Cllr Roy Gerstner – Community Activist

Tomorrow (Thursday) County Council elections and that for Mayor of the combined authority take place – for those who vote by going to their polling station can do so.

A map of both Whittlesey North & Whittlesey South divisions can be found on FDC’s website Click Here

In the Whittlesey South division there are some 8582 voters as of 17/02/17 of which 1312 are registered as Postal Voters.

The official counting of the Fenland results will take place in Wisbech of Friday 05th May.

The Live Results of the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority Mayor will be posted as they become available by going to Website Live as it happens

Although most of us probably do not use the Dartford Crossing that often – Highways England have sent a survey out.

We are keen to better understand travel behaviours and journey patterns across the existing Dartford Crossing. This data will be a valuable supplement to the existing journey information that we hold and help inform our ongoing traffic modelling work.

The survey takes just 5 minutes to complete and will be open until 16 May 2017. Please click here to take part: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/2CFRKNV.

Your input is very important to us. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Go to bottom of Page 1 on the left hand side, you will see ‘arrows’ click on to get Page 2

Further to my report from previous council meetings, I see passing by WTC’s website that a page ‘Council Communications’ has arrived. This informs that WTC are seeking to apply for a loan for the purchase of new premises.
Unfortunately the consultation date has now passed (28th April) however the information and reasoning is there – Go to Town Council Website and click on link ‘Council Communications’

 
Late yesterday (Sunday) a rather crumpled leaflet came through my door and after straitening out had a read – The labour candidate although a bit late in the day delivering this leaflet as most/many postal voters would have already voted?
At least Mr Kevin Price has given 5 ways to contact him – including a phone number and e-mail address.

Good to see our NisaLocal reopened – work still in progress and from the signage will be open tomorrow – Bank Holiday Monday.
All looking good and modern.
Once the Post Office re-opens – will be for extended hours.

Been a good week on my ‘therapeutic’ LitterPicking campaign ‘only collected 5 bags worth of Rubbish this week! – Still I wasn’t on my own there are several of us that go out regularly beyond organised events.

I see that ‘we’ have had some investment put into our Railway Station – everything has been nicely re-painted Spick & Span except the low life who left all their rubbish in the shelter, the bin being only a few metres away – never mind I cleared it up – no problem. A nice newish looking cycle rack and a platform that was swept and clean.

By the time I returned into town, another like minded LitterPicker had added another bag to my #2 Bag – Notice of course that our 3 Public Toilets are ‘still’ unusable/closed/out of action. However ‘someone’ has at least made a sort of professional sign to inform us that the toilets are out of use – rather than the hand written scribble that was there for a number of weeks – so how long is it now – not quite sure but at least 5 if not 6 weeks out of order – ‘still waiting for parts’ – this is becoming an embarrassment to our town.
I will asking again this week as to where the parts are and when they expect to arrive.

I thought I would go at 10am to see/speak with Mayor Candidate James Palmer – alas I like the ‘group conservatives’ who were also waiting were kept waiting? -so had a chat to several who were hanging about, I then cleared off carrying on my Litter Picking campaign and came back at around 11:00 when Mr Palmer turned up – I had my 5 minutes with him, his priority to me was to get more trains to stop at our dilapidated Railway Station (Yes he had his photo taken there). His (£££) funds to me were like a rubber band – everybody appears to be promised a bit – and he said he needed more than 4 years to ‘fix’ things – that I well believe.

A short while later the ‘group’ conservatives met up with Mr Palmer and they had a shortish gathering, he went off to meet the public.
I thought I would catch up and make contact with another candidate (County Council elections)
Ms Karen Alexander-Green (Green Party)
who corrected me in telling me that ‘they are contactable on Facebook™ / Twitter™ and via their website
https://fenland.greenparty.org.uk/ and if sending a message – is read several times a day.
Back into the town centre I had a chance meeting with old school friend Billy Wright (Morleys) – he has been having a more in depth soil surveys taken from his land at the Old Petrol Station on Whitmore Street/Peterborough Road.
I asked him what developments might be happening – and he said it was a ‘secret’? – Still hopefully one day the land will be sold and another eye-sore coming into Whittlesey will be cleared up.
Otherwise market traders said it was a quiet day.

The Cambs Times™ has a full article on the election candidates, how they obtain the information is that once candidates have been accepted, they (Cambs Times) writes to every candidate inviting them to send in (up to 300 words) their manifesto and a photo.
Most candidates if not publishing any other material find this the best avenue to promote themselves, however I see that there is one who couldn’t even be bothered to do this.

My thanks to David, who after delivering hundreds, if not thousands of his election leaflets was again today in Whittlesey, I invited David for a rest and coffee and some hours later he departed…..David is the only candidate who has freely given his contact details on his election material – so in reality is the only serious candidate who I can engage with.
We covered as vast array of issues that the County Council are responsible for as well as some very local issues that concern us here in Whittlesey (3 toilets still out of order awaiting spare parts!). Schools, Education, Policing, Roads & Highways (He has no further update in the Kings Dyke crossing at this time) and The Minor Injury Unit were just some of what we discussed.

He informed me James Palmer the Conservative candidate for Mayor will be in Whittlesey tomorrow – Friday – on the Market Place from 10:00 – want to ask questions – be there…

Jason Abblewhite (l) Police & Crime Commissioner.
James Palmer (r) Candidate for Mayor.

I’ve stuck my neck out several years ago in supporting Nick Clark the then leader of Cambs CC in his promoting of a ‘New’ crossing at Kings Dyke, alas I like Nick C, got the chop by the electorate, he tried UKIP and is now hoping to return to the Conservatives.
Many/Most think a magic wand can be waved – and behold a Bridge appears….now realise that this is a long drawn out, complex and financially demanding project.
I’ve tried contacting our would be ‘Councillors’ standing for election and still can not make any contact with them!
Dave Connor (Con) being the present County Councillor to update WTC at times on where the progress is going.
To see the ‘BIG PICTURE’ there is a vast amount of information and material on the Cambs CC website View It Here It contains many other reports.

It is my understanding that there are still on-going ‘issues’ of ‘Land Ownership’ – it is all very well some Council official stating this ‘is not a problem’ and that they have the option of a compulsory purchase order – why are they ‘CCC’ dragging their heals over this issue.
Surely they have given the obstinate landowner more than enough time for negotiating a mutual agreement or will we end up again with more delays.

The tendering process is out and I wrote some weeks ago that there were 6 interested companies.

I quote from the CCC Website:
A tender inviting companies to bid for this multi-million pound project will go out in March 2017. After a 10 week period, officers will evaluate the bids and then make an announcement when a contractor is chosen. The successful bidder will work with County Council officers to draw up detailed designs for the bridge and bypass prior to the start of works.

The Compulsory Purchase Orders necessary to buy the land needed for the scheme are also being prepared and these orders will go out soon. The Orders will advertise the County Council’s intentions to buy the land for the statutory notification period.

The debate last week on TV for the would be ‘Mayor’ of the combined authority touched on many subjects but the word ‘infrastructure’ was touched on several times.
It is not so long ago a local Whittlesey Town Councillor started using the word quite a lot, when I asked him what the definition of ‘infrastructure’ was – he couldn’t tell me – I then asked him whether he could spell the word infrastructure – and was met with silence.

A regular feature being spam/spoof e-mails, most of us are savvy and aware but even so we can all get caught out, especially  from companies we all use regularly.

Action Fraud has received several reports from victims who have been sent convincing looking emails claiming to be from Amazon. The spoofed emails from “service@amazon.co.uk” claim recipients have made an order online and mimic an automatic customer email notification.  The scam email claims recipients have ordered an expensive vintage chandelier. Other reported examples include: Bose stereos, iPhone’s and luxury watches.  The emails cleverly state that if recipients haven’t authorised the transaction they can click on the help centre link to receive a full refund. The link leads to an authentic-looking website, which asks victims to confirm their name, address, and bank card information. Amazon says that suspicious e-mails will often contain:

• Links to websites that look like Amazon.co.uk, but aren’t Amazon.co.uk.
• Attachments or prompts to install software on your computer.
• Typos or grammatical errors.
• Forged (or spoofed) e-mail addresses to make it look like the e-mail is coming from Amazon.co.uk.

Amazon will never ask for personal information to be supplied by e-mail. You can read more about identifying suspicious emails claiming to be from Amazon by visiting https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201489210

To report a fraud or cyber crime, call us on 0300 123 2040.

Visit Action Fraud Website

https://www.actionfraudalert.co.uk/

How about a good night out at Whittlesey Manor Bowls Club – Quiz Night – Friday 19th May 2017

Visit their website Click here

As I said yesterday – it takes a certain amount of ‘guts’ to put yourself in the public arena come election time, (and to make comments on blogs/websites) whether it be experienced politicians or novice hopefuls.
In Whittlesey South where I live and could vote if I so wished…!!!
With just over a week to go – lets have another look at Whittlesey South for the time being.

Our choice is somewhat limited unless you vote purely on Party Politics, Red, Blue, Green what-ever.
So far I have received extensive material from David Connor (Con), who has contacted me and we had a good conversation.
I have received extensive material from Graham Kitchen (LibDem) – so today I thought since he has made no contact with me (Why should he?) – I would try to contact him.
No luck – tried BT, Virgin, LinkedIn, Google and many more avenues….got an address but no phone or e-mail address….(Maybe someone can give it to me).
How serious can a candidate be if the electorate can not contact them.

Then we have Martin Lodziak (Lab) I did hear along the grapevine, that Labour were having both financial and distribution shortfalls, it is no cheap deal getting these lovely glossing pamphlets printed and having some very good friends help deliver them.
Doing some research on Martin (Again no direct contact details) I see he has being doing some worthwhile volunteering work in Ghana. Martins campaign HQ is from where he lives in Chatteris..

Lastly my other choice I could choose if I so wished would be Ms Karen Alexander who stands for the Green Party. I try to be ‘Green’ although the past governments persuaded me to buy a diesel car! which they now tell me is ultra-NitroNXo2 and should taxed to heaven and scrapped asap – anyhow Ms Alexander used to live in Coates but now lives in Whittlesey – well at least that’s one good point. Search again and I find NIL – Ziltch – Naga – Nothing… So there you have it.

Of course I can not really be serious – am I – people say well if I think it is a poor choice why didn’t I make a stand – and possibly add to the what some may consider another poor choice – NO – some of us that have been very active within our community and passionate about our (Whittlesey & Villages) area for well over 40 years – we few are the ones that can give the electorate a proper choice (Not based on National party Politics).
Many long serving Whittlesey Councillors share these passions and are very hard working,
my stance has been to give the electorate a ‘True Independent Choice’ – whether they want that or not is down to them – I have always accepted the democratic choice and that’s the platform I stand on.
Some of the above candidates are what is known as ‘Paper Candidates’ they are not serious
(prove me wrong).
Since I have made it known that I am NOT voting for any of the candidates (That would take away my ‘Independence’ – If I was to vote – there is only one serious candidate on the list….and I am sure you know who it is….and he is probably favourite to win – and yes if I was going to vote – I would vote for Him !!!!!