A Councillor's Comments - October 2004

With the various fairly major incidents in Soham over the last few weeks, as expected, policing has come to take up a lot of your Council's time. In August the new Ely Sector inspector, Adam Gallup, introduced himself to the Council. He outlined his plan to reduce anti-social behaviour, this plan included identifying "hot spots", more police on Friday and Saturday evenings over the summer period and the use of "Dispersal Orders" and in extreme cases Anti-Social Behaviour Orders. In the longer term funding has been provided for a part-time Police Community Support Officer for Soham. The police, to make the plan work, need your co-operation. For example ideas of how dispersal should work - wherefrom, whereto, a co-ordinated approach to youth provision, other ideas on tackling anti-social behaviour and, most importantly reporting all incidents to the police as soon as they happen; even if they cannot respond immediately. If the police have no reports their superiors will think that nothing is happening and will further reduce the police resources in Soham.

The reports in the local press on the "Environmental Action Day" on 15th September 2004 showed what a great success this was, but whilst the press concentrated on the immediate effects; removal of abandoned cars, large amount of rubbish cleaned up, potholes filled in and so on; the most important effect was not reported. Now all the agencies know what the problems are and who is responsible for solving them and have even met the people in the other agencies. Long may they continue to talk to each other and take action to solve our problems.

A problem arising from the "Environmental Action Day" took a good amount of the time of your Council at its September meeting; the cleaning out of the ditches in Soham. Whilst we all know many ditches which need attention; no-one, except the agency responsible for the ditch can do anything about. There are many bodies and individuals involved; Cambridgeshire County Council, East Cambridgeshire District Council, Environment Agency, IDB, Anglian Water, Hereward Housing and private landowners. The conclusion is that one of the agencies must take a co-ordinating role to improve our environment. At the moment they all hold up their hands and say: "Not me, gov!". The view of your Council is that the best agency would be the District Council, who has a general duty to maintain the environment, we must all now try to persuade them to take on this role.

The County Council reported to your Council that it is to improve the road marking and signs at the Bypass/Paddock Street junction in an attempt to reduce the accident rate. We hope that this works, but our conclusion was that only a roundabout can really achieve this. The County also reported on the arrangements being constructed at the Soham/Fordham Bypasses roundabout at Downfields for a safe crossing for cyclists and pedestrians, it will be a bridge. The idea is to finish the safe cycle route from Fordham to the Village College to encourage children to cycle to school.

Tony Hinsley
Soham Town Councillor