Meeting in Secrecy?

Councils must be open and accountable to their electors. To do this Councils must inform the public of what they are doing and the meeting they are holding. Whilst the law says 3 clear days on the notice board is the minimum requirement for each agenda, it is also a requirement that these are also posted on the Councils' own website.

For the Council Meeting held on 15th March 2016 posting this agenda on the internet wasn't posted.

But the minutes were:

West Cambourne. Not a good name?

When it comes to deciding names West Cambourne is not the best name to come up with. The rest of Cambourne is divided up between Great, Upper and Lower. The area doesn't need to be called West Cambourne. Here are some better ideas!

Caxton Gibbet.
Swansley
Swansley Wood
Ermine
Margaret Thatcher

or with Cambourne

Higher Cambourne
Swansley-cum-Cambourne
High Cambourne

or even

Worse Cambourne
Not Cambourne
Knot Cambourne

Christmas Lights cost blow some bulbs!

How much do you think the Christmas lights cost? Cambourne Parish Council budgets £1000 a year for these lights. A budget is different to the actual cost? For 2013/14 it was £4654. 2014/15 it was £5434. For 2015/16 it is now £8407. That is £7407 over budget.

Fireworks costs rocket

Once again the Fireworks event busts it's budget.

This is an annual event. Each year there is a fireworks display and each year the annual budget is busted. This is wrong. The point of having a budget is the enable enough cash to be put aside for each service to ensure the programme is delivered. By busting the budget this means the money may not be there for 2016/17. 

The budget for 2015/16 was £2660 and £4784 was spent. The year before the budget was the same yet the council spend £4370. In the previous year £4809. The budget for next year is: £2660. 

Now I'm not calling for the end of the Fireworks Event. What I want to see is the right amount budgeted for rather than the illusionary amount that is allocated each year. Bad budgeting is not good governance.

Bird for Cambourne Parish Council

What bird could be the Official Bird for Cambourne Parish Council? I have a few ideas!

1. Oozlum bird. Is a mythical bird that flies round and round until it disappears up it own ......

 or how about

2. Ostrich. A bird that sticks its head in the sand!

lastly....

3. Passenger pigeon. An extinct bird.

Anthem for Cambourne Parish Council

An anthem to represent what Cambourne Parish Council stand for? A few of my ideas!

Paranoid

Star Wars Imperial March

Don't believe a word - Thin Lizzy



But my favourite must be:

Problems with West Cambourne

West Cambourne development area and the college are currently in Caxton Parish and Caxton don't want this development in their Parish and want this area transferred to Cambourne. This makes sense.

Where is the problem? None in the sense of this could happen but not within the timetable for the Electoral Review.

Therefore West Cambourne will not be within the proposed District Ward of Cambourne and would be in proposed the Papworth 2 member ward. With few electors in the area to be transferred this will cause a delay until enough electors are living in this area. Probably not until they developers have sold a quite a few houses.

When West Cambourne is transferred this area, being in a different District ward and County Division, would mean the creation of new Parish Ward of West Cambourne. I feel this would be unfair on the rest of Cambourne.

The right way forward is to ward the rest of Cambourne Parish into 3 Parish wards with a number of parish councillors elected in each. With clear boundaries between Lower, Great and Upper Cambourne each area could have its own representatives on Cambourne Parish Council. 

Election 2016

This is a bumper election year for Cambourne with at least 1 seat up for the District Council and all 13 seats up for the Parish Council in May.

District - Bourn Ward. Currently Cambourne is within the Bourn and Mervyn Loynes is the current member who may re-stand in May.

Parish - Cambourne Parish. This is one ward with 13 seats to elect. In 2008 and 2012 there were less than 13 candidates standing so those who stood were elected without the need for a poll.

If you want to stand as a Parish Council candidate you need to fill out a nomination form and a consent form. You will only need 2 electors of the Parish to sign the form. These are a proposer and a seconder who are not you and who are on the electoral roll for the Parish. Go here for a  nomination form. Nominations open when the Notice of Nominations is issues (roughly 30th March 2016) and close at 4pm 7th April 2016.

You can stand if you are a British, Irish, Commonwealth Citizen or EU Citizen you have a right to stand as a Parish Councillor. Further criteria is here.

Finally the Council does its returns

Having posted about SCDC not making returns for the companies as required by law I thought I would see whether they had finally made these returns. I was not surprised to find that South Cambs Housing Ltd had made its return. Ermine Street Housing Ltd on the otherhand I found has been gazetted for strike off

and that finally the the Annual Return has been made. The Compulsory strike off has been discontinued.

Why is Council Tax in Cambourne so high?

In Cambourne we pay higher council tax than almost anywhere else. At £1611.16 (Band D) it is under £5 short of Labour run Ipswich which has a Council Tax of £1,615.41 (Band D). So why do Cambourne council taxpayers pay so much when most of our local authorities say they are so cheap?

The answer!

The council taxpayers of Ipswich pay for the same services but they only pay for 3 authorities. These are: Suffolk County Council (including Fire), Borough Council (same as the District Council) and The Police. Ipswich has no Parish Councils.

The council taxpayers of Cambourne pay for 5 local authorities. These are: the County Council, the Fire Authority, the District Council, The Police and, finally, the Parish Council.

Looking at the graph below, published by Cambridgeshire County Council, it shows how wonderful CCC is having lower council tax than Norfolk, Suffolk and Hertfordshire County Councils.

This is an illusion. This is because Norfolk, Suffolk and Herts CC's include their Fire Services but Cambs CC does not. If the amount charged by Cambs Fire Service (£64.26) is added to the County bill that would come to: £1,164.33 which is the highest in the Eastern region. Of course Cambs County Council won't inform residents of this fact!

Despite what the graph says Cambridgeshire County Council is an expensive Council.

The District Council is one of the cheapest by a comparison with other District Councils. In the league table SCDC stand 188th out of 201 District Councils. Again this not as it may seem. For instance there are some District Councils do not have Parish Councils underneath them. An example is Cambridge which has no Parish Councils within its boundary. Other District Councils provide more services such as Leisure Centres and Parks. SCDC does not.

Despite SCDC being one of the cheapest this is because 1) It Doesn't do alot. 2) other District Councils do more. 3) Other District Council have no parish councils so these costs are included.

Ron says: The reason why we pay alot of Council Tax whilst being informed  by our councils that they are  some of the cheapest is we pay for more - Cambourne Parish Council + Fire Service. 

Pouring Taxpayers Money into the Trailer Park

Cambourne Parish Council runs a residents only Trailer Park. It has 25 spaces is set to loose @£4000 this financial year. That works out at £160 a space. Compare this with the £120.75 a year Band D average Council Tax charged by CPC and I see lots of money being poured away subsidising caravans and motorhomes. Next year the losses continue even with a 5% price hike. Next FE it will be £3000.

Ron says: This service should pay its way and either charges have to rise even further or the Parish Council must close this service.

Late returns...

SCDC wholly owns two limited companies. These are:

South Cambs Limited and Ermine Street Housing Limited. Two council employees are on the board of both companies. They are Joseph Colyer and Stephen Hills. Being Council employees I would have thought they would follow the law and yet these directors have made the two companies annual returns be over due.