Cllr Roy Gerstner – Community Activist

Please see the information below sent to us by the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner.
The government launched a new £150 million Community Ownership Fund to help ensure that communities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can support and continue benefiting from the local facilities, community assets and amenities most important to them.

Community groups were able to bid for up to £250,000 matched-funding to help them buy or take over local community assets at risk of being lost.

Bids are accepted from all communities and in most circumstances, bids should be made from community and voluntary organisations with formal governance in place. Parish councils may play a role in working with community groups looking to submit a bid.
The Fund will run until 2024/25 and there will be at least 8 bidding rounds in total.

Other key dates are as follows:

• 13 August 2021 – deadline for submitting applications to the first bidding round
• December 2021 – round 2 will open
• May 2022 – round 3 will open

Community Ownership – Together we can make a difference (communityownershipfund.co.uk)

Please find below details of upcoming overnight closures of the A47 at Guyhirn this week. Please do feel free to ask for any further information, and to disseminate more widely as appropriate.

The A47 Fen Road will be closed overnight for two nights this week, from Gull Road to the Guyhirn roundabout, for essential works. This will be from 8pm to 6am on Wednesday 16 and Thursday 17 March.

o    Eastbound traffic will exit the Whitepost roundabout at Thorney onto the A1139, then continue onto A605 Fletton Interchange, take the slip road onto the A605 through Whittlesey and Coates to the A141, and re-join the A47 at Guyhirn.

o    Westbound traffic will follow this diversion in reverse.

After last Thursdays inaugural residents meeting (see last weeks post) – the group raised enough funding to get 1,000 leaflets printed by Monday afternoon and were out first thing this morning delivering to residents/households in the area.

To see or follow – go to https://www.facebook.com/SaxonGatePE7/

I attended the monthly meeting of WTC Finance & Policy Committee, as I do regularly,
as a member of the public.
Items discussed..
1/ Equality & Diversity Policy  2/ CAPALC Affiliation 3/ Paperless Meetings
4/ Future funding of the heritage Centre  5/ Feedback required post grants
6/ What WTC may or may not fund under GPC 7 / WTC position on local promotion.

Of interest was The Heritage Centre – some indicative plans and basic drawings were shown. Funding (shortfall) is still very much on the agenda.

Immediately after was the WTC Planning Committee, with 3 members of the Public and
Mr Dino Biagioni MD of Rose Homes (EA) – who spoke during the Public Forum, concerns about Cambs Highways and a potential development along Eastrea Road/A605.
The agenda item for ‘The Monastery’ was deferred again until the April meeting as not all requested information had been submitted.

Whittlesey Town Council as you maybe aware are supporting the Queens Platinum Jubilee by hoping to plant 70 trees for the Queens Green Canopy Campaign.
I can inform you that as of today we have 55 trees sponsored.
If you would like a ‘Tree’ or more information then please contact me – details on the top toolbar.

This upcoming application to process some 250,000 tonnes of Bottom End Ash and 50,000 tonnes of construction and waste material is nearing the end of the consulation period.
If you wish to make any representation you need to do so by 18th March

e-mail to planningdc@cambridgeshire.gov.uk

Title: Former Saxon Brickworks CCC/21/024/FUL

Below is part of an objection put together by Mr Clive Vaughan.
(You can only object on planning grounds and not just because you don’t like it.)
DON’T FORGET TO PUT YOUR NAME AND POSTAL ADDRESS AT THE END OF EACH OBJECTION.

Our Health Johnsons Aggregates & Recycling Ltd assures us that Incinerator Bottom Ash is a non-hazardous material.

Other points of objection could be:

Highways. 96 HGV movements per day (48 in and 48 out). This would result in a predicted 6 HGV movements in the morning peak hour and 3 in the evening peak. This represents a serious escalation of heavy traffic on the very busy A605. This expansion will add considerably to vehicle noise and air pollution. 

Road Safety is also a key issue with 48 lorries turning right into Saxon from the direction of Peterborough every day on average with 6 in the busy morning peak hour, increasing accident risk. Such heavy traffic also results in the A605 road surface being constantly muddy and dangerously slippery in wet weather. 

Noise. Modelling by Clements Acoustics Consultancy is against a ‘nothing changes’ scenario. But more heavy traffic will lead to more potholes on the already battered A605 road surface. When a fully laden lorry hits an A605 pothole our houses shake, and the impact can be heard over the TV. 

The nature of the proposed loads. Incinerator bottom ash may well be non-hazardous but construction and demolish waste sounds like something to be very wary of. How will the contractor guarantee that every single load will be “non-hazardous material” especially of construction and demolish waste when asbestos is in many demolished buildings.

Dust. It is hard to see how 48 lorries per day, carrying loads of IBA and C&D along the pock-marked surface of the A605 can avoid spewing dust, to aggravate the breathing problems of vulnerable Whittlesey residents.

Operating times. Importation and depositing on site, in the designated storage areas, of IBA and C&D material – 24/7 including Sundays and Bank Holidays (except Christmas Day). Round the clock arrival of vehicles is unacceptable to a site just 250 metres of people’s homes.

Direction of lorries. Johnsons Aggregates assure us in their supporting planning documentation that all lorries will enter and leave the site from the direction of Peterborough. Really? No lorry driver will want diesel/fags/coffee/snacks etc and turn east towards Whittlesey to get these!!

Environmental impact. An estimated 6,600 tonnes of CO2 per annum just from the diesel burnt to get all this waste from Nottinghamshire. Then there is nitrogenous oxide and particulate pollution from burning diesel, from brake linings and wear of tyres. 

Damage to road surfaces. The A605 already suffers considerable pounding from the high level of HGV traffic. Seeking to further increase such traffic will only push up the cost of repairs. 

IF YOU HAVE ALREADY MADE AN OBJECTION, PLEASE DO SO AGAIN CITING ADDITIONAL POINTS OF OBJECTION – AND TWO OR MORE PEOPLE IN A HOUSEHOLD OBJECTING INDIVIDUALLY COUNTS MORE THAN ONCE.

EVEN MORE EFFECTIVELY, OBJECT POINT BY SEPARATE POINT SO THAT YOU ARE SUBMITTING MULTIPLE OBJECTIONS!!!

DON’T FORGET TO PUT YOUR NAME AND POSTAL ADDRESS AT THE END OF EACH OBJECTION.

Watch the video by Clicking Here

Following on from the comms survey we carried out, some of you said it would be good to have the fortnightly progress update message as a video…so this week we spoke to Rhydian Hafal, construction manager at Jones Bros. He’s discussing activity on-site, with a focus on the work at the western roundabout and Rhydian’s update also includes information on the traffic management over the next few weeks.