Standing for election

All parish and town councils have elections this May 2011. The Central Beds elections will be dominated by party candidates with most of those elected being conservatives. It is hard to stand as an independent  at this level because of the challenges of finance and organisation. The new wards are huge (we are in Cranfield, Marston, Lidlington, Ridgmont, Salford, Brogborough and Millbrook ward - yes it is all one) So even if you have a local village profile other people may not have heard of you. 




Parish councils are different and often do not get enough people being nominated to trigger an election. All you need are two nominees and a minimum of paperwork. But you should research exactly what is involved as some people find local government minutiae tedious to say the least. And deaaaad slow.

Big thaw

Drove to Milton Keynes via the uni and Shire Lane. Despite the thaw there is still some really tricky slush on Shire Lane, producing a couple of dodgy moments. Similar to Moulsoe Road, near the windsock on Friday. It was mostly clear except for a bit where the snow had drifted and it was a tight squeeze getting past an artic (arctic?).

Waste collection

It's anyone's guess what will happen with waste collection tomorrow but the residual and food waste (brown) bins are out. The brown bin is now rather over full.

Round Lodge Road

Lodge Road and Wood End Road brilliant to walk around this afternoon but the compacted snow could be tricky underfoot. 

Cranfield Let's Talk Together

The planned Central Bedfordshire Let's Talk Together community meetings will launch as pilots in each of the seven Safer Neighbourhood areas in January. The first meeting is
planned for January 17th in Cranfield for the Cranfield/Marston and Woburn
Safer Neighbourhood area.  See the information below

Information is on the Central Bedfordshire Together websitehttp://www.centraltogether.org.uk/vision-priorities/neighbourhood-focus and

FLYER

Neighbourhoods

Let’s Talk Together Community Meetings

We’d like more people from our communities to get involved with the work we do.

It’s only by listening to what our communities tell us that we can work together to make Central Bedfordshire a really great place in which to live, work, learn and travel.
Let’s Talk Together community meetings will give members of the community and local groups the opportunity to discuss their particular issues and concerns with Councillors and  representatives from key organisations such as police, health, children/education, community safety, environment, business and volunteering to name but a few.

Where will the meetings be held?

There are seven Safer Neighbourhood Team areas in Central Bedfordshire. There will be one meeting in each area every three months, so each area will have four meetings a year in different locations to reach as many people as possible.

When will the meetings be held?

Cranfield, Marston and Woburn area

17th January 2011 – Holywell Middle School, Cranfield (provisional venue)

Bins emptied

No green bins emptied it would appear in Cranfield up to this morning. Central Beds website wasn't a great deal of help so the parish council clerk Rosie Davy Hunt checked. The service manager for waste collections reported to her: "It is worth noting that we attempted collections in the North but due to accidents on the roads, accessing the rural collections and issues the crews were having it was deemed impractical and unsafe to continue, not a decision taken lightly. Provisionally we may well be suspending collections in the south but we will confirm shortly."


While I was reading this in London my base commander at Broad Green reported that the green bins were being emptied (thought not the food bins).

Snow, snow, snow

After a necessary family-inspired  taxi run to Bedford last night I was confident about getting out of the village this morning and driving to Flitwick station. However the FCC departure board on the web at 6.30 am was showing 'cancelled' in repeat performances. But Milton Keynes seemed to be operative.With only Radio 3 Counties for company I set off toward Salford. The R3C buzz was all about Arriva buses and someone who wanted to know if they could get up Ampthill Hill  (shouldn't that be Ampt Hill?).

The first big shock after driving through Salford to Broughton was to discover that the Broughton Road was now closed for construction of Milton Keynes coachway. So it was turn around and down to H8 and then H7 and finally V6, Grafton Gate. It could have been worse and it could have been better. Most of the dual carriageways - well, all of them - had only one operative lane and once  car got stuck it took ages to get round. The 4x4s imperiously ploughed down the snow-laden central reservations. The train from MK was in reasonable time.. Now I  just need to get back and into the village.

Snow in Cranfield

After escaping MiltonKeynes as the first flakes gently descended around lunchtime we got a complete skipload of the white stuff as the afternoon wore on. The doorbell went at around 3.30 pm as the drifts mounted up and I wondered who on earth it could be. Only good old Royal Mail with a parcel - so well done them for getting through.

Cranfield's Children Centre

I understand this will not now be happening. This, if it is true, is a shocking loss. I'll be checking the causes and reporting back.

Walking to Cranfield University and back

Driving  up the Moulsoe Road  last night in sleet and dark there were two students walking along the road.  The verge of this busy road now has the clear evidence of people forced to walk back and forward from the village to the Campus because of the lack of public transport at the right time. The evidence of how regularly these dangerous verges are used can be seen from the images above - these are the so-called 'desire lines' where walkers mark out their own routes regardless of the built environment. The footpath/cycleway is more vital than ever.

Central Bedfordshire Buses

In addition to threatening Sunday buses (are they already gone?) in Cranfield we now learn that the concessionary bus pass scheme will no longer apply before 9.30 am (Times and Citizen 16 Dec) . This is another blow to the elderly population in Cranfield - mobile library going - and elsewhere as they see their quality of life eroded to pay the dane geld (sorry bankers' bonuses and demands of the bond market) while others (Philip Green and Vodaphone) squirrel away millions from HMIC.

Clearly the elderly can't be allowed out before 9.30 am.

I attended the users consultation referred to in the Times and Citizen article. The facilitators didn't let up until they had got the group to 'vote' on whether buses should be for either economic activity, access, or leisure etc. Thus giving the council justification for saying certain types of transport were a lower priority.

And did they ask if we thought restricting passes was a good idea or did we think ending Sunday buses was a great idea? Of course they didn't.

Bus cancellations

Great presentation from Margaret Norwich, student welfare officer and Salem Brini, the President of the Cranfield Students' Association at the Parish Council this evening. Members were concerned and engaged by their arguments about the impact of Sunday Bedford buses being axed and cutbacks in MK services. We are hoping to have face to face discussions with David McVicar the Central Beds sustainable communities portfolio holder for transport.

Bedford and Milton Keynes buses to Cranfield

There is, apparently a threat to the Sunday V2 buses from Bedford to Cranfield under the current Central Beds budget strategy. I also believe the 17/17A  from Cranfield to MK might be affected by budget cuts. 

Many people will be affected by this. But the loss of buses in and out on a Sunday would be a further 'kettling' of the university campus and village-based student population who are not rich enough to own a car. I have asked the CSA president if some students could attend the parish council meeting tonight to explain how this will impact them. Here are some articles from the latest  Cranfield Student newspaper ENTROPY about the problem, which is bad enough without any further worsening of the situation. 

(

Transport Services Under
Scrutiny 

Drawbacks of Being a Villager

by Shawn Mendes

I am one of the numerous students who stay in the village. And geting to university is a chore.

I have paid a substantial amount as tuition, which surely includes all the facilities that the university has to offer (in addition to the course) – a library, sports center, gym, chapel, free fast internet access; just to name a few. But I do not have the opportunity to maximize the use of the University’s facilities, just because I am a villager!

To get to an 8:45 lecture I have to catch one of the three buses that comearound 8:10 am. The 8:25 am bus is never on time and generally one would arrive late only to be welcomed into the class by the rolling eyes of the lecturer.

There have been times when the bus has come early, with me running behind it - but I ain’t no Flash Gordon so the options are – if there is time, retreat to the house and wait for an hour and if not, walk or cycle to the university or call my expensive fairy godmother (Ezeecabs) and ask them to send me a chariot to whiz me to the University for the class.

While frequency is one issue, price is another. I pay 0.5 pounds for a one-way trip between the village and the university. Whereas a one-way trip from Xscape Centre in Milton Keynes to the University is 0.3 pounds to the mile (if not free owing to the shuttle).

It is a good gesture that the university has a free shuttle to Milton Keynes for those from the university who want to get to civilization, but what about those in the villages around the university who just want to get to the university for a class or to study in the library.

My clock strikes twelve at precisely 8:25 pm, that is when the last bus leaves the University for the village. This means one has to wrap up all group discussions and projects prior to that and if I overshoot or have the urge to study in the productive environment of the library then I must be ready to shell out 10 pounds to get back home which is not more than 2 miles from the university.

There are various solutions to this challenge. Communication with the different bus services to spread their service timings or maybe the university could have a shuttle that runs through the village (I don’t have the figures but am certain that a sizable portion of the students live in Cranfield village without a car).

While talking around, I was also told that a couple of years ago there was an 11:30 pm bus from the University to the village and onwards – what happened to that service and is there something we can do as a collective student body to reinstate that service?

Waiting for Prince Charming

by Simtan Bacha

by Simtan BachaLiving off campus isn’t bad. Cranfield Village is safe, student friendly and not too far from the University; but for all its pros, the biggest and most glaring fault lies in the fact that the bus services aren’t up to the mark. 

There are 3 different bus services that one can take to get to University from Cranfield Village. The bus ticket is £ 1, £ 1.10 or £ 1.20 depending on which service you use. There isn’t a standard bus pass that we can buy, as there are 3 services. Buying a bus pass for either of these services isn’t a good idea as then your limiting yourself to one bus service and sometimes that may involve waiting around as the frequency is poor.

In order to make it in time for 

an 8:45 AM class, most of us aim to get the 8:10 AM bus when all it takes is 5 minutes to get to the university. Why? The only other option is 8:35 AM which is cutting it too close. On most days, we’re lucky if the bus is 5 minutes late, but on some days it doesn’t show up at all or shows up and we are told, 

“IT’S BROKEN DOWN, THE REPLACEMENT BUS SHOULD BE HERE SOON.” 

How soon, you ask; 10 minutes is the answer you get – which in your mind you know is really 20 minutes. 

The last bus leaving the university is 8:25 PM (this is also dependent on the driver’s whim and fancy and might leave earlier or later). So if you have to wait back for work or you would like to study in the library or just generally have a drink and unwind with your friends, then you have to be ready to cough up £10 to get yourself home.

To give the services credit, the drivers are all very helpful and friendly and drive safely, but that won’t make up for the time you lost waiting or the toes you lost due to frost bite!

Most girls are waiting for Prince Charming to come along; this girl’s just waiting for a bus to show up – on time.

My Experience in Marston Moretaine

by Divya Nayar

I stay in Marston Moretaine which is 10 minutes from the village, and a 15 minutes bus ride to reach the University. The challenge is, there is only 1 Bus service for us (V1) and the timings are pretty scattered. The first bus is at 7:10 AM and if you miss that the next one is at 8:15AM and the bus is always LATE. So, to avoid the risk of being late for the 8.45 AM class, we usually take the 7.15 AM bus which means getting up early and reaching University early, and trust me, its not a very good idea!

Also, the last bus that leaves from the university is 7.15PM which does not leave any room for us to stay back for ANYTHING.

Cranfield Express

My column in the January issue of Cranfield Express due out this weekend.

The Parish Matters

Parishioners may have been shocked at the events in central London last week when the police kettle boiled over and there was no alternative but to occupy the impressionist wing of the National Gallery.

But we should not be complacent here in Dullsville, Beds. One of our public representatives was assaulted by a student (year 4, I think) in Court Road when the village was going through its phase of looking like Flemish painter Breughel’s Hunters in the Snow. He was not felled by the snowball chucked at him and we are grateful for that. However it did give him the chance to report to fellow parish councillors that the lower school was open for business – despite an urgent email from Central Beds saying that it was closed and a meeting to discuss the new children’s centre was therefore cancelled. Clearly rumours of the new ice age have been exaggerated.

Meanwhile normal business continues and the Parish Council received a phone call from the Home Farm architects asking if the Council would send an e-mail stating that the it does not envisage using the proposed Home Farm community building "for large gatherings such as wedding receptions etc".

Councillors who were consulted agreed to do no such thing and the request was due to be considered formally at the meeting on 15 December, after Cranfield Express was printed. My own opinion is that a community building is, in effect a building for the community and that must include large gatherings including weddings, barmitzvahs and new housing protests etc. Ultimately, however, it is for the whole parish council to decide and I will listen to the arguments.

The bottleneck over Section 106 (‘planning gain’ in old money) money for village traffic calming from the University Business Park development continues. An Amey member of staff wrote to us saying there was no money on the table and no budget to do any more work adding, “This may of course be the situation until well into the new financial year”.

“Well into the new Financial year?” Now we’re back into June, July, August and who knows when? As I previously blogged, Central Beds were moving towards debt recovery operations over this money which has all been agreed in principle. So we look forward to that and then we can move on with our long delayed traffic calming.

We can’t however, move on without noting the latest message from Central Beds about further cuts in the pipeline. The letter from the council leader, Mrs Turner, stated: ” The effect of the further detail relating to CSR (comprehensive spending review by national government), together with additional pressures emerging through the budget build process, mean that the Executive will be invited to consider publishing for consultation further savings proposals to the £14.5m already in the public arena at their meeting next week. These additional proposals would then go into our scrutiny process for examination.

“We are required to forge ahead with savings proposals at a pace which precludes any possibility of meaningful engagement with others who might be prepared to take over the responsibility for services which we are no longer able to provide.”

Now there are people working very hard in this village to meet needs not covered by government, local or national but they can’t do everything and not immediately. And in those circumstances Ms Turner needs to write to Mr Cameron along the lines of “Dear Dave, re your Big Society idea...” etc.

I personally can’t see how it can work without meaningful engagement.

Wikileaks

Don't forget - you don't need wikileaks, when you have Cranfield Express. All the secret Central Beds cables will be released at the appropriate time.

Parochial revels

Fabulous Parish Council Christmas "Do" at the Carpenters Arms on Wednesday. Entirely paid for by parish councillors I might add, so MPs please note. James, the landlord for the last year did an excellent job - good hearty food, promptly served. The raffle raised £72 for Diabetes UK so good on everyone. The Broad Green party  tried to offload two new duplicate books but still came home with Howard Jacobson's "The Finkler Question" (clearly we are looking for answers on that one). Good reading to whoever has  CJ Sansom's "Revelation" - one of his Tudor murder mysteries. Thanks to Jill Brocklebank for the best joke of the evening:

How can you tell when a blind man goes for a bungee jump?
Answer: You hear the splash of the labrador

Community Building

We have had a phone call from the Home Farm architects asking if this Council would send an e-mail stating that the it does not envisage using the proposed Home Farm community building "for large gatherings such as wedding receptions etc".

This is for reasons of internal administrative convenience. I have asked that a request like this is only considered at full council.

More bad news (2) Traffic calming

The bottleneck over Section 106 money for traffic calming from the University Business Park development continues. An Amey member of staff writes to the PC clerk:

I am in a slightly awkward position here insofar as whilst I am well aware that CBC has invoiced for the S106 money as yet there is no money on the table and I have no budget to do any more work. This may of course be the situation until well into the new financial year.  

As a result we are still no further forward and there is talk of the 'new financial year'.

More bad news (1) Central Beds cuts

There is more bad news in store - see the letter from Central Beds leader Tricia Turner below. My main objection to the tone is references to the 'truly vulnerable'. I can't imagine how frozen, starved and disabled you must be to qualify for this help. My second concern is contained in this paragraph:

  It also means that we are required to forge ahead with savings proposals at a pace

which precludes any possibility of meaningful engagement with others who

might be prepared to take over the responsibility for services which we are

no longer able to provide.

This undermines the whole Big Society concept by admitting that the headlong rush to slash services makes it impossible to identify alternatives and people will just have to suffer.

Letter from leader of Central Beds Council

I wrote to you last month, one day after the Comprehensive Spending Review
(CSR) announcement, to alert you to our corporate strategy to determine our
budget for 2011/12.At that time we anticipated that further detail had yet to be disclosed on
the implications of the full implications of the CSR.

Since then two things have become apparent. The first is that the reduction
in Government financial support to local authorities looks to be greater
than anticipated.  The second is that the timing of the reductions will be
front- loaded.  The effect of this frontloading means that the  first and
second year of the 4 year term covered by the Comprehensive Spending Review
will require us to implement cuts that are particularly severe.  It also
means that we are required to forge ahead with savings proposals at a pace
which precludes any possibility of meaningful engagement with others who
might be prepared to take over the responsibility for services which we are
no longer able to provide.

The effect of the further detail relating to CSR,  together with additional
pressures emerging through the budget build process, mean that the Executive
will be invited to consider publishing for consultation further savings
proposals to the £14.5m already in the public arena at their meeting next
week. These additional proposals would then go into our scrutiny process for
examination.



The updated Corporate Budget Strategy is now published and available on the
internet
http://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/modgov/mgConvert2Pdf.aspx?ID=2248
<http://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/modgov/mgConvert2Pdf.aspx?ID=2248&T=9
> &T=9 and includes savings proposals for next year worth, in total, £8.3m.



These proposals include options that:

*    bring forward and extend the reach of savings already identified in
the November report
*    introduce new savings options

The Council is also seeking increased saving from the £90m p.a. it spends on
employment costs through changes to the terms and conditions of employment
with the aim of saving a further £1m (in addition to  previously agreed
savings of £1m) over a two year period.

In total, the service specific proposals amount to £5.6m. 

Should the Council decide not to harmonise council tax levels, additional
resources of £1.6m could be made available.

On top of these options, proposed increases in fees and charges amount to
£0.25m, reduced inflationary pressures on supplies and services amount to
£0.5m and a re-evaluation of capital financing costs as a result of a review
of our Capital Programme amounts to £0.4m.

There are some difficult decisions facing us as Councillors and I appreciate
that you will certainly find yourself being quizzed about the options by
local people  who may find them unacceptable.

I do not anticipate that you will agree with all our proposals. However, I
wanted to make you aware of these developments as soon as possible and to
reassure you that we will be driven in setting the budget by the three core
principles of rigorous financial management, reality about what we can and
cannot afford to fund and, above all, responsibility to protect the truly
vulnerable.

There is still a fair degree of uncertainty about the full ramifications of
the Comprehensive Spending Review for local government. We are expecting the
Local Government Finance Settlement in December but I suspect that even this
will require some careful analysis before the picture becomes clearer.

Babies' interment

We are exploring the creation of  a section of the cemetery  for baby/children's deaths. It's only in its very early stages but there is capacity on the ashes' interment side of the cemetery for a reserved area.

Covanta

Covanta has lost the contract with Bucks County Council to process its waste at its proposed new incinerator. To our knowledge, therefore, Covanta does not have any guaranteed revenue stream around which to build its business case. In theory there is no reason why it shouldn't continue with it its application to the Infrastructure Planning Commission for permission to build the Rookery plant and it says it will do so - and continue to look for business partners. But the long term prospects have dimmed somewhat.

Still chasing...

...The section 106 money from the university for the traffic calming. Another update on 15 December.

Memorial Plaques

There have been a number of requests for memorial plaques in the cemetery. These are small plaques that are erected on the oak portal to the memorial garden to commemorate individuals with a connection to Cranfield who aren't actually buried there. With people moving around so much, including during retirement they may not be buried where they have many memories. If you are interested contact the Parish Council Clerk Rosie Davy-Hunt at cranfieldpc@btconnect.com

A421

I went for a drive on the A421 yesterday. It was a sort of winter wonderland both for the wintry reasons and the wonder. It seems to have been built on time and presumably to budget. Within a few months we'll all wonder how the 'old' 421 was the main road at one time. Its a bit like thinking about the A422 going right through Astwood at one time or the 421 running through the centre of Marston.