Unconfirmed PC Minutes – Monday 5th September 2016
FULL PARISH COUNCIL MEETING ON MONDAY 5th SEPTEMBER 2016 AT 8 PM IN THE VILLAGE HALL
Present: Mrs Alexander, Mr Dalton, Mr Dinsdale, Mrs Glasse, Mrs Handley, Dr Sinnett-Smith, Dr Russell and in the Chair, Mr Prince.
1. Apologies from Ms O Callaghan were accepted.
2. The full minutes of 25th July and Planning minutes of 22nd August were accepted as a true and accurate record. The planning minutes of 8th August were changed, at the request of Mrs Marshall, to reflect that buses ran along the A603 and did not come in the Eversdens as had been reported.
3. Open Forum for Public Participation
Mrs Marshall raised the changes to the 8th August minutes as stated above.
Miss Sach informed the meeting that she had received a letter stating that Leetes Lane will have a road closure on 5th October from 8 am due to Anglian Water works. The Clerk will post on Eversden online to inform other residents within the community.
4. There were no Declarations of Interest
5. Matters Arising
a. Mr Dalton will chase the company regarding LED Street Lighting.
b. It was RESOLVED that Dr Sinnett-Smith, Mr Prince, Mrs Handley and the Clerk will form a sub-committee to complete the Emergency Planning documentation. The Clerk will arrange a meeting at a suitably convenient time for all.
c. A603 Wheatsheaf: The Clerk will arrange a convenient date for a meeting to discuss the way forward.
d. War Memorial Repairs: The Clerk will contact F W Cook and arrange a date for repairs to be undertaken next spring, once the scaffolding has been removed from St Mary’s.
e. The Clerk reported that Mr Prince is now able to sign cheques on behalf of the Parish Council, along with Mrs Handley and Mr Dalton.
f. The Clerk has now received the CPR training kit. Once the welcome pack has been received training can commence and the defibrillator can be sited.
g. Speedwatch: Correspondence had been received requesting the scheme be operated in High Street Little Eversden. The Clerk had liaised with Rev Fraser who will send a request for a risk assessment of the High Street and the Clerk will ask for further volunteers for Little Eversden.
6. New Pavilion Plans
Unfortunately the new Plans are still being put onto CAD and will be available at the next meeting.
Mrs Glasse explained that the Recreation Ground had secured a Community Chest grant of £1500 from SCDC to pay for new goal posts. The pitches will then be moved down to allow space for the new Pavilion.
Following a meeting to discuss the new plans the discussion had moved on to the three distinct community centres within the village and the viability of all three.
Mrs Glasse left the meeting at 9 pm.
7. 2017 Dates
There were several discrepancies in the 2017 dates. Mrs Handley will amend and recirculate for the next meeting.
8. Finance
Connections Bus £2525.00 LGA 972 s.19
Approved.
9. Correspondence
a. Community Highway Volunteer – explore ways to enable community volunteers to carry out work on the public highway. It was agreed that we would not formally respond to this request for volunteers.
b. CambsNotspotter – identifying areas of no or low connectivity. The Clerk will post this information on Eversden online.
c. Via Website: High Street, Great Eversden; Hedge requires cutting. The Clerk had received two individual correspondence regarding the hedge. Mr Dalton will forward details to the Clerk of the owner.
d. Tailcorn Report: The recent report in Tailcorn stated that the planning application for the Dovecote at Winrose Farm had been refused. This should have read that the plans were WITHDRAWN. Our apologies for the error.
e. The Clerk had received timed correspondence regarding BT’s intention to remove the telephone box at the top of the High Street, Great Eversden on Harlton Road. Statistics do show that no calls have been made from this phone in the last 12 months. There is a public consultation which the Clerk will circulate detail of and the Parish are able to purchase the box, minus the equipment for £1.
f. A Judicial Review has been received and SCDC is strongly defending. Accent Nene propose to resubmit plans addressing the issues and propose to move the access.
10. Report from County and District Councillors
Doug Cattermole: District Councillor
Grosvenor Sporting Village
Grosvenor estates has now submitted the planning application for a new sporting facility and additional housing on the green belt next to the Trumpington Meadows development. This includes a new sporting village facility of a sports hall, cycle track and all weather pitches plus 520 homes. It is tied in to the development of the Cambridge United stadium by the same developer where they will improve the stadium and also build more flats and houses.
What is the rationale of building this on the green belt which should be protected? From the developers point of view, they will try to justify this by saying this provides sports facilities. However, they are using the housing and the revenue that will produce to fund both projects. So the proposal to build on the green belt is driven by a funding requirement by a commercial developer.
Major problems will arise from if this development goes ahead in terms of further congestion on the routes into Cambridge on this side of the City. We have seen huge development of the south side of the City and it is time now to protect the green belt from further intrusion. If this goes ahead, where will the developments end? We can imagine infill of all the area up to the M11 and then moving beyond that.
The villages around the south side of Cambridge are seeing issues of quality of life with added congestion and difficulty of accessing amenities in the City. The land between the villages and the city is gradually being built on for houses changing the whole aspect of the environment. Comments on the application can currently be made on the South Cambs website
Devolution
Following the consultation exercise there will be a special Council meeting on this subject on 26th October.
Greater City Deal
This continues to rumble on with discussion about affordable housing and it seems that a compromise has been reached on a definition of any affordable housing in any type of development. There is a City Deal website at www.gccitydeal.co.uk
Sebastian Kindersley: County Councillor
Cllr Kindersley informed the meeting that Boundary Commission had made their final recommendations and Councilors would be reduced from 69 to 61 as of next May. The Eversdens would also now fall within the Hardwick Division.
The Planning application has now been lodged with SCDC for the Grosvenor Sporting Village. There are many concerns about this development. It would extend ‘Cambridge’ into the Green Belt which separates the city from neighbouring villages and cause the loss of the green corridor between the city and the M11. Both the City and District Councils have submitted strong evidence in support of retaining the area as Green Belt in the Inner Green Belt Study and other reports submitted to the planning inspector; in contrast, Grosvenor has not established that there are special circumstances for a major development at this location which outweigh its value as part of the Green Belt;
One impact of 520 additional homes will be additional congestion on Hauxton Road, Addenbrooke’s Road, the M11 Junction 11 and through Trumpington and indeed is an increase of 45% on the 1200 homes that have been approved for Trumpington Meadows, with a corresponding increase in the pressure on local schools and health and community facilities. The multi-storey sports hub (a large-scale building of up to 9200 sq. m.), the other proposed buildings and the 3 metre high promenade would be intrusive structures and, again, there would be congestion from traffic going to and from the 300 parking spaces which would be provided for sports users
Of course, there is also a risk that further proposals would be submitted by other developers if this development were approved – for example Jesus College is proposing the ‘Cambridge South’ development on the east side of Hauxton Road near the Grosvenor development, including 1250 homes and a large-scale science park with 1000s of employees.
Lastly the City Deal and the County Council are considering developing an additional Park & Ride site on the District side of M11 Junction 11 and developing the western orbital busway. If this goes ahead it would have a major impact on the Green Belt and accentuate the importance of the land on the City side of the M11 being retained as a green corridor.
A428 Busway & Workplace Parking Levy
The next meeting of the City Deal will discuss the preferred option for taking congestion along the A428/Madingley Rd into Cambridge. Anyone who commutes this road during rush hour will know what a nightmare it is. However, the proposals being put forward do huge damage to the Green Belt and have no proper research or evidence behind them. The deadline for commenting on the City Deal’s `workplace parking levy’, (details at www4.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/citydeal/congestion), is Monday October 10.
11. Next Meetings
Planning on 19th September 2016 and 3rd October 2016, if required, and 17th October 2016 Full Parish Council.
The Chair closed the meeting at 9:23 pm.
