Tim Stone

The County Council has announced the results of its bus consultation, and its intention to follow through on the withdrawal of all bus subsidies, totalling £2.7 million over the next three years.  Simultaneously, the council says it will invest £1.5 million in new transport arrangements through a project called Cambridgeshire Future Transport.  

Thank you to all who responded.  Out of the 1470 bus users across the county who gave their opinions, 7% (134 people) use the 31, 5% (96) use the Citi7 and 10 people use the 101, which is about half the number of regular passengers.  Well done.  The bus consultation confirms that people want to keep the buses: 81.8% said they don’t agree with the County’s decision to remove all bus subsidies.  Those most affected by the cuts will be the disabled, the elderly, and those getting to work.  37% have no other means of travel.  Subsidies will be withdrawn in six monthly phases, starting in September 2012.  Some currently subsidized buses may be retained in a pared down form, if commercially viable. That “paring down” could start in May 2012. Cambridgeshire Future Transport seeks to establish localized mini transport franchises in areas where subsidized buses are withdrawn – so profitable transport where commercial operators have not found a market. Over the course of a year of experimentation, a handful of pilots have failed to get off the ground. One is now being trialled in the Duxford area – please see http://www.cambridgeshirelocal.co.uk  to get  an idea of how it works.  It is welcome news that the principle of support for public transport has been reinstated; we are concerned that the new approach may not meet people’s needs and feel that more consideration should be given to supporting established community transport providers in our villages.

The County’s Cabinet will be discussing its proposals next Tuesday and I shall be there to speak about the concern all these confusing plans are causing locally. 81% of  bus users can’t be wrong.

The joy of having a few weeks in foreign countries is to get a perspective on Britain.  “The eyes of the world” and all that.

Well not once was Britain mentioned on the news.  The only reference was to David Beckham.  No other Davids, Eds or Nicks got a mention.  Get back home and they’re all over the place bickering.  By and large Britain is a big yawn.  And that makes it all the more important to get things right while nobody’s watching.

One thing about a club is that people need to merge their own identity into that of the club as a whole.  Anyone who has tried to run a village hall will know how it only really works when the user representatives start thinking of what’s good for the community rather than what their own group can get out of it.

Epic Fail on Europe, then.  Let’s have less “preserving Britain/Sweden/Portugal’s national interest” and a little more “what’s good for Europe and Europeans.”

Today we read that 30% of British Households will be going into debt to finance their Christmas celebrations.

No doubt the big chains and Chinese exporters will be very happy.  But misery for household budgets in the New Year.

I thought people were deciding to cut back on debt.  Perhaps just like Mr Osborne they find it easier to make resolutions than actually achieve their aims.

The County Council seems to like generating half-baked headlines.  We have had the elimination of bus subsidies and library trusts as examples.  Headlines followed by a climb-down while some thought is put into the proposals.  Now they’ve done it again with broadband.

The County announced that it was prepared to borrow up to £20 million to get superfast broadband across Cambridgeshire.  We know that BT’s massive programme of improvements will favour densely populated areas and that BT have no intention of up-grading the Sawston exchange to handle optic fibre.  Virgin are using their cable network to supply superfast broadband, but that doesn’t stretch nearly far enough either.

So another massive disappointment when, in a response to a question from the Lib Dems  at last Wednesday’s County Council meeting, we were told that the County was “working on” a set of criteria for prioritising the County’s money.  You’d think that when in the early years of a 10 year loan, the cost of repaying £20 million plus interest is £2 million, someone would have given some thought as to what the County was actually trying to achieve.

The County is all in a huff because very few parish councils were bothered to reply to a consultation on parking enforcement.

The plan was to let the police do serious policing work and let the County use parking wardens to look after parking offences.

Because of the lack of response the County now proposes to kick the whole business into the long grass.  I believe that to be a mistake.  People can’t really be bothered who does the job as long as it is done well – and preferably on someone else.  So why should they respond to yet another consultation?

We elect our councillors to get on with the job.  If they have to keep crying to the electorate for guidance on things as simple as this, then why do we pay them?