District Councillor Contact Details

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us using the details below.

Martin Cahn:               Cllr.Cahn@scambs.gov.uk                        07826 748407

Sunita Hansraj:            Cllr.hansraj@scambs.gov.uk              07584 671322

Pippa Heylings            Cllr.Heylings@scambs.gov.uk             07837 228416  

Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Development Management Service have successfully received accreditation for the ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management Standard

Over the last few months, the Development Management service set up a quality group consisting of team members from across the service to collaborate and capture the District Council’s business processes and procedures for development management and compliance.  These were reviewed to ensure they meet and exceed the requirements of our service users and stakeholders, and included other areas such as performance, complaints and contracts. 

The external ISO 9001 auditor spent several days with the team, reviewing everything from processes, performance, internal audits to leadership and we have successfully achieved the standard without any need for additional work.  As far as we know, we are the only Planning Service to have achieved this accreditation. The next step will be to create a business development opportunity by providing a toolkit and support to other councils.  Finally, we aim to achieve this standard for the rest of the service by 2024, meeting our ethos of continual improvement.  

Transformation update – customer experience in GCPS

The Transformation team and the Greater Cambridge Planning Service have been working closely together both to improve the customer experience, and ensure we are making the best of available technology. If you would like to know more about some of the work, just watch the following video on the SCDC Youtube channel:

LGA annual conference 2023: Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities’ speech

The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, gave a speech at the Local Government Association’s (LGA’s) annual conference 2023 in Bournemouth in which he announced the establishment of the Office for Local Government (Oflog), a new local government performance body in England. Oflog will provide authoritative and accessible data and analysis about the performance of local government and support its improvement. Further information on Oflog can be found on GOV.​UK. 

The Local Authority Data Explorer online tool, which brings together a selection of existing metrics across a subset of service areas for data that is available at different levels of local authority, was also published on GOV.​UK. As a first step the Data Explorer initially covers four sets of metrics; over time Oflog will be looking to expand on and iterate these metrics. 

Million Hours Fund open for applications

To mark the start of Anti-Social Behaviour Awareness Week (which takes place between 3 and 9 July), the government and The National Lottery Community Fund have announced the first round of funding for youth organisations to provide more out-of-school activities and support young people.  The Million Hours Fund, announced in March as part of the government’s Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan, will support an additional one million hours of positive activities from youth services.  Additional youth workers, volunteers, venue hire and activity resources will be made available through the first tranche of funding, now open for applications. The £3 million investment will also fund youth workers’ engagement with young people in the areas they already spend time in, such as parks and leisure facilities. 

The remaining £8 million from the Million Hours Fund will open for applications from the autumn, with further details to be announced in due course. Further information about eligibility criteria and applications for the first £3 million of the Million Hours Fund can be found on GOV.​UK. Successful applicants will be informed in due course. 

Community Automated External Defibrillators fund and national defibrillator network database

Organisations in England are being invited to bid for a share of £1 million of government funding to buy defibrillators for community spaces like town halls, local parks or post offices. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is inviting interested organisations to register expressions of interest for its Community Automated External Defibrillators (AED) Fund, aimed at increasing the number of AEDs in public places. An estimated 1,000 new defibrillators are to be provided by the fund.

. DHSC wrote to councils yesterday about registering defibrillators on ‘The Circuit’, the national defibrillator network database, which provides information on where defibrillators are located. Registering a defibrillator with ‘The Circuit’ enables emergency services, including first responders, to locate the nearest AEDs when they are treating someone out of hospital for sudden cardiac arrest. AED registration is simple and quick to do.

Avian influenza in birds update: Avian Influenza Prevention Zone lifted today

Yesterday the government lifted the Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ) for poultry and captive birds, introduced to help stop the spread of avian influenza (‘bird flu’). The risk has reduced but as we have seen with recent premises confirmations, it has not gone away. All bird keepers must follow enhanced measures at all times to prevent the risk of future outbreaks and remain vigilant for signs of disease. 

Species Survival Fund launched

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has launched a £25 million Species Survival Fund to increase the creation and restoration of natural habitats and help drive the action we need to halt the decline in species. The funding will support projects with grants of up to £3 million to tackle habitat loss, safeguard our fragile ecosystems and create nature-rich landscapes full of wildlife-friendly habitats such as grasslands, woodlands and wetlands. Councils, environmental not-for-profit organisations, National Park Authorities and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, farmers and land managers are all invited to apply for the funding.

Anti Social Behaviour
During the last weekend in June a 48-hour dispersal order was put in place by the Police in Orchard Park and Arbury Court. This gave the Police the right to direct a person to leave the area if they had reasonable grounds to suspect the person was likely to cause ASB.
The increase in Police presence has been visible in Orchard Park and reports of ASB have abated.
The Police website describes what constitutes ASB and an easy way to report incidents. It also allows for confidential reporting.
As a result of reporting incidents to the Police by both the Community Safety Partnership and myself the ASB in Orchard Park has been dealt with.
We are trying to help Histon deal with this problem and so ask that each and every incident is reported so that Police can target their operations to deal with this .
A meeting with the Police took place on the 11th July in Orchard Park to which the Parish Councillors from Histon were invited.