Richard Taylor

I observed the Cambridge Community Safety Partnership meeting on the 14th of December 2011.
Priorities
On of the key roles of the Community Safety Partnership is set the city wide crime and policing priorities for the City of Cambridge. The group came under criticism last year for carrying out this key role in secret, via “email [...]

The proposed loading bay for Sainsbury’s on Mill Road (Source p40 of the officer report to the meeting)

On the evening of the 25th of October 2011 I observed Cambridge City Council’s East Area Committee reject an application for a Sainsbury’s Local supermarket in the pool hall building at 103 Mill Road.
Key Points

The main reasons [...]

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 [...]

Policing East Cambridge April 2011

I spent the evening of the 14th of April 2011 observing Cambridge City Council’s East Area Committee meeting. City and county councillors were to hold the police to account for their performance against priorities they’d set previously and to set new priorities for the forthcoming period.
Key Points

Councillors set the following [...]

On Tuesday the 15th of February 2011 I observed the full meeting of Cambridgeshire County Council at which the council’s budget was debated.
The ruling Conservative group proposed a budget involving cuts to the council’s spending totalling £160m over the next five years. The reasoning for this was they wanted to produce a balanced [...]