Citi 7

The Citi 7 is a great service – in theory. It runs every 10 minutes from early in the morning to Cambridge, the railway station, Addenbrookes and beyond.

I don’t use it much – but we have all seen two (or more) buses close together – or even actually together – and those who use it sometimes find that buses don’t arrive when they are expected.

Its got to the point for me that I always aim for the service ahead of the one I really want – that gives me a fair chance of getting a bus. If the real time bus information service covered the route that would be great – but it doesn’t seem to have got here yet.

And whilst its a great service – we’ve just lost the 104 that Myall’s used to operate on Sundays. Service frequency on the Citi7 on Sundays was improved – and the 104 didn’t get the numbers it needed to stay viable. The great thing about the 104 was that it ran to late in the evening (10pm) – whereas the Citi7 stops at around 6pm. Not good news!

What do you think of the service? What are your horror stories? How could (should) it be improved?

Giving birth – one last push

As mooted earlier the Order (the legal document) creating Orchard Park Parish has now been sealed (Councils don’t sign documents, they seal them). That happened on February 25th.

So all’s set fair for 1st April – there’s a lot to be done, of course, but we can now proceed knowing that what we’ve planned for for so long will actually happen.

Its great news for residents – they will now have their proper say and influence over what happens in their community – and no longer be “ruled” by Impington Parish Council from the other side of the A14!

Greening campaign

Today (28th February) saw the launch of the Greening Campaign in Histon & Impington.  The campaign is being run by HICCA to involve the whole community in saving money by saving energy. Its a great way of getting everyone to do some simple things that will make a difference – and which can be followed up in all sorts of ways.

Hundreds of people turned up to the Baptist Church to talk about a wide variety of subjects – composting, saving water (courtesy of Cambridge Water), saving electricity (e-on), getting advice, signing up to borrow a power meter, cycling. A great event!

As part of this, one of the local tree surgeons, Acacia Tree Surgery provided a team to help chip trees, branches, etc – which are being used to improve our environment and make access easier into some of the wooded areas owned by the Parish Council.

If you’ve got a home chipper you’ll understand the idea – but this is on a

Acacia team chipping branches

totally different scale. The machine can handle anything (and it did) up to 15cm diameter – reducing it to a pile of chips in seconds. Needless to say, the team took the very necessary safety precautions!

The Parish Council maintains a number of areas of land – the Copse (by the Railway Vue), the Coppice, and Homefield Park – where the chips are used on paths to make them more pleasant (and less muddy) to walk on.

Chips at the end of the session

The results at the end of the day – it could have been more, but a decent quantity! The Enviro Volunteers (a group of local residents who work in these areas – among others) are hoping to run this event again towards the end of the year – let them know if you’d welcome that.

Giving birth – almost there ..

The “Order” creating the new Parish of Orchard Park is due to be sealed (legally “signed”) by South Cambridgeshire District Council next week.

That will formally set in motion the process to create the parish on April 1st, and lead to the election of the Community Council on June 4th (should be in May, but elections have been moved because of the EU elections).

The Council Tax for the new Parish has been set – and is no change from this year.

One surprise to everyone is that there is a need for “Interim Councillors” – there is a need for someone to be able to take decisions from April 1st until June 8th (when the new Council will come into being).

These Interim Councillors are appointed by the District Council, and must be elected as Councillors already. They can be Parish Councillors, or District Councillors – but not a mix of the two – and there is no specified number – it could be just one. However, the District Council ward is represented by 3 Councillors, and they have stepped forward to act.

So, though two of them are now no longer Parish Councillors, they will be again for a period of two months. Thank you Jonathan Chatfield, Neil Davies and Mike Mason – without you the new Parish could not be created.

Council Tax

We now know how much more we might have to pay, but we don’t yet know whether Government will cap any of the Councils, Police or Fire. So far:

• County are going for 3.9% – having made a big play of reducing it from the 4.7% they first thought of … (£979.11 to £1017.30)
• Fire are seeking 3.5% (£54.45 to £56.36)
• South Cambridgeshire District are seeking 4.5% (£107.27 to £112.10)
• Cambridgeshire Police are after 4.99% (£156.87 to £164.70)
• And Impington Parish Council are holding their tax at the same level as last year (£69.84).

Figures in brackets show the “Band D” figures – if your property is in a higher band, then the figures could be (for the top band) double – in a lower band less than the figures given, and also reduced for single people in a property.

So, last year £1367.54 – this year – £1420.30 – an increase of £52.76 (again, for Band D).

But, that’s not it. Government have said that they expect Council Tax increases to be substantially below 5%. Neither the South Cambs nor Police rises could be described as that!

As in previous years it will be some time before we know whether the Government will “cap” any of these rises. If it does, there will be considerable costs borne by the relevant bodies for the re-issuing of Council Tax bills.