Real Time Information is the technical term for the lighted panels at bus stops that tell you how long your bus will take to arrive. Quite handy when you are trying to work out whether to get the bus that doesn’t take you quite where you want to go, or wait for the next direct one; or even to decide whether or not you’d be quicker just walking.

We’ve been asked for views on which of the following stops benefit, or would benefit most from RTI displays. If you use buses from these stops, please give us your views:

• Mowbray Road opposite Mander Way (inbound)
• Mowbray Road near Mander Way (outbound)
• Mowbray Road near Glebe Road (inbound)
• Mowbray Road opposite Glebe Road (outbound)
• Mowbray Road near Holbrook Road (inbound)
• Mowbray Road opposite Holbrook Road (outbound)
• Wulfstan Way opposite no 13 (outbound)
• Wulfstan Way outside no 13 (inbound)
• Wulfstan Way opposite Queen Edith Chapel (outbound)
• Wulfstan Way outside Queen Edith Chapel (inbound)

transport icons

Transport and traffic are two of the hottest topics of debate in Cambridge. So I know there are lots of ideas for improving transport. Now it looks as though we may be able to put some of them into practice.

By law (Town & Country Planning Act 1990), councils may require money from developers to offset the impact of their developments. As this is laid out in Section 106 of the Act, the contribution is dubbed ‘Section 106 money’ by councillors. I do not know what the developers call it.

Cambridgeshire County Council is asking us for our ideas on how this money should be spent in the south of Cambridge. Projects should ‘mitigate the effect of the additional transport-related movements from new development’. The officers have come up with some proposals already:

• steps and cycle channels from the Hills Road Bridge to the Guided Busway cycle route
• a clean-up of signage on the ring road

They are asking us for further suggestions, and we shall be discussing proposals at the next South Area Committee on 5th March (Cherry Hinton Village Centre).

So please let me have your brilliant ideas – come to the meeting too, if you can, as it is open to everyone. I shall post an agenda on this site nearer the time, so you can see where the discussion on transport plans is. If you’d like to join in the discussion, why not post a comment here?

OK, I’ll get things started:

My idea is signage and low-level lighting on the Guided Bus cycleway.

What’s yours?

Why are we waiting?

Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrats have launched a petition to reverse the Tories’ 100 per cent cuts to rural bus services.

The petition, started by county councillor Susan van der Ven, “Stopping the cuts to bus services in Cambridgeshire” reads:

“We the people of Cambridgeshire are opposed to the Conservative County Council’s decision to scrap 100% of funding for subsidised buses, which led to an application for Judicial Review.

“Socially necessary bus services are vital to the whole of Cambridgeshire, especially for young people who need to access to centres of employment, those with mobility issues who wish to access the wider community and its resources, and for tackling the root problem of ‘rural isolation’.

“We also believe that the “Cambridgeshire Future Transport” project, to which half of bus funding has been transferred, is fundamentally flawed and not capable of delivering an adequate replacement for the existing public transport network, never mind the improved system that has been promised.

“We call on the Conservative administration to reinstate 100% of the cuts to bus funding and to conduct a systematic view of Cambridgeshire residents’ transport needs before making any changes to it.”

The petition can be found here: http://epetition.cambridgeshire.public-i.tv/epetition_core/view/Buses

After a lovely mild autumn, it is now  feeling appropriately wintry for December!

Which calls to mind an idea first put to me last summer when the temperature was a balmy 82 degrees. It is a creative scheme to help the vulnerable elderly.

The people who came up with it are the creative folk at Cambridgeshire Community Foundation (CCF), a charity that matches grant givers to groups or individuals in need of funds.

Here’s how it works:

Most people over 60 receive a Winter Fuel Payment of between £100-300. It’s what is called a universal state benefit, so everyone eligible for a pension gets it. I know it is much appreciated by many older people, who need the extra money to heat their homes properly, yet I hear some people say they are comfortably off and can manage perfectly well without state benefits.

Here is an answer for them. If they prefer to give the money to help someone less fortunate, they can donate their Winter Fuel Payments to the CCF’s Winter Fuel Fund. The Fund will go to charitable projects for older people – for example, it might pay for an old lady to go and have lunch at a day centre one day a week, or for an outing. People can register their interest on line at http://www.cambscf.org.uk/the-winter-fuel-fund.html; or email Sam Weller at sam@cambscf.org.uk.

Hills Road Sixth Form College recently applied for planning permission to demolish their existing sports pavilion on Sedley Taylor Road and build a new one. The application was considered at the recent South Area meeting on 7th November.

Many residents of Sedley Taylor Road have concerns about parking and access to the existing sports pavilion and playing fields, and fear that the new pavilion could increase these difficulties. There has been a well supported petition, and residents met the College before the application to express their concerns. So parking and traffic were very much in councillors’ minds at the meeting, and although the application was approved, one of the conditions was that the College submit a travel plan including measures to discourage private motor vehicles and to encourage other means of transport. The travel plan has now been received. Here it is: HRSFCtravelplan

I have asked that it come back to the Area Meeting for consideration.The next meeting is on 9^th January, at the Cherry Hinton Village Centre and begins at 7.30 p.m. The travel plan is the third item on the agenda.

18 years of dropped kerbs!

Could I have a dropped kerb on Blinco Grove, please?

That was the very first thing I was asked to do as a new councillor back in 1994 when I was first elected. The request came from a lady who used a wheelchair and needed a dropped kerb near her home, (‘mobility crossing’) in order to cross the road. I am sorry to say that I had a forest of bureaucracy to fight through before we got the dropped kerb. Nevertheless, it is a request that comes up time and time again.

I was pleased to help, but it was only when I tried to cross East Road wheeling a friend’s toddler in a pushchair that it really came home to me how difficult it is to do a simple thing like crossing the road if the varying levels of kerb and road mean your wheels don’t work. At the time, I drew a deep breath and heaved up the pushchair  – and thought about how much harder this would be for someone in a wheelchair.

Over the years I’ve been a councillor there have been many new dropped kerbs in Queen Edith’s. Although the public highways are really the responsibility of the County Council, the City Council has funded many dropped kerbs through its environmental improvements programmes. I think the most recent one round here is on Hills Road, to allow easier access from the hospital to Nightingale Avenue.

I am pleased to see that the City Council is running a mobility survey asking where people would most like to see new dropped kerbs in the city centre. You have until Friday to comment: go to http://www.cambridge.gov.uk/ccm/content/consultations/mobility-survey.en. If you have ideas for new ones in Queen Edith’s, please tell me or one of the other ward councillors.

Schools, churches, councils, the police and fire service are coming together next Tuesday to celebrate Christmas outside the Wulfstan Way shops in Queen Edith’s.

There will be children’s craft activities (under 5s) from 5.30, then the Mayor of Cambridge, Cllr Ian Nimmo-Smith, will switch on the Christmas lights at 6 p.m. Next comes a community carol-singing, with special performances by the choirs of St James’s, St John’s and the Queen Edith Primary School.

It is hoped Father Christmas will come to join the fun.

See you there. Click here to download a programme.WWXmas2011

The Government is conducting a review of parliamentary constituency boundaries, to cut down the number of MPs and even up the number of people in each parliamentary constituency, ie the number who elect each MP. The Boundary Commission is responsible for carrying out the review and they are holding a hearing at the Gonville Hotel in Cambridge now (10th-11th November)

As readers of the Queen Edith’s Focus and this website will know (Queen Edith’s is in Cambridge!), I am disappointed that they are not taking this opportunity to restore Queen Edith’s to its rightful place as part of the Cambridge City constituency, and I have made a submission to the Boundary Commission, which I reproduce at the end of this post.

You can comment in person at the Gonville Hotel Cambridge hearing today, or on line at the Boundary Commission’s website before 5th December.

(more…)

At the South Cambridge Area meeting this week (7th November), police agreed two new priorities:

• attending the Morley and Queen Edith’s Primary Schools and Homerton Children’s Centre to crack down on illegal or dangerous driving and parking
• cycle theft in Trumpington, as there has been a big increase in the last few months, mainly in Hills Road

They will continue with these objectives from the last quarter, slightly adapted to take account of offenders moving from one area to another:

• moped misuse in Queen Edith’s and Cherry Hinton
• anti-social behaviour and drug misuse in Cherry Hinton

Thanks to Mrs Ann Winter from Queen Edith’s, who addressed the meeting about the problems experienced with bad driving and parking in Godwin Way (the road where Queen Edith’s Primary School is). The petition for yellow lines on the Godwin Way/ Close corner now has nearly 50 signatures: do sign it if you haven’t already. Thanks to Layla Vandenbergh, who has put it on line on the County Council’s website: http://epetition.cambridgeshire.public-i.tv/epetition_core/view/GodwinParking. I have paper copies to sign if anyone would like one.