Cllr Roy Gerstner – Community Activist

At the Fenland Enterprise Business Awards held Friday – congratulations to Whittlesey Businesses, it has been a while since Whittlesey was even represented and a big thanks to the Whittlesey Business Forum which is doing a great job in promoting both our businesses and town in and around Fenland.
Apprentice of the Year
Roxanne Bradley

Retailer of the Year
Whittlesey Travel

Commercial Business Person
A & M Bacon Ltd

Finalists included:
Whittlesey & District Business Forum
Lawgistics Ltd
Hugh Crane Engineering

Well done – Whittlesey

©Logos’

So I’ve now had plenty of ‘Cake’ which believe it or not I do not normally have – 3 excellent events so far this week in aid of ‘Macmillan’® – After another couple of hours of Litterpicking we set off for Eastrea where Sue Taylor had an excellent event at her house.
What a ‘pity’ that Fenland District Council – Chair – has this year not supported the event – this has normally been a very well supported and attended event which raised a good amount for the worthy charity – Did I hear correctly that this will be addressed next year!

Whilst out I found the usual ‘personal’ shopping trolley – this belonging to the Co-Op – which I will inform them about. Some more ‘Rubbish/Tipped’ near Pinewood Close.
Yes Yes Yes – at long last I saw the ISS Group (Fenland Contractors) cutting back hedging off Bassenally Road – Good job the boss wasn’t there! – One guy with a Petrol Hedge Cutter with NO safety equipment what-so-ever? – Overtime on a Saturday!!!!
I/we where I live have been waiting for 4 months for them to arrive to cut back our ‘Rubbish’ on our frontage – maybe – well just maybe –

Click on Pictures to enlarge.

I was the only member of the public attending!
There was a number of developer agents giving input to applications.
During the open public forum, I spoke on the subject of Developers not delivering on obtaining planning permission – many are ‘Land Banking’ – possibly waiting for better market conditions….however as we have seen with ‘Sainsburys/Bricklayers/St Marys
All have got cold feet sometime afterwards.

The largest development ‘still waiting’ is that of Taylor Wimpy project along Eastrea Road – One fact that came out was the expected S106 contribution – in this case towards education to Cambs CC. The proposed 169 properties would have to contribute some £2 Million – that equates to approx. £11,834 per property.
Another ‘issue’ being that some of the land would require ‘Pile Driving’
When Mr Struan Power was questioned about the mix of properties and especially those adjoining the Bellmans estate being bungalows, he was sympathetic but none committal.
The drawing he supplied was that of an outline plan and not in the public domain although I did see the drawing.
Whittlesey now waits again for full planning permission to be put in.
You can visit their website (Whittlesey) Click Here

Remember Whittlesey Town Council are consultees only on all planning applications within the area – the final decisions are made by FDC – Planning Committee on which there are some Whittlesey Councillors. 

Everyone is welcome to join Sue-B-T at her home 79 Wype Road Eastrea PE7 2AZ

From 10:00 to 13:00 tomorrow Saturday
24th September….

No smiling faces to photograph here! – No one happy in respect of our Police Station scheduled to close in October….. We’ve made our representations and like the ‘Brown Bin’
issue – NO ONE IS LISTENING…. Consultation near nil, Council noise near nil – so what to do….
We will carry on the best we can and we did help an elderly resident who had been ‘sold’ some suspect equipment and signed an equally suspect agreement for on-going payments of £100 a time – today resolved with her bank – a good result.
Only 1 new member through which again is somewhat discouraging – again we can only promote the best way we can…..

      
To find a great deal of information of what is happening in/around Whittlesey – Crime – Law & Order visit Whittlesey NHW

A very good turn out this morning at the Manor Leisure Centre – lots of Cake & Coffee….

Fly Tipping today (21st) Found & Reported – Guildenburgh area

Luckily for ‘us’ this latest ‘dumping’ was near ‘Horsey Toll’ and to be fair with P’Boro City Council, someone had removed it within a day or so….But I am hearing again that ‘we’ in Whittlesey are still getting our fair share of ‘illegal’ dumping.
FDC have an excellent Rapid Response team working over the whole area – If they are informed where the ‘dumping’ is – they will normally go and remove it – there are exceptions – that being on private land – the landowner is responsible for its removal.
There was an excellent article on the BBC Website a couple of days ago about ‘Fly-Tipping’

Click Here for BBC Story

There is now an out of sync Planning Meeting of Whittlesey Town Council scheduled for
Friday 23rd September at 14:00 (WTC Grosvenor Road)
On the agenda is a presentation from Taylor Wimpy on land to the South of Eastrea Road Whittlesey – this land has for many years had various owners with planning permission, then of course, Tesco’s ® wanted to build there and now we have the most recent applicants, as far as I am aware and I maybe wrong, but I thought they had planning permission for this land…. (It has been ‘Land Banked’ for development for some considerable time).
Then another interesting application is that of F/YR16/0746/O along Coates Road – another piece of ‘Green Field’ wanted to be built on – plus with the proposed 16 houses, access onto an already busy A605?
I am hoping to attend……
 
Click on Picture to enlarge.

For more information go to FDC/HCRP Web page Click Here
Manea & Whittlesea Railway Stations Feasibility Study Report 2015 Click Here

As advertised – There was at tonights meeting an exceptionally good turn out of Whittlesey Councillors, but no so the Whittlesey Public – just myself and Andrew O.
Yes you read correctly just 2 members of the Public from Whittlesey…..

Lead Councillor Mrs K Mayor along with Cllrs Mason, Dorling, Laws and Wicks.

As with previous meetings, Cambs, FDC & Wisbech Cllr Simon King brought the meeting up to date – unfortunately, there had not been a great deal of progress since last year.
Abillio have won the franchise to run trains in our area. They are committed to spending a great deal of money on Rolling Stock, however the ‘minor’ frustrations ‘we’ have brought up are yet to be addressed, these include better lighting on the approach/departure of Whittlesey Station and that of the ‘Locked Gate’ and the vast amount of ‘bracken’

There was a very impressive display of what the HRCP ‘Wish List’ would look like, but as Cllr King informed the group – they are the ‘partnership’  they can not dictate to the Franchisee.
Some Whittlesey Councillors questioned Cllr King on several issues, the main one being – Housing and increase in population without a coherent infrastructure plan in place.
The importance of the ‘Neighbourhood Plan’ being part of future transport planning.
Cllr King and the HRCP will be meeting with Abillio in early October (Not a public meeting) and will hope to report back at the next scheduled partnership meeting –
(March 2017)
Unfortunately I came away feeling again a bit deflated – with the lack of any great progress.
Now that Abillio have their franchise and are supposedly investing a vast amount of money in Rolling Stock – it would have been nice to hear that a ‘little bit’ was coming Whittlesey way – as I’ve quoted before it’s called the ‘Whittlesey Effect’ –

The ‘Travellers’ who had parked up in FDC’s Car Park along Syers Lane – have gone
(20:00 tonight) – They have left a small amount of rubbish and about 7 bags – which in the big scheme isn’t too bad.