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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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Policing South Cambridge – July 2012
Cherry Hinton Village Centre – Location of the Police Priority Setting Meeting On the evening of the 16th of July 2012 I attended Cambridge’s South Area committee where councillors held the police to account and set new local police priorities for the area. About fifty people were in the public seating; many were council officers, […]
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No Enforcement For Planning Breach at 4 Bosworth Road
4 Bosworth Road on LastMinute.com 4 Bosworth Road in Cambridge is a property currently being used in a rather unusual manner; as a commercially let shared house which one can book some of the rooms in on an ad-hoc basis via the Arnies Guest House (Cambridge Guest Lodge) website. The use of the property in […]
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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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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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Cambridge South Area Committee Farce – February 2015
I observed Cambridge’s South Area Committee on the evening of Monday the 2nd of February 2015. The meeting was the most farce-ridden disheartening display of attempted democracy I’ve observed. Almost every element of the meeting was either a farce itself or highlighted a farce elsewhere in one of Cambridge’s local councils. Cllr Amanda Taylor claimed […]
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Ravers Attracted by Lawless Romsey Beach Police No-Go Area
Sgt Jim Stevenson of Cambridgeshire Police told councillors and members of the public at Cambridge’s South Area Committee on the 15th of July 2013 that the “Romsey Beach” is a practically no-go area for police. The committee heard the “beach” and lakes near Burnside, the Tins path and Spinney School in South Cambridge had been […]
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Meeting Carrie Herbert of the Red Balloon Learner Centre Group
On Monday the 13th of June 2011 I met Carrie Herbert, founder and chief executive of the Red Balloon Learner Centre Group. Red Balloon learner centres are places where children can obtain an education instead of in schools. Fundraising for the centres focuses on their role in providing children who’ve been bullied at schools a […]
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Cambridge City Council Decide to Make a Huge Leap Forward In Terms of Openness and Transparency
A buffet was provided for councillors and officers during a break in the meeting. I was hungry so I took up an offer of a sandwich. There were no professional press present. I guess I got the sandwich which would have otherwise been offered to them. (Photos of the meeting itsself were not permitted) I […]