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.