Next up is an illustrated talk on dragonflies on the 24th May. The speaker is Henry Curry from the Dragonfly Centre at Wicken Fen. This must be Dragonfly Heaven, as it’s home to 22 different species.

So come and find out more. The talk starts at 7.30 p.m. and doors open at 7.20 p.m. Don’t be late – some of the events are standing room only!

I shall be giving my vote to the Cambridge City Foodbank – which collects donations from shoppers at Sainsbury’s in Coldhams Lane, Cambridge. They also collect at Waitrose and Asda , but I believe Sainsbury’s was the first Cambridge supermarket to welcome Foodbank into their foyer – at least, that’s what they said when I did a session last year.

Cambridge City Foodbank would really appreciate your visiting Sainsbury’s and voting for them as Charity of the Year. This will strengthen their position and their chances of being able to continue collecting there on a monthly basis. You can vote any time between tomorrow (9th May) and the end of May. You need to fill in a form saying what the charity contributes to the local community, and how it helps people. Here is a copy of the form, in the Sainsbury’s ‘It’s Time to Nominate your Favourite Local Charity leaflet: CAMCANON_Canon018_1648_001

Cambridge City Foodbank is a local charity launched in 2010 by the Cambridge city churches. It aims to help people in crisis by providing emergency food and other essentials at that very difficult time when they are waiting to be assessed by other care agencies.

The charity collects food from churches and schools and takes it to Pickfords on Clifton Road. There, it is boxed up to provide food boxes for three days. Those in need apply via the Citizens Advice Bureau, health visitor or other care agency.

The Foodbank tell me their clients are steadily increasing and it is crucial that they have a regular quantity of food coming in for the people in need.

If you would like to donate, then click here for a shopping list of the items required. Foodbank

The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway was a long time a-coming and has been extremely controversial since its inception. But – love it or hate it – its less contentious collateral has been the cycleway running alongside it. This is well used and provides many cyclists and pedestrians with a welcome safe route away from the road traffic.

One flaw is that most of the track has no lighting. In just one week, I heard of at least three people who have had accidents. Other people feel generally unsafe in the dark, and many women have told me they feel uneasy using it late at night. It feels confined, as it’s fenced in, so if you had a collision or fall, or even – heaven forbid – a personal attack – it would not be easy to get off the track.

I appreciate lighting is expensive – and some people living near the Busway do not want bright lights. What I have in mind is some form of low-level lighting, possibly solar studs, which are less expensive. I understand there are funds available for this type of transport project.

Other ideas for making a good thing even better are to paint a line down the middle, to give some guidance as to where pedestrians should work and where cyclists should cycle. A few signs would be useful too, so you know where to turn off.

As we have this fine resource ,we must have it safe, so that people don’t have accidents and that they are not put off from using it.

The on line version of the petition has now closed. Let me know if you would like a paper copy. Please sign, and pass it on to other people you know who use the cycleway.

The motion followed speeches from members of the public who had come to the Guildhall to address their concerns about the motions to councillors. They expressed their disquiet at the potential shortage of accommodation which might ensure if Labour restricted the number of shared houses, the unreasonableness of making ordinary families with lodgers register as HMOs, and the desirability of mixed communities.

I was first to oppose the motion, and you can read a transcript of my speech on Richard Taylor’s site, and here is a link to Richard’s recording of the anti-house share debate on YouTube.  Thank you Richard for getting an account of the debate on line so quickly.

Liberal Democrat councillors put forward an amendment to Labour’s motion, keeping the first few words which “the vital contribution that well-run houses make in providing homes for family, students, professionals and migrant workers” but dropping the parts about widening the scope of HMO designation and restricting numbers.

Lib Dems asked for an annual report to be brought to the council’s Community Services Committee detailing the number and type of complaints received by the Environmental Health Department in all types of housing in the city and how they have been dealt with, including the number of prosecutions.

I find the motion nasty in the way in which it demonises people who share as ‘troublemakers’.  When we first moved to Queen Edith’s, one set of next-door neighbours was a large family with children; the other had Anglia Ruskin students. We never had any noise or disturbance from the students; the family with children, though friendly and sociable, was noisier by far!

I fear for the motion’s effects on those who rent and share houses because they cannot afford to buy in Cambridge, as well as for the many families who depend on extra income, say, from renting out spare bedrooms to students from the universities or language schools. And quite honestly, not everybody fits into the nuclear family mould – why should we all conform?

My colleague Tim Ward, who runs the Cambridge Accommodation Noticeboard, details the problems http://www.brettward.co.uk/canb/threat.htm.

Here is the motion, proposed by Petersfield councillor Gail Marchant-Daisley:

The Council recognises the vital contribution that well-run Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) make in providing housing for families, students, professionals and migrant workers.

However, given problems from some HMOs failing to deliver quality, safe housing, or creating serious problems for neighbours, the Council requests the Executive Councillor for Housing to bring forward a report to assess options to improve the operation and regulation of HMOs in Cambridge, including:

1) extending the current HMO definition to include all properties with 3 or more people in two or more unrelated households, regardless of the building layout

2) improved enforcement of breaches of licences granted to HMOs, and

3) wider adoption of best practice on HMOs by comparable cities including Oxford,

and that the Head of Planning Services also report to the Executive Councillor for Planning and Sustainable Transport and the Development Plan Scrutiny Sub-Committee on the future option of denying permission for additional HMOs in any street or 200 metre stretch of any street where HMO numbers reach 25% of residential properties, to enable inclusion of this proposal in the summer ‘issues and options’ consultation on the Cambridge Local Plan 2014 to 2031.

Other motions this Thursday are on:

• taking more local decisions at area committees, eg tree works, safety grants
• recording protocol for council meetings
• housing maintenance contract
• Marshalls
• supporting Post Offices

I attach the full agenda. The meeting is open to the public and starts at 6 p.m. in the Guildhall this Thursday.

Amanda standing for re-election

Liberal Democrat Councillor, Amanda Taylor is standing for re-election in Queen Edith’s. Amanda has been in Queen Edith’s for nearly twenty years and represented the area on Cambridge City Council since 1994. She lives in Holbrook Road with her husband Ashley, and their eight-year old son, a Morley Memorial pupil.

Amanda is best known for her work on transport and housing. Her biggest achievements have been Dunstan Court on Wulfstan Way, which replaced Labour’s sub-standard sheltered housing accommodation; and improved bus services, following her campaign for improved reliability. ‘When I first came to live here,’ says Amanda, ‘there were just two buses an hour into town from Hills Road – and they didn’t always come on time. Now there are over twenty buses an hour, and bus usage has increased dramatically.’

More recent successes for Amanda and the Lib Dem Focus Team include revamped play facilities at Nightingale Avenue Recreation Ground and new lighting and paving outside the shops on Wulfstan Way. They have also got the police to monitor parking outside schools.

Amanda is currently campaigning for improvements to cycleways in the area, for example lighting the Guided Bus cycleway, and for road safety improvements, eg yellow lines on junctions near the Queen Edith’s Primary School.

She is an active member of the Friends of Rock Road Library, which started as a gardening group and then took on a campaigning role in the fight to prevent the Conservative County Council from closing the library down.

In our wider community, Amanda chairs the Council’s South Area Committee, is a member of St John’s Church on Hills Road, and is a member of the Cambridge Fairtrade Steering Group.

Amanda and Lib Dem team visit residents in Queen Edith’s all through the year, not just at election time. When there are issues in a particular street, we always try to listen to the concerns of residents. At election time we try to call on as many households as we can, and we look forward to speaking to you soon, if we haven’t already! The BBC came to see us in action on Tuesday: see here.

Please see the link on the left for this year’s Liberal Democrat election manifesto for Cambridge.

The Friends of Rock Road Library are celebrating the bicentenary of Charles Dickens with a one-man show at the library by local actor Geoff Hales. Mr Hales will be performing dramatised readings from Dickens’ works – in Dickensian costume.

The show starts at 8 p.m. after a welcome drink. There is no fixed charge but the Friends invite the audience to donate towards their funds, which go back into events such as this.

Geoff Hales read English at Cambridge, went away and came back! He runs his own theatre company, ‘Travelling Theatre’, which performs one-man shows about great writers. He has appeared all over England and in Prague, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Germany and Switzerland.

2012 is the 200th year since the birth of Charles Dickens and the Friends are holding this event to join with the celebrations this year.