February 2021

5 Buckden Roundabout February 2021 From your councillors From your County Councillor The combination of Covid and torrential rain did not make for a relaxing Christmas holiday period! I hope that, in spite of all the troubles around us, you managed to have some family en- joyment. At the time of writing, the vaccination programme is starting and we are all hoping that there will be a significant reduction in cases over the coming weeks. We have been promised so many times that it will soon be vanquished and life will return to normal, we are all beginning to get a bit cyni- cal about government promises. My job is to keep you factually up - to - date with what the Coun- ty Council is doing. It is trying to ‘ keep the show on the road ’ though many of its employees are working from home and many have been redeployed into dealing with the pandemic. The County Council met in full on December 15 th and will next meet on February 9 th . In December the main topics were: • There was a lot of controversy around a proposal from a councillor to downgrade a road running through his division from A to B status in order to reduce ‘ rat - running ’. Many argued that there are other roads which could be treated in a similar way and that this proposal was a purely a pre - election vote - winner. The motion, proposed by a member of the majority group, was carried with all the Opposition members voting against. • There was however unanimous support for a motion pro- posed by the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats; the main points were: • This Council notes that spending by local authorities on youth services nationally has reduced by 69 per cent since 2010/11, from £1.4 billion to £429 million, with the loss of more than 4,500 youth work jobs and the closure of 750 youth centres. Meanwhile the National Citizen Service (NCS) receives an esti- mated 95 per cent of the Government ’ s youth ser- vices budget, despite only one in six eligible young people taking part. • This Council believes that all or some of this National Citizen Service funding would be better spent on all - year - round locally prioritised provision for young people of all ages, on clearly defined outcomes ra- ther than a time - limited programme which is re- stricted to a narrow age group and is attracting only a relatively small number of teenagers. The Govern- ment ’ s £500 million Youth Investment Fund is ex- pected to reach only around half of council areas, and this Council believes that all local authority are- as need to have enough funding to ensure youth services are available for local young people. The next major task of the Council is the budget for 2021 - 22. This is always a complex matter but will be even worse this year, given that costs have risen unexpectedly, demand for services is increasing and council income has dropped. When we survey residents, we are regularly told that they would like to see better public services (e.g. drains maintained, pot - holes filled, verges cut back). The challenge is how to do that within the limits imposed by central government on council tax rises. From Your District Councillor Firstly my very best wishes to all of you who may be suffering from the Covid Lockdown, so many contradictions, so many challenges, but if you have a problem, send me an email be- cause if we can identify the issues then maybe we can organise a solution? Flooding I have been worried about flooding for a long time, actually a very long time. This is because a long time ago the EU intro- duced an Environmental Directive stating that all waterways should be left in their natural condition. Of course we gold plate every thing from the EU, so the government of the day stopped dredging and maintenance of all the minor waterways and channels, like Taylors Lane. This of course saved a fortune for the Government, but there were always the County Councils to sort out the problems, so central government and the civil service could relax. Without proper funding the County Councils eventually gave up and Cambridgeshire County Council recently stopped routine maintenance and cleaning of gullys. Drains ditches and culverts are the responsibility of land owners, so it was not a responsi- bility of anyone. So what happened, we have the worst local flooding crisis since 1998, with houses on the High Street near Taylors Lane , under 3 feet of water. To their very great credit HDC, under the leadership of Cllr Jon Neish, Executive Councillor for Strategic Planning and Emer- gency Planning, have organised a local conference and local flood meetings to evaluate what happened and to sort solu- tions. It was not just Buckden, every river and stream in the area was affected, Alconbury, Ramsey, even as far away as Trumpington and the river Cam. What this needs is your input. We need to know what happened near you. Did your local drain erupt, did your lawn flood, we need a local picture of our problems, then we can report this to the HDC teams for future action. To be honest the memories of senior residents is cru- cial, if you remember that the field across the road was a bog when you were a child and its now a housing estate, then please tell me and the the Parish Council. It ’ s the only this way we can track future problems and get them on the radar screens of all the many Agencies involved. I have written to our MP asking him to get the EU Directive removed from the UK legislation. Please do the same, write to HDC, the County Council, Anglian Water, about your local problems, it ’ s the only way we can get some action. Traffic I have recently written to Highways England, our MP and as I write this I am very pleased to report that the County Council has recently involved itself to discuss our issues. Many others were also involved, our neighbouring Parish Councils etc, but it is very encouraging that concerted local action can work, so thank you to so many of you for the letters and emails that you have sent to me and others. Finally my best wishes for our lockdown period, I hope you all manage to prosper. Hamish.masson@huntingdonshire.gov.uk. Hamish Masson—District Councillor