden At a national level the coalition’s governing document, the programme for Government, states an intent to give “councils new powers to stop ‘garden grabbing’”. Localism is still at the core of the way planning decisions […]
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City Council Propose Buying 11 and 12 Year Olds Local Secrets Discount Cards
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 […]
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Policing Addenbrooke’s Hospital – April 2009
I attended Cambridge City Council’s South Area Committee on the 2nd of April 2009. I used the opportunity to raise some questions about policing the Addenbrooke’s hospital campus. I told the meeting what the Chief Constable had said during the December 2008 meeting of the Police Authority which I observed: “At Addenbrooks’ – there is […]
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Cambridge City Council – Full Council July 2011
Cambridge Guildhall (Library Image: These Doors Were Open for Thursday’s Meeting) I observed, and took part in, a meeting of Cambridge City Council’s full council on Thursday the 21st of July 2011. Preliminaries The front doors of the Guildhall were open when I arrived and it was possible to walk straight in. This is a […]
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Councillors Reject Plans to Demolish The Queen Edith Pub
I observed Cambridge City Council’s South Area Committee on the 11th of November 2010 where councillors refused to give planning permission for the demolition of The Queen Edith pub and for new homes to be built on the site. Councillors on the committee were told by the planning officer that Cambridge City Council’s own planning […]
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Ownership of Quayside in Cambridge
At Cambridge City Council’s full Council meeting on the 4th of December 2008 Cllr Herbert, the leader of the Labour opposition in Cambridge, asked a question to Cllr Cantrill the Executive Councillor for Customer Services and Resources about Quayside. His question was: Given the central importance of Quayside to the life of the City, and […]