Wind turbines

It was interesting at the Parish Council on Wednesday there was no majority in favour of a protest about proposals for a wind turbine in Marston. A new collection of turbines are peeping over the trees in the direction of Emberton. Personally I believe we have to accommodate ourselves, at some point, to proximity to our sources of energy. Wind turbines are pretty benign compared to a multi-gigawatt power station either coal or nuclear.

Land swap

The chair of governors from Cranfield Lower School and the head teacher attended on Wed evening to discuss the possibility of a landswap between part of the recreation ground and the land allocated to the school on Home farm. They point out that that land on Home Farm is entirely useless to them because of the remoteness from the main site.

This has been manifestly obvious to just about everyone from the word go - a word spoken eight or nine years ago. The only reason large scale housing development got the go-ahead from an earlier enquiry was because it was ruled that this extra land would allow the lower school to grow sufficiently. Education capacity had hitherto been a stumbling block. But this solution is nonsense given the age group concerned. There is even money - more than £100,000 - for a toilet block on the site which needs to be repatriated to the main site somehow, otherwise it will be lost.

Cycle track

There is £100,000 in the Home farm 106 agreement for the cycle path to the uni plus upgrading the path between Church Walk and Court Road and creating a anew footpath and cycleway on the north side of Court Road between the school and the High Street. Found this out at the home farm stakeholder meeting on Thursday. But no one knows how this is to be prioritised. Investigations continue.

Community Hall

Persimmon's community hall looks better in colour with a few illustrative trees behind it. It will have neither a tin roof nor a turf roof (turf roofs are looking a bit yellow at the moment according to MW). Most the meeting was updating with news of the Phase 2 application going in soon and phase 1 being approved in the near future.

I asked about environmental standards for the community hall. These will be to Breeam ' very good'. BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method) is the leading and most widely used environmental assessment method for buildings. It sets the standard for best practice in sustainable design and has become the de facto measure used to describe a building's environmental performance.

There is an 'excellent' standard that should be aspired to I believe but additional funding would be needed to upgrade. I will be asking the PC to investigate those extra costs and establish whether there are funding streams that could help bridge the difference. In simple energy costs good design will pay for itself and water conservation will become vital in the future (another dry summer looming).

Lodge Road

Designs have arrived for the development of Lodge Road. Sure enough we have indications of a 'No Left turn' sign out of Lodge road (subject to traffic regulation order). There is the beginning of the cycle way at the top of Lodge Road - subject to working with the university and potential funders to create a full length one. The bus stop on the west side has to be relocated and of course there is the roundabout. Now that there is progress on the No Left Turn into Lodge Road this is probably the remaining area of particular concern as it will have to process an awful lot of traffic.

Update

Big gap again due to day jobs and heat (my excuse any way).

Here are the headlines:

Deal on location of houses on Goodman land in relation to Maple Way brokered.

Still complaints from Willow and Plough about location of Community Building on Home Farm

Yet another hitch over timing of traffic calming. The tale of some lost money and whether St Modwen occupation had actually triggered its release.

Significant progress made it getting a 'no left turn' out of Home farm into Lodge Road. A key Parish Councillor goal in the recent discussions.