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Snowy Farr Statue Unveiled
On the 7th of August 2012 I watched the unveiling of a statue of charity fundraiser Snowy Farr outside the Guildhall in Cambridge. It has been reported the statue cost £50,000. In my view spending this sum of public money to commemorate a fund-raiser doesn’t make sense, it amounts to somewhere around half of what […]
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City Council Seeking People to Appoint as Conservators of the Cam
River Cam Near Jesus Green in Cambridge Via the odd route of Liberal Democrat Cllr Ward, my local councillor in Arbury, who is also Cambridge City Council’s Executive Councillor for Planning and Sustainable Transport, making a posting on the Cam.misc newsgroup the city council are inviting applications from people who would like to be considered […]
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Lighting Parkers Piece on West Central Area Committee Agenda
Ground Level Lights at Cambridge Leisure In the run up to the 2012 local elections Cambridge Liberal Democrats decided to stand up to those who usually exert greatest influence in Cambridge, the largely elderly home owners who populate the residents associations, and made an election commitment to improve lighting on Cambridge’s green spaces. Specifically the […]
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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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Friends of Midsummer Common 2012 AGM
Given its heavy use by cyclists and pedestrians this path across the common is a little narrow. On March the 14th 2012 I attended the Friends of Midsummer Common’s Annual General Meeting. I am not a member of the group, but the meeting was open to the public. It was advertised in the Cambridge News […]
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My Comments on Cambridge City Council’s Draft Open Space and Recreation Strategy
View of Jesus Green, Cambridge. Cambridge City Council has recently run a consultation on its Draft Open Space and Recreation Strategy. What is this Strategy Document For? If approved the strategy would become key part of the city council’s planning policy; which means it would become a document which councillors making planning decisions will have […]
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SLM Contract Extension
SLM Contract Extension Document ( Download, PDF) On Wednesday the 27th of July I visited Cambridge City Council, accompanied by two readers of my website, to view the city council’s accounts. One of the areas we looked into was the council’s transactions with Sports and Leisure Management Limited (SLM). SLM run the city’s swimming pools, […]
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Cambridge City Council Standards Committee June 2011
I observed a meeting of Cambridge City Council’s standards committee on the evening of Wednesday the 15th of June 2011. The committee is a mixture of appointed individuals and elected councillors. The first thing the committee did was elect a chair and vice chair. The chair had to be elected from the appointees. The committee […]
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Strawberry Fair 2011 – Better But Still Marred by Drugs and Drunkenness
Remote Control Horse at the 2011 Strawberry Fair Cambridge’s establishment, including the city council, the Executive Councillor for Arts and Recreation Rodrick Cantrill, and the police have all declared the 2011 Strawberry Fair an unequivocal success and this line appears to have been unquestioningly parroted by the city’s press. I agree that there were many […]
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North Cambridge Police Priorities – May 2011
“North Area Profile May 2011 On the evening of the 19th of May 2011 City and County Councillors from North Cambridge will get the opportunity to vote on the area’s local policing priorities for the next three months or so. Councillors’ deliberations and decisions will follow a presentation from the police and a session where […]