Report of District Councillors Carla Hofman and John Williams
to Parish Councils for April 2023
This report contains factual information which we hop will be of use and of interest to the parish council and to the wider community of the parish. For queries, please email us at cllr.williamsjg@scambs.gov.uk or cllr.hofman@scambs.gov.uk
Changes to bin collections
Residents of South Cambridgeshire and Cambridge City are being reminded that their bin collections will be later than usual following the Easter, early May, and King’s coronation bank holidays. Please refer to the council website or the recently delivered South Cambs magazine for details.
The 2023 Zero Carbon Communities Fund
The popular Zero Carbon Communities grant scheme has opened for 2023 to encourage exciting community projects that reduce carbon emissions and engage local people about climate change.
From Monday April 3 until the closing date of Friday June 2 community groups in the district are invited to bid for a share of £125,000.
Previous projects have included cooking classes that reduce food waste, tree planting, a community e-bike rental scheme, solar panels for village halls and a men’s mental health and wellbeing project that runs a mobile library for gardening equipment and tool hire.
The Zero Carbon Communities grants are part of the Council’s vision to help the district become net zero carbon by 2050, to create a cleaner and greener future for local people.
It’s the fifth round of grants since they were established in May 2019. Since then, more than £400,000 has been allocated to more than 60 different grass roots projects.
Breastfeeding is welcome here
A successful campaign by South Cambridgeshire District Council called #FreeToFeedCP has seen more than 40 venues sign up, who are all displaying stickers and posters to show they are supportive of families who breastfeed and pump.
Pubs, cafes, restaurants, Shepreth Wildlife Park, Govia Thameslink railway, community centres, libraries and GP surgeries are among settings that have taken the #FreeToFeedCP pledge since the campaign launched last summer.
For families who appreciate being in a supportive breastfeeding environment, it could mean the difference between enjoying a day out or staying home because they feel too self-conscious.
#FreeToFeedCP is a pioneering project by South Cambridgeshire District Council with the NHS Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Infant Feeding Team (Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Healthy Child Programme) and ‘Start for Life’ partnership to support venues across the district to become more welcoming to families who breastfeed and/or pump in public.
£1.7 million for Council house improvements
South Cambridgeshire District Council has successfully bid for £1.7 million Government funding, to continue work to decarbonise Council homes.
This will be added to the projects the Council has already started to improve the fabric of its Council homes. It will also support other measures being put in place to help the Council achieve its own and the Government’s Net Zero targets.
The money is coming from the Government’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund. The Fund is designed to upgrade a significant amount of the social housing stock across the country, that is currently below Energy Performance Certificate C, up to that standard.
The District Council owns and maintains around 5,600 Council homes in South Cambridgeshire. The new funding will go towards energy efficiency upgrades within these homes.
Energy saving measures such as exterior wall insulation, cavity wall insulation, loft insulation, new windows and doors, draft proofing measures, as well as heat pumps and solar panel installation can be provided with the funding. These measures could save tenants between £220 and £400 a year on energy bills.
£290,000 to support Local Plan consultation
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities has awarded Greater Cambridge Shared Planning £290,000 of funding to improve feedback processes for its emerging Local Plan. Greater Cambridge Shared Planning (GCSP) is a partnership between South Cambridgeshire District and Cambridge City Councils.
The funding seeks to build upon the earlier work in producing a “digital” Local Plan by speeding up the processing and the review of the thousands of comments made by communities and developers through the process. This will shorten the time between people making comments and Councillors and communities being able to see who has said what about the emerging plan.
At a time when the government is seeking to reform the local plan process, to shorten the time taken to prepare and adopt such plans, finding more effective ways of capturing and feeding back the outcomes of the consultation will allow officers to focus on and engage with the critical challenges around plan making in Greater Cambridge – such as managing further development within the environmental constraints of the area.
Through this funding, GCSP intends to trial digital planning initiatives and improvements to back-office processes, aiming to see any improvements potentially rolled out to other planning authorities nationwide.
As GCSP seeks to further improve public participation in plan-making and move towards a more digital approach to make it more convenient and straightforward for people to engage in plan-making, finding ways to capture and share views and comments, often received in a range of formats, has become more challenging.
Comments are now received through multiple channels, including the digital consultation platform, online surveys, emails and letters. It can take considerable officer resources and time to process and collate the submissions once received into a consistent format ready to be published on the GCSP website.
Carla and John
Report of District Councillor – Graham Cone
Bin collections change due to easter Bank Holidays
As usual the bin collections will be changing due to the easter Bank holidays. Please check the website so you know when to put your bin out. Below, I have copied a table with the usual collections and the revised collections.
| Usual collection dates | Revised collection dates |
| Good Friday 7 April | Tuesday 11 April |
| Easter Monday 10 April | Wednesday 12 April |
| Tuesday 11 April | Thursday 13 April |
| Wednesday 12 April | Friday 14 April |
| Thursday 13 April | Saturday 15 April |
| Friday 14 April | Monday 17 April |
| Monday 17 April | Tuesday 18 April |
| Tuesday 18 April | Wednesday 19 April |
| Wednesday 19 April | Thursday 20 April |
| Thursday 20 April | Friday 21 April |
| Friday 21 April | Saturday 22 April |
| Monday 24 April to Friday 28 April: Usual collections | Monday 24 April to Friday 28 April: Usual collections |
| Bank Holiday Monday 1 May | Tuesday 2 May |
| Tuesday 2 May | Wednesday 3 May |
| Wednesday 3 May | Thursday 4 May |
| Thursday 4 May | Friday 5 May |
| Friday 5 May | Saturday 6 May |
| Bank Holiday Monday 8 May | Tuesday 9 May |
| Tuesday 9 May | Wednesday 10 May |
| Wednesday 10 May | Thursday 11 May |
| Thursday 11 May | Friday 12 May |
| Friday 12 May | Saturday 13 May |
| Monday 15 May | Back to normal |
Fulbourn Neighbourhood Plan
I am really pleased to see that the Fulbourn Neighbourhood Plan has been endorsed by residents at the recent referendum. This Neighbourhood Plan has involved a huge amount of work from resident groups, the Parish Council and local District and County Councillors working together to put forward a plan that best represents what residents want for Fulbourn going forward. It is my view that this Neighbourhood Plan will protect the character of Fulbourn for many years to come. It has been nice to see residents from all different backgrounds and community groups come together to contribute to the Neighbourhood Plan.
Motion for referendum to take place before any form of congestion charge taking place
I was pleased to support the following motion put forward by Cllr Heather Williams. There is a precedent for this in other cities, the petition for a referendum has reached over 15,000 residents, people feel that they were not made aware that congestion charging was on the table at the last local elections. There was a robust debate on this in the chamber at SCDC and this motion was voted down by the Liberal democrat group who have a clear majority. I have copied the motion from the agenda papers below:
Standing in the name of Councillor Heather Williams
This council notes the outcome of the County Councils vote on Tuesday 21st March 2023 in regard to a referendum on Congestion Charging. While disappointed by the outcome it does not alter our view that there still should indeed be a referendum. This council will write to the Leader of Cambridgeshire County Council expressing this Council’s support for a referendum on the introduction of a “sustainable travel charge” otherwise known as the “Cambridge Congestion Charge”.
Thirty new electric buses
The zero-emission, double decker buses, which are due to come into service in May 2023, will see the Cambridge Park and Ride network and Citi 2 service become fully electrified and carbon-free.
All 30 buses will be in operation in May 2023, signifying a major milestone in the commitment to a rolling bus replacement programme, to replace 30 vehicles a year across the Combined Authority area. There is an ambition to convert the entire bus fleet from diesel buses to zero emission vehicles within the region by 2030 to hit carbon emission targets and help tackle climate change.
The announcement represents a significant investment in green travel for the region, with the new vehicles costing close to £500,000 each. The new fleet is being funded by the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority, Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP), Department for Transport and Stagecoach East.
The new buses will take Stagecoach East’s total zero-emission fleet up to 32, joining their current two electric vehicles which have been in service since February 2020 as part of a jointly funded partnership with the Greater Cambridge Partnership.
Since their launch three years ago, the two ULEB (Ultra Low Emission Buses) vehicles have covered over 124,000 miles between them, saving over 215 tonnes of CO2 and have carried over 200,000 passengers in 2022 alone.
My question to the Leader of the Council on a 4-day working week.
I asked the following question at Full Council on the 4-day working week:
Will the Leader commit to whether or not the administration will be consulting residents on their plans for a four-day week at any point?
I have a number of concerns about the 4-day working week trial as listed below:
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- It is very hard to go back once staff get used to only working a 4-day working week whilst getting paid for 5-days.
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- If staff are truly doing the same workload as they would have been doing over the 5-days I worry about the pressure that this puts on staff.
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- I worry about the effect this will have on residents in terms of service delivery and Councillors in terms of getting hold of officers.
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- I would have liked to have seen frontline staff (bin collectors, street cleaners) etc have been the first part of the trial rather than the second part.
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- I question if it is the right thing to do to give the whole of the senior management team (on six-figure salaries) a day off a week.
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- I worry how fairly this trial will be judged and monitored and whether it will really get to grips on the true impact on service delivery as opposed to just staff feedback.
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- I know there has been some success in the private sector where businesses have trialled this but that is slightly different in that this is council taxpayers’ money.
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- I do accept that the 4-day working week will have some positive affect on recruitment (although this remains to be seen).
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- I am all in favour of staff working more efficiently and cutting out unnecessary meetings, but this could be done over a 5-day week.
This question was answered by the Deputy Leader of the Council who has given reassurance that residents will have input.
Thank you for taking the time to read my report; if you have any questions or want to discuss any of the issues raised email me on graham.cone@councillor.online or ring 07595 361 285 (please leave a voicemail if I am unavailable) Councillor Graham Cone