5
Buckden Roundabout
August 2019
From Your Councillors
FROM YOUR DISTRICT COUNCILLOR
Once again our Village Fete provided a super focus for the
summer and many thanks to all those who worked so hard,
especially Philip and his family, on getting this organised. Also
to Compere Chris, who kept events moving all day!
And once again we are at the same point in the year when
funding for County, District and Local Councils and organisa-
tions is a serious issue. County Councillors are openly talking
of how long they can survive, given increasing responsibilities
and flat funding. Huntingdon District Council is in better shape
than most, thanks to the Conservative Majority’s long-term
plans to successfully increase revenue generating activities.
The County Council is considering doing the same thing, with
proposals to convert Shire Hall into a large hotel for the Cam-
bridge tourist trade.
Here in Buckden, the Roundabout remains our key concern. A
western by-pass remains the correct strategic way forward
and recent new legislation has infrastructure funding includ-
ed. To get this by-pass back onto the Parliamentary agenda,
the A1 Safety Groups in Buckden and Sandy are joining forces
to launch a Petition to Parliament to request that the A1 be-
tween Alconbury and Baldock is brought up to national stand-
ards.
Jonathan Djanogly, our MP will be supporting this with addi-
tional support in Parliament and mobilising all the A1 MP’s. I
have been working hard on developing an inclusive Public
Relations campaign to get all major transport organisations
and fleet operators using the A1 involved and hopefully get
their individual members to support us. Launch is planned for
end of August, so more news soon.
Hamish Masson
Councillor HDC Buckden Ward
(
Hamish.Masson@Huntingdonshire.gov.uk
)
FROM YOUR COUNTY COUNCILLOR
County councils were created at the end of the 19
th
century.
Their main purpose was to coordinate many of the public ser-
vices on which people rely for their day-to-day lives, for exam-
ple: education, social services, highways, fire and rescue, waste
disposal, libraries, consumer services, town and country plan-
ning.
They were funded on a mixture of direct taxation (the local
council tax), business rates and central government grant
(essentially the national government paying local authorities to
carry out tasks they thought important but which they could
not administer directly from London).
Obviously the detailed structures have changed over time and
some readers will remember the reforms of 1974 which creat-
ed larger county council areas. More recently, in some areas
county and district councils have been reorganised to form
‘unitary authorities’.
Some functions have been removed from county councils: they
used to run colleges of further education and the careers ser-
vice but no longer; in 2010 schools were given the freedom to
opt out of what was called ‘local authority control’ and become
free-standing academies. Many did so, mainly secondary
schools, since when they have re-grouped themselves into
Academy Trusts, mini-councils but without any democratic
oversight.
Why this history lesson? Because we are now on the brink of
another significant change in the role of the county council.
There has been a great deal in the national media recently
about county councils going bankrupt, or soon to be unable to
meet the rising demand and cost of providing the basic ser-
vices people have come to expect.
Many of you have been asking me what the future holds. We
may well be at another turning point. In the last decade of aus-
terity since the financial crash of 2008, the money available to
county councils has not simply kept pace with the demands on
the services.
The Local Government Association (LGA), which brings togeth-
er councillors from all political parties, has been outspoken in
its challenge to government:
‘The quality of the places we live in depends on our councils.
They are the central cog in a machine that brings together all
the elements we need to feel secure, safe and fulfilled. In turn,
our councils must have the support from government to enable
them to get on with the job.
This is no longer about councils having to prove they can do
more for less – it is now the Government’s turn to show it has
listened, understood and cares enough about the millions of
people that rely on council services to take action.
Although collapse and bankruptcy are not imminent in Cam-
bridgeshire, the reduction in services is huge and likely to get
worse over the next couple of years. Some of cutbacks seem to
me to be very short-sighted. For example, reducing Children’s
Centres which provide vital early care to families in difficulty
may save money now but is likely to exacerbate social and hu-
man problems later on, with increased costs to society. Remov-
ing financial support from voluntary bodies is a particularly bad
idea because, if we lose the goodwill and generous contribu-
tion of volunteers, the elderly, vulnerable, and disabled will
suffer.
Cambridgeshire, short of money from the traditional sources, is
merging its services with other local councils, becoming a prop-
erty developer, setting up a lottery and its Leader has even
been on a visit to China to try to persuade Chinese businesses
to invest in Cambridgeshire!
All this is a far cry from the original intention and purpose of
the county council system. It may be that new structures will
emerge but my fear is that it is the most deprived members of
society, the infirm elderly, the vulnerable young children who
will suffer most. That is a challenge to us all!
Peter Downes, July 2019