Meridian Index

PAGE INDEX

Xmas Waste

Marshalls!

Vandalism

Ramper Road and Bus Services

Members of the Parish Council have tried to address several of the following issues but need your support by putting your complains to them so that the County Council and other authorities can be made aware of the level of feeling in the village.

The bus service through the village, now called the 15 and 15A, is routed down Ramper Road and misses out one third of the village as Boxworth End is no longer on the route.

Ramper Road has a very low classification and only minimal maintenance will be carried out. Should you damage you vehicle or yourself in any of the numerous potholes the County Council will not take responsibility as warning signs of road edge damage are posted along the road.

The decision to route the Swavesey buses via Ramper Road appears to have been taken without proper consultation. The Traffic Commissioner who authorises bus routes and Stagecoach state that the County Council was informed but Shona Johnstone, Cabinet member for Transport, states that the Council were not informed.

Ramper Road is not on the scheduled routes for the gritting lorries so will not be gritted.

This is a single way road and passing bays are being considered but now that all 15 & 15A buses are using it that proposal is on hold in the hope that the road can be upgraded.

 I believe traffic calming measures are still scheduled to start in January.

So come on, if you are unhappy with the bus route or the state of Ramper Road then let the Parish Council know, they need your support to sort this out.

Write to :- Mrs Linda Miller, Clerk, 21 Thistle Green, Swavesey, Cambs, CB4 5RJ or email :- clerk@swavesey.org.uk

If you write to any of the other authorities and companies involved then please also send a copy to the Swavesey Parish Council.

By :- Alan Morris (Webmaster)

XMAS WASTE AND RECYCLING

South Cambs residents are being given a weekly black wheeled bin collection service throughout the Christmas period as a result of resident feedback.
Last Christmas green waste was virtually nil from mid December to mid January, but the volume of glass, cans and normal waste peaked during the first and second weeks after Christmas and New Year.
South Cambridgeshire District Council has therefore suspended green wheeled bin collections and diverted resources to collecting the black wheeled bins the week before Christmas and the two weeks after New Year's Day. The increased black bin collection should alleviate the need for excess / side waste.   The green box collection scheme remains the same in most cases.
Councillor Sebastian Kindersley, portfolio holder for environmental health at South Cambridgeshire District Council explained, "We've listened to resident feedback and looked at the pattern of bank holidays and the availability of staff over this busy holiday period.  I'm confident we've come up with the best possible solution for everyone involved without compromising our service and recycling rates." 

Cardboard
The green wheeled bin should have capacity for Christmas cards and cardboard, but these items can be taken to Household Waste Recycling Centres, local recycling sites, or treated as general waste, in the unlikely event that green wheeled bins become full.  Christmas cards can be taken to WH Smith and Tesco's for recycling.

Kitchen waste
If residents are unable to home compost, kitchen food waste can be placed in the black wheeled bin to maintain a weekly collection of this material.

Green boxes
Everyone will receive the current green box collection service, apart from collections normally on Monday 27 and Tuesday 28 December (Bank Holidays) - on these occasions double collections will take place on Monday 10 and Tuesday 11 January.

Full timetables have been printed in the Autumn issue of South Cambs Magazine and will be reprinted in the Winter edition.
The timetable is also on the District Council's website at www.scambs.gov.uk and local press will be carrying adverts. 

For further information call 0840 450 063.

MORE DEVELOPMENT FOR SWAVESEY?

It seems that poor old Swavesey is to have yet more development thrust upon it. Marshall Specialist Vehicles are looking to relocate their premises from Newmarket Road and guess where they have chosen to look for a site? Yes, got it in one, Swavesey!

Anyone who has seen various reports in the press lately will know that the land used by this division of Marshall is wanted for housing, and Marshall is considering releasing the area presently occupied by Specialist Vehicles for this purpose. Very commendable but do we need yet another traffic generating enterprise served by the overloaded A14 at the moment? Not only that but Swavesey already has Buckingway Business Park, Cambridge Services, The proposed Guided Bus, a possible Wind Farm (which will impact visually).. This is a village, not an industrial suburb of Cambridge!

The site will cover 25 acres, and is bound to have an impact on the area, not only will we have more cars coming into the area belonging to the 350 or so people who will work there, but also trucks delivering goods, and the movement of the vehicles themselves. The proposed site is on the Swavesey side of the existing Buckingway Business Park close to the A14. A number of employees live in this area and this will create extra traffic through the village, along Ramper Road and will add to peak time congestion at the A14 junction.

Marshall is intending to talk to all concerned with this proposal before submitting a planning application so if you feel that "enough is enough" with regard to development at Swavesey and want our village to stay a village then make your views known to the Parish Council as soon as possible.

YOU HAD YOUR FUN NOW CLEAN IT UP!!!

I am referring to the evening of 31st October, otherwise known as Halloween. The photographs accompanying this article show clearly the results of what someone thought was a fun way to spend an evening. Perhaps they thought it was a good idea to cover the trees in toilet rolls, maybe they thought it was a great joke to daub paint all over the telephone box. Well I hope that in the cold light of day they were impressed with their efforts. The rest of the village certainly were NOT!

Their wanton vandalism resulted in a lot of work for other people, and what is more will cost us as council tax payers and parishioners money as we will have to pay for the phone box to be cleaned and this will come out of Parish Council funds.

We are very grateful to Debbie Wake and Sue Ellington for clearing up the toilet rolls, the village handyman works during the day and it is dark when he returns so without their efforts we may have had to wait until the weekend to clear it all up.

So.. Who are you? How old are you? Are you some of the young people from the village? If so,then try this, are you brave enough to stand up and admit to what you have done and give of your free time to convince us that you are "not all vandals" (quote from recent Meridian magazine) What would you do in that free time? Work with the village handyman in clearing up other peoples mess then maybe next time you have the urge to create chaos you will think again!!

We, though the pages of The Meridian,have given you the chance to tell us that you are not as bad as you are painted, now prove it. If you were responsible admit it, if you know who was, tell someone, and if the culprits are 18+ then it is time they took a hard look at themselves and thought about the sort of person they are becoming.

Incidents such as these are reported to the Police and are a crime, do you really want to have on your record that you have been involved in vandalism? Won't that look good on your CV!!

IT'S NOT FUNNY, IT'S NOT CLEVER, WE ARE NOT IMPRESSED.

Ed.