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Seeking to Observe The Election Count in Cambridge
A couple of weeks ago I tweeted drawing attention to the fact that election counts in Cambridge are not open to the public and asked what arrangements were in place for those wishing to observe and report on proceedings. This resulted in a number of local politicians, including elected councillors, asking why the count was […]
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Cambridge City Council Seek To Control Use of Footage of Councillors
Liberal Democrat run Cambridge City Council is very keen on tightly controlling the image of its councillors. Earlier I received the following email: Dear Mr Taylor I see that you have posted footage on You Tube from the last council meeting of Cllr Owers, which you have set to music. Our protocol explicitly asks those […]
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Asking to Film and Ask Public Questions at Cambridge City Council
I have submitted the following message to the council’s democratic services email address, copying Councillor Tim Bick: 1. If a suitably less restrictive filming policy is adopted during the Thursday 19th April 2012 full council meeting I would like to film/photograph the council meeting from the point the new policy is adopted. I’d like to […]
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Police Set Bassingbourne and Melbourn Police Priorities
Sgt Capes of Cambridgeshire Police presenting a report on youth antisocial behaviour in Melbourn. On the evening of the 17th of April 2012 I attended the Bassingbourne and Melbourn Neighbourhood panel meeting, at which the local police priorities for the upcoming couple of months were set. The panel meeting was not run democratically, the priorities […]
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Labour Plans to Push House Sharers Out of Cambridge
Spot the shared houses. Many streets in North Cambridge contain lots of shared houses which are indistinguishable from their neighbours. As has been reported in the Cambridge News Labour Councillors Marchant-Daisley and Todd-Jones are putting forward a motion to Cambridge City Council’s full council on Thursday the 19th of April 2012 calling for a cap […]
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Police Endorse Cambridge Labour’s Wet Room for Drunks Policy
On the evening of the 12th of April 2012 I observed councillors on Cambridge’s East Area Committee set the areas’s policing priorities for the upcoming four months. Problems caused by street drinkers were by far the top issue raised by councillors. Sergeant Jamie Stenton for Cambridgeshire Police initially reported: “Street life people [his words] are […]
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Cambridge City Council Election Candidates May 2012
Only Sign of Elections in Arbury – Posters for Labour’s Mike Todd-Jones. Cambridge City Council elections are to be held on Thursday the 3rd of May 2012. Cambridge is split into fourteen wards, there are three council seats for each ward. The elections in May are for one seat in each ward, so a third […]
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Prayer At Cambridge City Council
I observed Cambridge City Council’s Civic Affairs Committee on the 21st of March 2012 discuss if prayers ought be held at council meetings. The meeting was inconclusive. Its outcome was to ask the mayor, Cllr Ian Nimmo-Smith, “to hold discussions” on what ought be done regarding prayers. One of the most surprising claims, repeated by […]
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Cambridge City Council to Review Restrictive Filming and Photography Policy
Cambridge City Council’s Civic Affairs Committee on the 21st of March 2012 is to review the city council’s currently highly restrictive policy on filming, recording and photographing council meetings. The report to the meeting contains the following statement: Since the Committee approved the amendments to the audio/visual recording protocol in February 2011, there have been […]
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Fen Road Public Meetings
Wooden bollards between Water St. and Fen Road which kept getting sawn down have been replaced with metal ones. On Tuesday the 20th of March 2012 at 6pm in the Shirley School on Nuffield Road another public meeting is to be held to discuss the problems associated with Fen Road in East Chesterton. The meeting […]