Ralph has had an operation recently and is back home recovering – so lets hope he makes the next council meeting….
©FDC
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.
Enforcement makes interesting reading re Whittlesey…
Click on Picture to enlarge…
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.
Agenda to this meeting was published on this site – 07th June
9 Councillors + Cllr Bristow arrived slightly late in attendance.
Apologies Cllrs Jolley, Butcher & Bodden + Garratt (No apology)
7 members of the public in attendance, Children & 2 Teachers from Alderman Jackobs School.
1/ At the request of the Chairman – No photographs were taken.
2/ A good presentation by Karen Igho from PECT (Peterborough Environmental City 
Trust) about planting 5,000+ Tree’s in and around Whittlesey. The funding for the tree’s is already in place, and the type of tree’s will be indigenous broad leaf tree’s native to the UK.
The next step is to identify where the tree’s can be planted, and PECT are looking to everyone to help with this – schools, public and council. The scheme they hope to start in the late autumn and will be advertised later on in the year. This is good news….
(See full size poster at the end of this article.
3/ Police matters & CCTV report – Under a new reporting system, I quote the following from the Neighbourhood Sergeant ” This report is shared in the interests of information sharing with key partners under legal information sharing protocols. It is not intended for reproduction in any public forum online or otherwise“.
Therefor I am not able to reproduce or report what I have heard or seen.
4/ Public Forum – I brought up several issues:-
a) The serious altercation which took place on High Street (pedestrian area) between a hard of hearing OAP and a vehicle, where-by the OAP was verbally abused when confronting the vehicle – See my previous posting. I asked our councillors that it was time that ‘someone’ – Police/County CC/Our councillors took responsibility for this on-going problem – See my posting 07th June
b) The state of our ‘Zebra Crossings’ – No paint (last time I complained was told there was no money for paint) – I now believe these ‘Crossings’ do not comply with regulations.
c) The forever on-going Grass Cutting debacle – which Cllr Wicks and others agreed had been an issue for a number of years. Once more I asked why FDC ‘officials’ were not being held to account! – It is all very well that the contractors have had a ‘notice’ placed on them – this was only done after many complaints and local press pressure!
e) The ‘Hole Digging’ campaign at Kings Dyke A605 – 4 holes moving slowly down the road – maybe ‘they’ will eventually find what they are looking for….causing traffic issues – again.
f) Mr Peter Baxter gave a presentation on the reasoning why ‘he’ thought the Kings Dyke Bridge should NOT be built – his argument centred around whether or if ‘An Environmental Impact Assessment’ had been carried out and if not could lead to serious delays in getting the Bridge built including the possibility of a Judicial review
(A JR is a type of court proceeding in which a judge reviews the lawfulness of a decision or action made by a public body. In other words, judicial reviews are a challenge to the way in which a decision has been made, rather than the rights and wrongs of the conclusion reached.)
g) The leader of Benwick & Chatteris Speedwatch gave a brief update of their campaign.
One vehicle going at speed the detector could not register the speed.
h) Mr Bernard Gray-Esson asked for updates on a question he raised several months ago regarding the ‘issues and concerns’ around Kings Delph Layby.
5/ Other items for discussion
a) Must Farm – meeting held last Wednesday – final proposal for ‘Heritage Centre’
b) Neighbourhood Plan – Poor response by councillors giving input to the proposals for the Draft Policies – on-going.
c) Planning permission for the ‘New’ Council Offices – (Old Police Station) – submitted to FDC
d) Whittlesea Station Lighting – Utter confusion – who owns what and where is ongoing for-ever – now the latest is the ‘temporary’ LED lighting could be installed – which was originally proposed 4+ years ago.
e) Syrian Refugees – No updates.
f) Whittlesey Master Plan – now being rebranded to – ‘Growing Fenland’ under the combined authority.
g) Kings Dyke – Bridge – No update.
Date of next meeting Wednesday 11th July 2018
e&oe Roy Gerstner.
The issues with ‘Fenland District Councils’ contractors is nothing new, almost (except last year) every year since it has been contracted out – there has been issues and complaints.
One dimwit councillor blames it on the grass growing fast because of the weather – Hello Mr councillor – rain and sun makes everything grow – or didn’t you know.
All that most residents want is a reasonable job done – surely that’s not asking too much for our fairly high rates we pay.
The excuse that equipment has been stolen (7 times so far this year) and a similar number of times last year does not make an excuse it makes one wonder ‘who’ knows where the equipment is stored and that’s not much of a secret
‘If’ the guys doing the job – just spent 1 or 2 minutes longer (not asking 5 or 10 minutes) the whole job would look tidier, cleaner and smarter to everyone’s satisfaction.
We used to have a saying That if a jobs worth doing – then do it right.
Again I have to ask, since FDC didn’t come clean on this issue very quickly when the local press got hold of the issues – that time our councillors asked some serious questions of the managers and directors in charge of Parks and Open Spaces.
Read MP Barclays story Click Here – Cambs Times
Want a Job – Digging holes in roads in the UK will give you Full time continuous employment – always said so.
How many ‘more’ days are ‘we’ to endure the ‘moving’ hole at Kings Dyke.
If motorist are not already frustrated by the Railway Crossing – we have traffic backed up for many days due to the ‘moving hole’
I dare say someone will give us some excuse….
Want to have an influence of what could be brought to our library….
In the early hours of this morning, there was an attempt burglary on Coates road, Eastrea.
Victim believes their windows were damaged with a crowbar possibly around 4am as that’s when the victims dogs started barking.
Boarded up front door of AA Computers who suffered a break-in over the week-end.
Anyone with information should call the Police on 101
Today saw boarding going up around the ‘Brick Layers Arms’ ready for re-development.
40+ Flats and Parking Spaces.
The majority of the bricks are being kept for re-cycling as are the roof tiles.
Development by Multi-Agency Group of a Care Home and Retirement Complex at the LarkFleet development on Eastrea Road saw the initial start today.
Car Park closing times at the Manor Field –
Manor Centre.
Note the closing times at the Week-ends.
Gates Closed 5:30 pm
Air Ambulance circling over Whittlesey for 30+ minutes before landing in the wheat field on Ramsey Road – No the Helicopter did not make the marks in the field
Major police attendance to an incident near Bank Close.
At the Whittlesea Society meeting this evening (Well attended)
Donna Martin gave a very interesting account of the Soham Rail Disaster of 1944
Free entry, free parking and lots of free things to take part in – and on a nice sunny weekend.
The Park Farm Annual weekend has just finished and local Whittlesey Mud Walls Group, put on a very good display of the history and making of the Mud Walls including a miniature version.
Click on pictures to enlarge
Between 18:30 & 19:30 on Tuesday 5th June 2018 a distraction burglary occurred on Victory Avenue. An elderly female was distracted by a male at her front door saying her guttering was leaking, upon returning to her property she realised money and belongings had been taken. If anyone has any information please get in contact.
Please could safety prevention advice be passed to potential vulnerable victims in your areas.
For advice and more information visit our very good website Whittlesey NHW
There will be less posting activity for the next few weeks, as I have my very nice relations whom I have known for more than 40 years visiting us from Malaysia.
There will be some updates perhaps on a weekly basis – shall see how good internet connections are……
