March 23rd 2010: Gordon Brown costs St Neots £2k...

There's a by-election pending in Eaton Socon. Fine, you say, there's the district council elections coming up on the 5th May, and probably a general election too - it has to be in the next two months, give or take a few days, and it makes perfect sense for the government to combine the two. So it makes even more perfect sense for us to combine all three. Surely? After all, there's all the halls to hire for polling stations, all the people to give out papers and count them afterwards, and the British reluctance to make the effort to turn out more than once in a year - even the 66% who do turn out at all resent a double intrusion by our elected representatives.

Except it's not that simple. A very obscure piece of election law - obscure enough to pass us by, at least - says that you can't have more than two elections on a given day without a specific Act of Parliament to enable it. And it has to be a fresh one for any given year. That in itself isn't a problem - it's done regularly, fairly recently to combine towns, counties and Europeans, for example. It's not hard, and it saves a lot of money. The last town by-election in St Neots cost the Town Council around £2000, and that's just one ward in a market town, maybe 4000 voters.

But 2010 is different. We have a general election coming up. We have a deeply unpopular Prime Minister, and an Opposition of which the public is still very suspicious, and the polls are suggesting that it will be the tightest result in many, many years, perhaps even inconclusive. So naturally Mr Brown wants to grab every little advantage he can raise. And one he has up his sleeve, one not available at any other level of power, is the ability to choose the date of the General Election. And here's the rub - an Enabling Act for parish elections, which would let us hold our bye-election on 5th May, would mean showing his hand before the very last minute. So no Act, and we will probably have to go to the polls twice, on the 5th and the 27th May.

If there is one thing that can't come too quickly, it's an end to the permanent bias where ruling parties at Westminster can call elections when it suits them. The rest of us get called to account every four years regardless of whether we think the circumstances at the time leaves the public with a fair reflection of our time in office; why should they be any different, able to gerrymander the date forward if things are going well, or delay on the off-chance that something might turn up if not? And that includes elections early in the term; if we end up with a hung parliament this time round, then this power condemns us to months or even years of potential instability with the leading party just waiting for (and trying to engineer) a moment when they can try to ditch their partners and go it alone. If we could lock them all in together and say, for the next four years you simply have to learn to get along and make the best of it, it would be a Good Thing.

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20th March 2010: Raspberry of the week: Not so luxury travel

Away from commuter-time, St Neots has three bus services - 62, 63 and 64 - which merrily go round roughly circular routes taking in most of the town, and in particular patches where other serices don't get to. Each runs once an hour, spaced apart so that where they share the same route, they form a nice even 20-minute service. And they are pretty popular - particularly with the demographic groups who tend not to drive to town, the elderly, the young, and parents with buggies. It's not uncommon to see them pretty full at times.

Stagecoach run two of them, normally with a pair of dedicated "Solos". These not only look pretty swish, they have low floors, a wide entrance, and plenty of room up at the front for wheelchair users - contrary to apocryphal stories, they do use the bus, I have seen some! - or for that matter large amounts of shopping, heavily laden pushchairs, guide dogs, or whatever.

So this raspberry goes to the operators of the 63, Whippet, for providing a top-of-the-range coach to run their part. Very swish, again, and perfectly evolved for what it was intended for - taking people long distances in comfort with their suitcases stowed away underneath. Not well adapted for anyone who can't manage the very high steps, and don't even think of packing anything large away underneath - you'll be all day getting round if you have to get the driver to open the boot at each stop.

It might not be such a big issue, were it not that the 63 only uses one bus... so if it's this one, and you live in the parts of Eynesbury where it's the only one, then you're a bit stuck.

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19th March 2010: Raspberry of the week: So near and yet so far

Last year, when the flood defence work was carried out around the Riverside Park, a lot of effort was made in putting in sloped paths so that disabled people could still access everywhere across the newly constructed mounds.

Sadly the March weather doesn't do the scene justice, but your starter for ten is: what does the more recent addition - the post carefully inserted in the middle of the path - actually achieve, except to force anyone in a wheelchair or scooter off into the ditch at the side? Answers on a postcard please, to your District Councillors. (The sharp-eyed among you will, of course, note that they have remembered to make it obvious to the visually impaired.)

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18th March 2010: What does it take...?

As I write I have in front of me the News & Crier's final conformation that we've lost the next stage of a saga we've been trying to fight off for as long as I can remember. For those further afield, St Neots has two free car parks on the outer edges of the town centre - one at the Riverside Park, one in Cambridge Street. Proposals to introduce charges have come and gone over the years, but this time Huntingdonshire District Council has gone that step further and cabinet has approved charging. It's not a done deal formally, but the final stage, a public consultation, will only tell them whan everyone has been saying all along.

It's certainly focussed minds - councillors at all levels in the town have reacted as one, with uncharacteristic cooperation. Yet letters, petitions, media campaigns, none has been listened to. Attempts to find documentary evidence of a covenant on the land which lots of people seem to remember has peculiarly turned up nothing. Everything meets the same answer - HDC needs to save money. Strange, then, that when rebuilding their offices no expense was spared, replacing everything from epensive furniture right down to the pencils. That when discussions on pay come round, senior officers earning as much as a Prime Minister don't get asked to forego a little in recognition of the size of the hole they are in. That reserves were eaten up over many yers to subsidise artificially low council tax, with no apparent recognition that capping would intervene to prevent a sustainable rate being introduced.

So why are the car parks so important? There are others in the town that are already pay and display. But the two free ones provide an incentive for people not to drive through the centre of town - an area that consistently fails air quality checks - and over the single bridge which seems to be a permanent traffic jam. The Riverside offers access to the jewel of the town, the river and the beautiful areas along it, a jewel which should be open and free to all. And both draw shoppers in out of convenience, who would otherwise go off to Bedford and Cambridge, or even Tesco on the bypass - with a relatively restricted range of shops St Neots needs every last advantage it can get to keep its High Street flourishing.

Of course some people will be determined not to pay - and no doubt we'll be forwarding complaints from residents of the Paddocks, of East Street and Avenue Road, who can no longer get easy access to their own houses as their streets are turned into an impromptu extension of the car parks, in the same way as we currently see around the station. That issue has been another running sore for years.

But there's more. What do I read? "Cllr Rogers said the move would save around £100,000 and that free parking for three hours meant nobody would pay in reality." Well, if noone is going to pay in reality, how will any money be saved? Has anyone added up the cost of vandalism to the machines, or of enforcing a very unpopular imposition that I expect will be flouted? Did the sums assume that the two parks will remain pretty full as they are now? And all that for £100k at best - when the hole is £6M deep and growing.

It's not even as though HDC are looking forward to a plan to introduce sustainable alternatives to car travel in town, as they too feel the brunt of cuts. But that's another story.

PS: during the campaign, Cllr. Bob Farrer threatened to resign from the Conservatives if they went ahead with the charging plan. Bob, if you're reading this, it was a very noble gesture...

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7th March 2010: Something to kick up a stink about

It's time to start work in the garden again, getting stuff planted up for spring. Normally this meant a trip down to the Tidy Tip, where a very convenient arrangement worked itself out: our District Council collects up all our organic waste - the dead bits of my efforst in 2009, plus our food waste (fortunately having teenagers in the house means there isn't much of that!) from our green wheely bins, nicely rotting down after a fortnight. Off it goes to the composting plant. Having turned into pretty good quality compost - certainly good enough for my tomatoes - it returns to the Tidy Tip in 100 litre sacks and is sole back to us at £2 a time. Everyone wins. HDC don't have to pay landfill tax on a mound of waste. Local jobs are created. Cambs County make a bit of money from the sales. I refill my raised beds far cheaper than I ever could at B&Q. My kids get fresh veg for tea. And the environment is the better for it all.

But that virtuous circle is no more - since the County moved all its facilities off to their new recycling centre in Marston Road, they don't sell the bags of compost any more. The waste is still collected, to what end I don't know as there's not a great deal of point recycling if you just end up producing a stockpile of something that noone is using. I'd like to think that someone, somewhere is benefitting from the sacks even if they no longer venture south to St Neots... just when I thought all our authorities were cooperating, they throw it all away.

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3rd March 2010: Pouring money down a hole

One of the things I believe very strongly in is that we all - individuals, organisations, councils - should take good care of what we've laboured long and hard to obtain. This is all the more important when it's something essential, and still more so when other people's money is concerned.

So, when the 2009 County Council elections came round, one of the key parts of my campaign was where road maintenance was concerned. Budgets were being cut back, minor repairs were being left undone, shortcuts were being taken. My message was, get the basics right. It struck a chord with many people on the doorsteps - though not enough, clearly. The Conservatives won and it was business as usual at County Hall.

Winter came, and this year it was three months of rain, frost and snow. By February I was regularly cycling to the station, and one thing a small-wheeled cycle makes you very aware of is bumps in the road surface. And there are lots of them - some a few inches across, some feet long and four inches deep. And they hurt

It became clear that there was a pattern to the holes. There aren't many on roads where the original surface is intact. They proliferate where there's been work done - Great North Road being the worst, a long strip where a pipe was dug up is now nearly a mile of trench. Why? Once the surface is broken, it needs to be sealed up properly, otherwise when water gets in to the cracks and freezes, it expands, forcing the surface up and off its base. Winter 2010 was a continuous cycle of rain and show, freezing, thawing, freezing again. Now every little repair job that was skimped on is coming home to roost. And more are appearing faster than the hard-pressed maintenance staff can fill them.

I'm not simply upset about my sore backside. This is a much bigger issue that costs us all. In tax - because repeated repairs cost much more than the amount saved the first time. In cash - every time your car hits a hole, it's a bit more wear and tear on the way to a big servicing bill. In lives - a small hole might send me reaching for the aspirin; a large one can easily unseat a rider in the middle of traffic. And let's not get started about the tax you pay to treat the victims of accidents. Ultimately it's down to County Councillors to decide on their priorities - pay now to do a really good job, or pay much more later. Ours took the easy way out in the past, and we're stuck with the consequences now.

If you see a pothole anywhere in Cambridgeshire, you can report it online here.

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1st March 2010: Overhaul in progress.

The site has been a bit neglected of late. Gaps will be filled in due course - where have you heard that one before? - but I thought I'd make a start now and at least keep up future posts! Anyway, a new year brings a new look. Appropriately enough, Pantone have declared turquoise to be Colour of 2010. "It is believed to be a protective talisman, a colour of deep compassion and healing, and a colour of faith and truth, inspired by water and sky." Well, that's good enough for me. It also seems good enough for the Liberal Democrats, although I will claim that it complete coincidence!

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