Cllr Roy Gerstner – Community Activist

There has been a lot of interest and visits to Whittlesey Town Council Offices regarding enquiries about Kings Dyke Crossing & The Showfields development – The Clerk has no other information which is not already in the public domain, whether it be on this web-blog, FDC’s Website or Cambs CC recvently created FB page.
There has been ‘some’ activity’ at The Showfields site –
As soon as ‘any’ ‘new’ information comes to light – it will be well publicised.

Firstly, a local council has been in touch with a warning about a recent attempted fraud on councillors. They explain:
‘Our Chairman is on leave overseas but yesterday a number of emails were received by members of the council purporting to be from him and asking “are you free at the moment?”. Those who replied ‘yes’ then received a further email saying:
“Councillor Mr xxxxxxxx,I am in a conference meeting right now as I would be working till late midnight but need you to get me some gift cards. Could you pick a few iTunes gift cards for me, when I’m done with the meeting I will reimburse you. I tried purchasing online but there was no luck. Kind Regards,”

‘Unfortunately one of the councillors did offer to do this and went to a local Argos branch where they bought £400 worth of cards. On advising the scammer of this they were asked to give the security codes on the back of the cards.

The councillor refused and then phoned the clerk to ask whether they knew anything about this. Fortunately, the councillor was able to recover their money from Argos.’

This is an example of ‘spear phishing’ where e-mails appear to be sent from a known or trusted sender to specifically targeted individuals i.e. it is more selectively targeted than phishing e-mails. The email address used by the scammer on this occasion was executivecommittee33@gmail.com . It is quite possible that this scam will be attempted with other local councils and community groups across the county so please beware and please let others know (whilst noting that the sender’s e-mail address may be different on other occasions).

Last Friday, St Valentine’s Day, Cambridgeshire Constabulary featured a live video session on their Facebook page with Crime Reduction Officers Helen O’Driscoll and Amanda Large and three victims of romance fraud. The session gave many useful tips about the ‘red flags’ that somebody might not be genuine and is still available on the Constabulary’s Facebook page so do please watch, like and share far and wide.

Finally, a member of the public has been in touch to let us know about a bogus Health Lottery UK letter received by his mother-in-law (see attached). Whilst there is a genuine Health Lottery in the UK, a person is required to buy a ticket to enter the prize draw. The bogus letter states that ‘participants were randomly selected by computer Ballot system from database of the National Health Service and residents in the United Kingdom’. Please let people know about this – I am sure that the mailshot of this letter will include many people in your community.
For those on Facebook you can share Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Against Scams Partnership (CAPASP)’s post about this.
(Click on picture to enlarge)

Thank you all for reading this and for using the information to protect your community. Your support is hugely appreciated.
Best wishes,
Charlotte.

Charlotte Homent
Community Protection Manager
Cambridgeshire County Council

This is a message from the Environment Agency @ Tuesday 05:21am

Flood Warning no longer in force: North Bank Road alongside the River Nene, east of Peterborough and west of Dog-in-a-Doublet Sluice.
The situation is improving and no further flooding is expected in this area.

Flood Warnings and Alerts may still be in force for surrounding areas.

Tidal levels have reduce at Dog-in-a-Doublet and are no longer expected to cause tide lock conditions, so we do not expect any further flooding to the North Bank Road.
There may be standing water in low lying areas and fields for several days due to higher than normal levels in the River Nene due to the rainfall from storm Dennis over the weekend.

Related paperwork/agenda’s – Q&A’s to this meeting may be found by following this link.

https://www.fenland.gov.uk/localgov/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=156&MId=1342&Ver=4

You will need to spend ‘some’ time to absorb all the information –
Want know what’s happening at FDC I suggest you have a read.

Lots and lots of reports (Some extremely good news in many areas +++ & Some no so..)

Since 2010, we have made savings of
£9.9million, and must make a further £1.651million between 2020/21 and 2023/24

I suppose most are interested in Council Tax – see below the figures and proposals….
(This is on the agenda to be debated – and voted on at the meeting)

With The North Bank closed again  – The now planned work on the Junction of the A605 & Milk & Water Drove for future work on building a slip road to ease the congestion around Park Farm/Cardia/Stanground….

The closure is expect to begin on Monday 17th February and ‘could’ last up to 4 weeks.
After communicating your concerns to Peterborough Highways Department, it has been agrred that the A605 Whittlesey Road will NOT have any traffic lights installed during these works.
Please share with those you feel might benifit from knowing.
Cllr Chris Harper.
Peterborough Stanground South

CG writes. Massive problems getting out of Whittlesey this morning with the Milk and Water closure and North Bank closure. There are roadworks for a new housing development between Whittlesey and Kings Dyke causing one mile plus tailbacks in rush hour and as people are pointing out on FB absolutely no work has been going on in these roadworks all weekend and again this morning. I have rung Cambs CC this morning and they directed me to PCC.
I have rung PCC roadworks and I just get an answerphone. Is there somebody you can ask to speak to the housing development team urgently to see if these roadworks can be suspended during rush hour to help everybody trying to get in up the only road that’s open.
Thank you.

At Whittlesey Town Council the Young Technicians CIC secured town centre accommodation in the Office above Town Council offices in Queen Street to train and help employ local youth and developing a Fenland Youth radio station, initially on line then FM with a range of about 12km which will be great for the students and a real community asset. Cllr Miscandlon, Cllr Dorling and Pino have been working hard to get this far, the best is yet to come.
We would like to thank Cllr Miscandlon and Cllr Dorling for their support and hard work with this project.

Young Techs

I’ve heard this nearly all my adult life, (you have heard this from me several times before) I/we are told of the £££Millions that Councils have saved over the recent years since Government cutbacks in various subsidies.
Nearly every time I/we try and get something done in Whittlesey to make life a ‘little’ easier – we are faced with brick walls – make a business case – take it upwards.
Yes ‘some’ minor improvements have been made – but essentially it is a very uphill struggle.
Yes the Metro Mayor (Palmer) has a lot of money and ‘is’ spending a lot on his running costs.
Then all we hear in the news and press is the ‘vast’ £££Billions the Government is ‘planning’ to spend on infrascuture schemes (HS2) – The KD Bridge I have promoted for the last 7 years since its’ latest reincarnation (2013) – I very much hope will happen – but let us see if & when….
With many now openly concerned of ‘environmental’ issues in/around the A605 through Whittlesey a campaign very much promoted by Mr Peter Baxter – we hear a lot of talk….
Lots of concerns about ‘particulate matter’ (small particles in the atmosphere) and the monitoring of it – Fenland has NO measuring of particulate matter as it does not ‘seem’ a concern.
Here is a picture of me with The Green Peace Group’ I spend some time ‘learning’ on what they achieve/measure/promote and report to their Government (Not in the UK)

They have a nationwide monitoring system measuring all sorts of ‘pollutants’ including PM 2.5 – and a smartphone ‘app’ which gives ‘real time’ results from ALL the monitoring stations – No Money – well well…..
Would’nt it be fantastic if ‘we’ could have a ‘real-time’ measuring/reporting ‘app’ for the B1040/North Bank Road – It is not rocket science and does not cost a lot of money…?