Richard Taylor

  • Trying to Improve The Cambridge City Council Licensing Policy Consultation

    Photo of room prior to Cambridge City Council Licensing Committee meeting. Photography and audio recording is banned during meetings. Cambridge City Council is about to launch a consultation on its licensing policy. The police, licensees, premises supervisors, the Campaign for Real Ale, the general public and others will be asked for their views. This morning […]

    June 7, 2010
  • Cambridge Dispersal Zone Renewed and Shrunk Without Discussion

    Red – Area of Current Dispersal Zone from 3 Jan 2010 Blue – Area of Previous Dispersal Zone to 3 Jan 2010 Note: East Road itself was excluded from the previous zone. View Via Google Maps On the 18th of January 2010 I attended Cambridge City Council’s Strategy and Resources committee to ask about council […]

    February 3, 2010
  • Electronic Advertising Screens and CCTV in Cambridge Taxis

    Cambridge Taxi Cambridge City Council’s standard conditions on “Advertising and Livery on Licensed Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Vehicles” were amended at a licensing committee meeting on the 25th of January 2010. The item had been placed on the councillors’ agenda following a letter from Alex Sharifi who is promoting a system called Cabcast; a […]

    January 29, 2010
  • No Immediate Enforcement Action to be Taken Against Mill Road Tesco

    On the 20th of August 2009 I attended a special Cambridge City Council East Area committee meeting which had been called to decide the council’s response to statements by Tesco indicating their intent to ignore planning conditions relating to their Mill Road store. The conditions state that deliveries of goods have to be made from […]

    August 20, 2009
  • Proposed Job Cuts at the Cambridge University Press

    The Cambridge University Press (CUP) are planning to cut 160 jobs in the city, probably as the first stage of plans to close the printing business of the CUP within three years. There was discussion of CUP’s plans at Cambridge City Council’s Full Council meeting on February 26th 2009, a full record of what was […]

    March 2, 2009
  • Cambridge City Council 2008/9 Budget Scrutiny

    Cambridge City Council’s budgets were yet again under scrutiny at a meeting at the guildhall this evening (13th February 2009). The meeting was scheduled to enable scrutiny of the opposition budget presented by the Labour group, but because of the significant changes in the Liberal executive’s budget made in January the scope of the meeting […]

    February 14, 2009
  • Cambridge City Council’s £80m Reserves – An Update

    Following Cambridge City Council’s October 2008 announcement which revealed it had £9m invested in Icelandic banks which it might have lost the council’s investments have been the focus of a lot of attention from councillors, the press and the public. I have attended some of the recent meetings where the situation has been discussed. I […]

    December 10, 2008
  • Transparency Changes Outcome of Police Priority Vote

    Coleridge Road, Cambridge. A fantastic example of why transparency is good for democratic decision making occurred at the Cambridge City Council’s East Area Committee on the 19th of August 2010. Green Party Councillor Margaret Wright had proposed a motion removing an existing police priority aimed at reducing speeding on a range of target roads across […]

    August 22, 2010
  • New City Centre Signage for Cambridge

    Cambridge City Council’s Strategy and Resources Scrutiny Committee on the 16th of March 2009 discussed the new signage proposed for the city centre. My responses to the consultation on the proposals which was held in May 2008 are available via this link; we are yet to see how many, if any of the suggestions for […]

    March 17, 2009
  • Introducing Co-Mingled Recycling to Cambridge

    On the 13th of January 2009 I attended the Cambridge City Council meeting where a decision was made to go ahead with plans to replace the recycling boxes currently used in homes in the city with a third wheelie bin. This new bin, which will be dark blue, will be able to take mixed recyclables […]

    January 14, 2009

Richard Taylor