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Month: February 2017

Parish Council budget meeting January 2017

The PC held their annual budget/precept setting meeting on 31st January, this was an open meeting but it was only 7 members of the PC who attended. It took two and a half hours to review the previous year’s budget and subsequent spend, set the new budget and decide on how much should remain in reserve. The ground works budget and Hardwick Happenings saw a slight overspend last year. However several areas saw a slight under spend so overall the PC decided to reduce the precept again for 2018 with assurance that the reserves held are still sufficient for a village of our size. Many thanks to the clerk Gail for guiding us through this process and preparing the finances for the meeting.

A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon Improvement Scheme

The plan above shows the location of a balancing pond adjacent to the A428 trunk road and St Neots Road.

As part of the A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon Improvement Scheme, construction of which has commenced, some work will be undertaken along the A428 near Madingley.

The work will involve construction of a new bridge to take the new A14 northbound loop over the A428 eastbound carriageway. To do this work some narrow lanes will be installed along the A428 and for this a recovery compound is required to deal rapidly with any vehicles that breakdown. This recovery compound will be sited on Highways England land adjacent to the balancing pond that was constructed as part of the A428 Caxton to Hardwick Improvement Scheme. The site of the balancing pond is shown on the attached plan. Access to the recovery compound will be from St Neots Road. The recovery compound will consist of a couple of small caravans and space for a recovery vehicle. Any vehicle that has broken down in the narrow lane section will be recovered to our main works compound near Boxworth.

January Parish Meeting Report

The meeting started at its new time of 7pm with all councillors present, the District Councillor Grenville Chamberlain, David Thompson from the planning department and a member of the community. In the open session David outlined the current situation with the progress of the Grace Crescent development. Up to 98 dwellings are planned however this is a maximum and it may actually be less than this number. Currently the issues being considered are water drainage, an archaeological dig, landscaping, overall design, highways safety, means of access and environmental health. The planning application will be considered by the planning department at South Cambs on 1st March. There will be District Council and Parish Council representatives there on behalf of the village.

Grenville also reported that there will be a meeting at the school on the 7th March organised by the residents of St. Neots Rd regarding the route of the proposed bus way from Cambourne to Cambridge. Heidi Allen cannot attend but will be sending a representative.

The clerk had received one application for one of the two vacant posts on the PC and it was decided to co-opt Dean Wellbelove onto the council, he has been a councillor in the past, and we look forward to welcoming him at the February meeting.

The Egremont Rd play park will have a new colourful metal fence put up around the enlarged footprint ready for the initial phase of the redesigning and revamping of the play equipment. The Hardwick Play Parks group have worked hard to get the scheme off the ground and the PC is pleased to help them financially with this first step.

Further investigations into the bad drainage from the changing rooms will continue at HSSC but as this is a long standing problem both the PC and the committee of the club are exhausting all the possible reasons and professional help is also not proving to resolve the issue. It is becoming a costly recurrence which both parties hope to sort out as soon as possible.

A resident of Dry Drayton drew the attention of the Council to two planning applications along St Neots Road beyond the Dry Drayton Roundabout in the area between the road and the A428. One application was for warehouses and the other for Self storage units. The Parish Council opposed both applications on the grounds of traffic and because this area might be required as a possible route for the busway into Cambridge.

The next meeting is 28th February at 7pm in the Community Room.

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