Sarah Brown

This is the speech I just gave to Council on Cllrs Bick and Ward’s A14 motion.

Madam Mayor, I want to speak to the safety issues mentioned in part (a). I am not against safety improvements to the A14. I am not against work which will improve its throughput as well as its safety.

Madam Mayor, the problem I have is with us being asked to financially support a piece of large and expensive infrastructure when much cheaper things which can address some of the safety and capacity issues, which have been shown to work elsewhere in the county, and in other countries, have not been tried.

I had the misfortune of driving round the M25 near Heathrow last week, which, and this may come as a surprise to the members of the Campaign for Real Asphalt opposite, was very congested despite being 12 lanes wide. As a result, the variable speed limit system was in force. It had dropped the speed limit to 40mph and while this wasn’t perfect, it did have the effect of facilitating a throughput of traffic which would have ground the road to a halt if everyone was trying to accelerate at 70mph.

I’m also familiar with the Italian Autostrade from Bolzano up to the Brenner Pass. This is a road which, due to space constraints imposed by mountains on either side, is limited to 2 lanes in each direction. It’s substantially longer than the A14 within Cambridgeshire, and like the A14 it carries a very high number of heavy goods vehicles as well as a lots of private traffic, which is trying to go faster. The road is extremely twisty and has dreadful sight lines for a motorway. It is, in my experience, a much more challenging problem than the A14.

The Italian government has taken the simple and inexpensive step of forbidding HGVs from the overtaking lane. This is used on roads elsewhere in the UK. Indeed, it’s also used on the A14 much further west.

Madam Mayor, before jumping up and down and demanding money this authority would struggle to afford to fund the Nick Clarke Memorial Turnpike, I wonder why the leader of the County Council has not pressed for considerably less expensive measures first. Madam Mayor, I will admit that they might not work, but if the last few decades have taught us anything about road building it’s that trying to build our way out of congestion doesn’t work, is harmful to public transport, and is harmful to the environment.

This is the speech I just gave in council on the “Bedroom Tax” motion raised by Cllrs Price and Birtles:

Madam Mayor, I’m not going to try and score any political points. I just want to state that I regret the situation where people who are already struggling to make ends meet are faced with more desperate worry about their financial situation. I doubt there are many on either side of the chamber who do not have serious concerns about the difficulties faced by many of our tenants.

We had a very productive meeting of Strategy and Resources last week where there was a spirit of genuine cooperation in trying to make our discretionary payments work to minimise hardship faced by people. I welcome the attempts by our MP to highlight the iniquity of penalising people for not moving before they have been offered anywhere else to live.

This authority does not have the legal powers, nor the financial resources to completely reverse or mitigate what is happening, but we are doing what we can, and I hope members on both sides of this chamber will continue to work constructively towards doing what we hope will work to help people, regardless of whether it suits our party political aims or not.

Planning and tree works applications received between the 4th and 17th of March for Petersfield ward are as follows:

If you wish to find out more, comment on any of these applications or track their progress, please visit the City Council online planning monitoring service.

Lib Dem Councillor Sarah Brown today called for the introduction of Bylaws governing public use of Cherry Hinton Chalk Pits Nature Reserve to be deferred, pending further review.

Speaking at a meeting of the City Council’s Community Services Scrutiny Committee, Sarah expressed concern over how the proposed bylaws would restrict activities such as picking berries, which grow abundantly in the chalk pits and taking photographs of wildlife for publishing on social media sites or uploading to cloud services.

“A number of concerns were expressed by councillors over the extent of some of the proposed restrictions. We were told they were drawn from a standard set, but the committee members kept coming up with scenarios where people engaging in perfectly reasonable activities could be penalised”, said Sarah.

“In the event, I felt I had to ask for the introduction of bylaws to be delayed so we can look further at the possible unintended consequences. Fortunately most other committee members agreed.”

Anyone wishing to comment on the proposed bylaws is invited to contact Sarah. They can be found on the City Council’s website

Planning and tree works applications received between the 11th and 24th of February for Petersfield ward are as follows:

If you wish to find out more, comment on any of these applications or track their progress, please visit the City Council online planning monitoring service.

Planning and tree works applications received for the week between the 4th and 10th of February for Petersfield ward are as follows:

If you wish to find out more, comment on any of these applications or track their progress, please visit the City Council online planning monitoring service.

Planning and tree works applications received for the 2 weeks between the 14th and 27th of January for Petersfield ward are as follows:

If you wish to find out more, comment on any of these applications or track their progress, please visit the City Council online planning monitoring service.

The adverse weather conditions have led to some bin collections being missed this week, and is expected to do so tomorrow as well. The City Council will continue to work on catching up any outstanding collections from Monday and Tuesday, as well as carrying out Wednesday’s collections, where possible.

If your bin doesn’t get emptied on collection day, the Council is advising that you take it back in and put it out again on the following days until it is emptied. Lorries will revisit outstanding areas on a daily basis to try to empty them.

Planning and tree works applications received for the 2 weeks between the 31st of December and the 6th of January for Petersfield ward are as follows:

If you wish to find out more, comment on any of these applications or track their progress, please visit the City Council online planning monitoring service.

Tonight’s East Area Committee, where we will be discussing the East Area Capital Grants Programme (including possible renovation of the Cherry Trees Centre) and information about Dog Control Orders will be on display, is not at its usual venue.

Instead, the committee will start, at the usual time of 7pm, at the Dublin Suite in Cambridge United Football Ground.

The Dublin Suite is located at the back of C.U.F.C. accessible down the side road near the pedestrian crossing. Access may not be possible via the C.U.F.C. main building.

Anyone wishing to attend regarding the planning application at 5 Montreal Road (12/1203/FUL) should note that it has been withdrawn and will not be discussed tonight.