Michael Williamson

Many thanks to all those who responded to my request for views on reducing the speed limit on the A10 to 50mph from Ely to the A14.

Although a few people agreed with the proposal, most of you agreed with me that any available funds should be used to improve safety at the junctions, especially the one I still call the ‘Slap-up’ and that any imposition of a 50mph limit should be selective.

I went along to the scrutiny committee yesterday to put forward these views, and I am pleased to say that pretty well all of the committee members agreed with me.

We now wait and see what is actually proposed, but I am having a meeting shortly with the Head of Road Safety at the County Council to discuss the ‘Slap Up’ junction and I shall press for improvements.

I’ll keep you in touch with what happens.

Lib Dem Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has outlined a £1 billion pound Youth Contract to tackle youth unemployment. The aim is to ensure that all jobless young people are earning or learning again before long-term damage is done.

• Over three years, the Youth Contract will provide at least 410,000 new work places for 18 to 24 year olds into work. Starting April 2012
• Including 160,000 wage subsidies and 250,000 new work experience placements.
• In addition, there will be at least 20,000 more incentive payments to encourage employers to take on young apprentices.
• A new programme to help the most disengaged 16 and 17 year olds – getting them back to school or college, onto an apprenticeship or into a job with training.

There is a proposal going to the County Council’s cabinet to put a speed limit of 50 mph on the whole of the A10 from Ely to the A14 (apart from the little bit at Stretham which will remin at 40mph).

I am appearing in front of one of the Scrutiny Committees on November 30th to comment on these proposals, and I should greatly appreciate local views.

Please contact me to let me know what you think.

If anyone would like to read the paper that is going to the committee, click here where a link can be found at Item 4 on the Agenda.

The announcement back in July that Waterbeach Barracks was to close was a shock to all of us. The immediate reaction locally was to see if that decision could be reversed, and my page on Facebook generated a large number of hits, showing the strong support for the barracks as a key part of our local community. It was particularly heartening to read the positive comments made by many of those who had been posted here in the past.

The announcement very recently that the closure would take place from next summer, and that 39 Engineer Regiment is to move to Scotland, means that the first battle may well have been lost. We now need to look ahead and work together to ensure that the effect on all of us is reduced as much as possible, no matter what the longer term future of the site may be.

There is no doubt that in the short term the closure will have a major impact on many local services, particularly on our schools. As your County Councillor I have already been in touch with the Director of Children’s Services and will be having urgent discussions with him. Of course, provided the housing is not left unoccupied, numbers of children may not be affected, but we need to understand all of this in order to make plans. There may well be other significant effects that none of us have thought of as yet, and we need to prepare for these. I have had some conversations with my colleague who is County Councillor for Brampton in Huntingdonshire where the local RAF base is due to close. He has told me how the various local agencies are currently working together, and I hope that I can get some similar group set up here.

In the longer term, I think we all have concerns about the prospect of 12,750 houses being built on the site. This is a town getting on for the size of Ely and, if it happens, it will change the character of our community much more than the loss of the barracks as an army base. Those of us who believe that this is the wrong place to build such a new town must take heart from the statements made by, among others, members of South Cambridgeshire District Council, that the decision will be made locally and not imposed upon us from above. As a community we need to ensure that our voice is heard.

Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrats will call for the increase in members allowances to be rescinded and the previous scheme reinstated in a motion to Cambridgeshire County Council on December 7.

If successful, this would mean the increases will never come into effect.

They have also started an online petition calling for county councillors to support this motion.

Liberal Democrat Leader Kilian Bourke said: “People have made various arguments for increasing allowances and at a different time these might even be considered reasonable. But councillors cannot give themselves a 25 per cent pay rise at a time of wage freezes, redundancies, and cuts to frontline council services that affect the most vulnerable.

“I have therefore put a motion to council on December 7 calling for this week’s decision to be rescinded and the previous scheme to be re-implemented. If this motion is passed, these increases will not become
effective at all.

“I have also set up a petition on the county council website to let local people to pressure their democratic representatives to vote the right way. I urge people to sign it.”

“The Liberal Democrats firmly opposed this increase and now we want to reverse it. That is the right outcome and I am confident we will get it.”

The Liberal Democrats officially launched their campaign at their regional conference today (Saturday, October 22) at Cambridge Regional College.

The petition is available on the county council’s website at http://epetition.cambridgeshire.public-i.tv/epetition_core/view/remuneration

I attended this event yesterday evening which made over £3,000 to help finance their excellent work with young people in the community. I’ve commented on the really good work they do in another post.

If you are interested in helping their work, have a look at their site on localgiving.com.

Proposals for
“Mixed use new community comprising up to 12,750 dwellings forming a linked urban extension to Waterbeach, with employment, town centre, local centres, education, sports facilities, new train station and bus interchanges, a rapid bus service alongside the A10, and public open space including parkland around Denny Abbey Scheduled Monument”
have now been submitted to South Cambridgeshire District Council as part of their Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment. If you want to see the map and a few more details, click on this link.

It’s interesting to read the whole document since many of the other sites that developers have proposed are in the list as well, including Hanley Grange, which my colleague Tim Stone fought so successfully a few years ago.

Please let me know what you think by commenting on this article or by sending me an email via the link at the right.

Deputy Prime Minister addresses the Party Conference in Birmingham. You can read the full text of the speech here.

Thousands of Liberal Democrats gathered for their annual conference in Birmingham this week. They discussed what has been achieved in the first 500 days of Government and policies for the future. Highlights include:

• After decades of campaigning, and thanks to Lynne Featherstone: Equal marriage, straight or gay.
• More power for consumers over the energy companies
• Calling time on rewards for failure in boardrooms
• New powers to turn empty homes back into family homes.
• A £500m investment in growth.

The Lib Dems are opposing calls for an immediate cut in the 50% tax rate paid by higher rate taxpayers.

Nick Clegg’s party instead wants to give more help to those on middle and low incomes who need it the most.

NIck Clegg: We need fairer taxes to help ordinary people, not tax cuts for the richest

Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander said, “At a time when the whole country faces serious financial challenges, the priority needs to be people on low and middle incomes.”

A key part of the coalition agreement was the Lib Dem commitment to making taxes fairer. The Lib Dems are well on their way to delivering on their pledge that no one should pay tax on the first £10,000 they earn.

Nearly a million low paid workers are no longer paying income tax thanks to this. All basic rate tax payers are paying £200 less in income tax.

Each year more and more people on low and middle incomes will gain more thanks to the Lib Dem fairer tax plan.

Danny Alexander said, “Fairer taxes is our goal. I don’t see why, in the next parliament, we shouldn’t be trying to get to a situation where people in a full-time job on the minimum wage are paying no income tax at all.”

This would mean that no one would pay tax on the first £12,500 they earn.