Image of students going to Impington Village College, along New Road in the morning £35,000 grant secured for design work to improve road safety,

·         Highways funding,  

·         Impact of Trumps actions on Iran,

·         Denver Sluice,

·         East Cambs Reservoirs,

·         Support with cost of living,

·         Secondary School Applications,

·         Darwin Green Secondary school

Highways Funding Decisions were made as to how the £58.3 million highways capital maintenance programme will be invested including:

• £36.5m for carriageway maintenance, including resurfacing and preventative treatments.
• £2.5m for repairing peat soil‑affected roads.
• £4.5m to maintain and improve footways and cycle routes.
• £3.25m for drainage works.
• £3m for strengthening bridges and structures.
• £1m to replace traffic signals.
• £1.6m to renew road signs and lines.
• £850k for design, network surveys, and investigation work.
• £550k for local minor schemes.

In total, this represents £58.3 million of investment in Cambridgeshire’s highways for 2026/27.

Local projects;

• Footways in Orchard Park where tree routes have destroyed block paving have work programmed for the next few months.  
• Hereward Close and Home Close will be resurfaced the following financial year, with some preparation work this year. 
• There is also £35,000 allocated to design a safer road scheme for New Road which is a real win.   I made the case and worked with the school and parish council representatives that access to Impington Village College needed a safety upgrade.

It is frustrating that there is not more but in December we voted for a data led ranking scheme and a commitment to prioritise the most efficient way of working.   When that comes back to you in March and most of the areas you really want to see aren’t on the list it is disappointing but I recognise that if we are committed to working as effectively as possible to fix the county’s roads there are no easy answers.    

I asked about some specific locations.

• Milton Road, which I have pushed for every year,  if funding continues at the same level, be resurfaced in 3-5 years.
• Butt Lane by the household recycling centre (Milton Division) will be patched up but needs a deep structural rebuild. As this work is on the programme for the Waterbeach busway this will wait until then rather.

We also agreed a new Highways Maintenance policy – this identifies the standards that the contractors work to for fixing our roads.  For the first time this prioritises preventative work and will allow for patches of road to be replaced rather than individual pot holes.  I will be pushing really hard for the reactive maintenance funding to address some of our local issues. It has taken an extraordinary amount of work to be in a place to make these changes to a longstanding maintenance document.

Impact of Trumps actions on Iran The Trump government’s bombing of Iran, a sovereign state, albeit a brutal tyrannical one has made the world far less stable.  Oil costs have increased as will inflation, this will hit county council budgets ie the money will go less far including highways maintenance.

Denver Sluice I visited Denver Sluice late Feb to look at the sluice which is effectively our tidal barrier and keeps us safe from inundation from the sea.  If this failed within 2 years our water managed area would be flooded.  

Fens 2100+ is the ambitious programme being run by the Environment Agency due to be launched soon.  Fens 2100+ asks what could happen if you reimagined our place differently from when it was drained 400 years ago. If you put sluices in different places, for example moving the Dog in a doublet sluice from just south of Peterborough to north of Wisbech 10s of miles further up the river. The sluice would immediately protect a far bigger area of land.

https://engageenvironmentagency.uk.engagementhq.com/fens2100

East Cambs Reservoirs separately the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Flood and Water partnership received a presentation from Fenland Soil about how you could fulfil our water needs differently. Matthew Bullock, a banker who funded ARM and Sinclair, presented. He talked about changing the legislation to trade water and that East Cambs farmers were able to build reservoirs within 3 years at a cost of £4 per cubic meter, compared to the Chatteris reservoir which will come in at £44 per cubic meter.  Water managed in that way could make a significant contribution to our area’s water needs quickly.

It is important that our thinking is challenged and we try to find creative, faster solutions to our area’s water needs.  This group has received £50,000 for initial work from the Growth company with a significantly larger sum committed for follow up work. That said we currently have raw sewage being pumped directly into our waterways on an industrial scale due to legislative and regulatory failure.  We really need to understand the potential risks.  

Fenland Soil who are working with both government and the Environment Agency seemed unaware of Fens 2100+.

Cambridge Growth Company after a lot of effort from the County Council we finally got a presentation from the Growth company, whereas they reached out to the Mayor, City and District councils.  There seems to be a lack of local connectedness.  Please consider responding to the consultation on the Growth company which closes on 1 April.  If you think our roads are not 21^st century global city suitable say so, if you think public transport is not good enough say so, if you think retaining the separation of our community from other villages is important say so.

Income maximisation South Cambridgeshire District Council have already adopted such a system, and in the last 12 months has secured nearly 1,000 additional claims for residents which are worth over £500k to residents in their first year alone, with a lifetime value of nearly £4 million based on average claim lengths.

A County Council committee unanimously approved procurement of the new system for an annual cost of between £200-£220k, for a 3-year period (for a total contract value of £600k-£660k).

Data-led systems used in other areas have shown a return on investment of over £400 for each £1 spent. This new platform will enable the council to focus on preventing residents from falling into poverty by building their financial resilience, reducing their future vulnerability and the need for subsequent more costly crisis interventions.

Secondary School Places Outcomes for secondary school preferences have improved for Cambridgeshire families this year, with a higher proportion of pupils receiving one of their top three choices for September 2026.

This year, 96.7% of pupils were offered one of their first, second or third preference schools, a slight increase from 96.5% in 2025. The number of pupils who did not receive any of their top three preferences has also reduced, falling from 3.5% in 2025 to 3.3% in 2026.

The total number of applications went down, with 7,141 applications received in 2025, and 7,050 applications received in 2026 – a reduction of 91 applications year-on-year.

Darwin Green Secondary School Update Attending a North West Cambridge community forum I had an update on Darwin Green Secondary school, technically in Impington.  The proposed opening date is spring 2028, but it felt very likely to slip.  The developer has delayed in handing over the land amongst other issues.

Parents were desperate for certainty the county council could not provide.   No year 5 student can be guaranteed secondary school place at a specific school a year early, particularly a school that has not been built.  The county council is already engaging with affected parents identifying whether they would prefer other schools to expand their intake or for the first year group to be taught initially in a temporary setting before transferring to the new school. Meridian are the academy trust who will be operating the school, they also run North Cambridge Academy, Northstowe Secondary and both Histon Brook and Histon Park Schools.   The catchment area will be determined by the academy trust but can be challenged by the local authority.   It could have an impact on Impington Village College and Orchard Park residents as the current catchment areas of Impington, Chesterton and North Cambridge academy are, from a local authority perspective, non ideal.