Press Coverage

It’s always handy to have your name in the paper at elections. I’m in the Cambs Times three times this week – only one of which is about elections; the Fenland campaign launch for the County elections. That launch was quite an interesting event, with John Elworthy from the Cambs Times asking us some quite challenging questions about delivery and, in particular, about the capital and revenue problems faced by the College of West Anglia. We have a very firm view about this, which is that anything other than full funding for the College we were promised is unacceptable.

It is interesting that the Labour response has been that they support this line, but they refuse to criticise the Labour Government and Ministers who have failed in this process.

The second article is about the planning committee decision last week to refuse permission for a superstore in Station Road. This was a really tough decision, because I am convinced that Whittlesey would benefit from another Supermarket. My own view was that this application was massively lacking in detail, largely because the developer had failed to do any consultation and had failed to demonstrate, for example, how they would overcome some of the highways concerns that were expressed – such as the potential huge queues of traffic at the railway crossing, or the increase in traffic at the junctions with Eastgate/Inhams Road or Station Road/Inhams Road.

If the developers are serious they will go away and start on a pre-application process to begin to discuss and deal with these issues. Some consultation with residents in Whittlesey before they submit another application would not go amiss.

The third article is about running the London Marathon. The photograph they have used is excellent; in fact I have a few really good pictures from the marathon which I am really chuffed with (even if I wasn’t chuffed with my time. The article says it all about my experience – hard but fun.