Cllr Roy Gerstner – Community Activist

Candidates standing in local elections both Town Council and District will be announced this afternoon by FDC.
I understand that I have candidate(s) standing again me….so be it – that’s how I promote democracy, I just hope the electorate are aware of what candidates have achieved for their community.
New later today….

Disclaimer: These observations are not the ‘official’ minutes of the meeting, these are supplied by Whittlesey Town Council, normally (1) month following the meeting and can be viewed on their website.

At this evenings meeting of Whittlesey Town Council Planning Committee, I spoke during the public forum, thanking the Chairwoman Cllr Mrs Rita Jolley (retiring from local politics) for her professional and timely meetings.
Mr Joe Jennings the applicant for the St Marys Hall development into a small hotel gave an insight of what he wanted to achieve.
Ex councillor Mr Gary Swan spoke to support the application. During the debate on the application there appears to be concerns and requirements from the County Council in regards to drainage conditions and some environmental concerns.
It was pointed out by councillors that no such issues or conditions were placed in previous applications.
All councillors agreed to support the application once more information was supplied by the applicant.
The old St Mary’s Hall has been somewhat of an eyesore for many years and would benefit from a good quality development which Mr Jennings proposing.

(Mr Joe Jennings)

A somewhat lengthy debate took place over F/YR19/0201 Erection of 2 storey 3 bed dwelling involving demolition of existing buildings within a conservation area at land south of 19-29 Horsegate Lane.
Councillors were minded that this was a bad backyard development but in the end had little planning reasons to refuse.
What they may have missed was the ‘Splay access on the exit road’ and safety issues in relation to how far can a fire hose/engine access the property in case of a fire.

Next planned meeting 15th April

There will be a meeting of The New Queen Street Surgery, Patients Participation Group held at the surgery at 6:30pm
Below is the agenda….I will asking for an update on Patients getting appointments….

9 members including (1) new member who comes from Stanground.
It is proposed that ALL the Mud Walls within Whittlesey and the (1) in Eastrea
will become ‘Listed’, only a few at present are so defined.
The group hope to apply for a small grant so that they can help repair/maintain dome of the Walls.
The Whittlesey Mud Wall Group will be attending The Thorney Country Festival on the 08th/09th June as last year with their exhibition.
As I stated in a previous posting, word is getting out far afield about ‘our’ unique Walls to this area.

The Group meets – First Wednesday of every month @ Whittlesey Town Hall Market Street @ 10:30am

Excellent publicity received recently in local magazines.
When I attended ‘The Draining of the Fens’ in Ely last week, a number of people from that area were well aware of the Whittlesey Mud Walls.
Meeting takes place at Whittlesey Town Hall on Market Street.

After some work clearing the site, both sides of the Kings Dyke level crossing, ‘we’ all thought that work would begin on the road construction, alas it appears work has almost come to a stand-still – it is my understanding that there are ‘issues’ with Kier the contracted builder of the project. Well ‘we’ read in the national press that Kier are in some sort of ‘cash flow’ problems…. All we need now is for them to go bust (As with Carillion).
One local politician/councillor actually ‘promised’ in their last election campaign to-
“Deliver the project on time and within Budget”
Moral and lessons to be learnt (aka Camerons excuse for everything) be careful what you promise!

Being run at Tesco March ‘Blue Tokens’ are placed in nearby bins….
The Cambridgeshire Regiment are hoping enough tokens will buy 3, 4 or more of these
wonderful remembrance benches. Even if you shop at Tesco’s in Peterborough you can donate them to this cause….if you have any please let me know and I’ll put you in contact.

Interesting at this meeting the conversion of The Church Hall (St Mary’s Hall)