Your Councillors are always ready to help. If you have any questions about these – or indeed any other – matters, please do not hesitate to contact:  

Pippa Heylings : cllr.heylings@scambs.gov.uk M: 07837228146 
Martin Cahn : cllr.cahn@scambs.gov.uk M:07826748407 
Sunita Hansraj : cllr.hansraj@scambs.gov.uk M: 07584671322 
FACEBOOK PAGE: HI People (Histon and Impington Community Group) 

Funding 

Community groups in South Cambridgeshire have been given a funding boost thanks to grants from the District Council. Supporting local people with their mental health, helping families with young children, supporting the elderly, tackling poverty and disability transport are among the community groups to share more than £148,000 in grants. A total of 11 voluntary sector groups have received funding including Home Start Royston & South Cambridgeshire (£13,711), Royston & District 

Community Transport (£7,000) and Citizens Advice (£100,000). The grants are given at the start of each new fiscal year and the Council makes a pledge to continue that support for the next three years, subject to satisfactory progress reports. 

Zero Carbon Communities Grant Scheme 

Do you know anyone who might be looking to fund an eco-project? Applications are now open for the fifth round of the South Cambs Zero Carbon Communities grant scheme and SCDC is looking to receive proposals for projects that reduce carbon emissions or engage the community around climate change and sustainability. Grants range from £1,000 to £15,000 in a total funding pot of £125,000 with more info at scambs.gov.uk. Previous projects include a village e-bike rental scheme, cooking classes that reduce food waste, tree planting, solar panels for village halls and a men’s mental health and wellbeing project that runs a mobile library for gardening equipment and tool hire 

Right to Buy 

Council house tenants have long had the ‘right to buy’ their home at a discount. What has been frustrating for councils who own the houses is that government takes most of the money from these sales which make it hard to replace sold homes with new ones. Finally, the Government is allowing us to keep our Right to Buy receipts but only for 2 years. We sell about 30 properties a year and this will mean that we have to borrow less when we build new houses. 

ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR (ASB)

Orchard Park has worked with the Community Safety Partnership (CSP) to organise a meeting with the Police, Councillors, CSP, youth worker, Clerks from the Community Council and Councillors. The meeting aims to provide information to the community regarding measures taken to address ASB. Councillors and the Parish clerk from Histon have been invited because working together is going to be an effective way of dealing with ASB in the long term. 
 

East West Rail (EWR)

The Secretary of State for Transport announced the preferred route option which links existing stations from Bedford to Cambridge, including communities in Cambourne and the area north of Sandy, south of St. Neots, and was chosen following detailed analysis over several months. 
This route would represent the best value for taxpayers and was the most popular option with people who responded to the 2019 consultation. 

Assisted Bin collection

Elderly and Disabled can request assisted bin collections from the council 

CCTV TAXIS

All taxis and private hire vehicles licensed in Cambridge will be required to have CCTV installed in them, in a boost for customer and driver safety. This will start from April 2024 beginning with all new licences and cars. A rolling programme over the year will mean all taxis and private hire cars will have CCTV installed.  

Also required will be the installation of a “panic button” which either the driver or the passenger can push to record a verbal conversation. 

As taxi licensing authority, the council has several objectives, including the safety and protection of the public, vehicle safety, prevention of crime and protection of drivers – all of which will help to be met by the installation of CCTV in the vehicles it licenses.  
Additionally there will be a “panic button” which will allow a conversation to be recorded either by the driver or the passenger. 

SCDC

District councillors heard about successful performance in a meeting on achievement in areas like environmental protection, affordable homes and growing business. 

Additionally, a “mystery shopper” update given during the meeting, showed almost nine in ten people (88%) spoke to a contact centre team member on their first attempt when ringing the Council and 100% were offered help or assistance. 

The mystery shopper exercise involved running a four-week analysis of 400 calls made to the Council. Nearly all (96%) advisors showed knowledge of Council services / products and were able to answer the mystery shopper’s enquiries to a high standard. Almost three quarters of telephone calls from residents to the Council (72%) were answered within the two-minute target.