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"Planning"
Over the past 4 months we have seen a working planning system taken offline and a new system put in its place with the promise of a new all singing all dancing system. I would love to be writing here that all has gone well however this would be far from the truth. After using the system as well as being told at Parish Council Meetings how poor the new system is. I have to look at why and how a system should be implemented.
I have much success in implementing customer management systems and running a time of testing and then phase implementation while still running the old systems, with this experience I can see very little of these principles taken into account when implementing a new planning system. Without these clear methods of software implementation we see the results that the new planning system has fallen foul of.
At July’s full Council meeting the planning portfolio holder discussed how the systems data had been converted and then tested. However I am not convinced the correct effort has been made to even plan a changeover using a staged method. In the implementation of Google and BBC websites a change does not happen instantly and a beta site is the normal practice and even Facebook will phase in new features over different user groups as with the new Facebook “Places” .
As a new councillor I cannot tell how it makes me feel when being approached by members of the public and Parish Councillors in regards to how poor the new system is in fact I feel quite embarrassed. I am now aware that as we still move forward with a new system that does not meet the required standard we will be still be failing our residents. As a Councillor I will be pushing to see if these issues can be resolved and that we all learn from the mistakes that have clearly been made here.
Cambridge City and South Cambs District councils are jointly consulting on a number of options for the provision of food-stores across north-west Cambridge. Consultation documents have been published and there will be a drop-in session at Orchard Park community centre this week (Wed 22 Sep 10 between 1800 and 2100).
Click here for a link to the South Cambs site to view the consultation documents. Click here for a summary leaflet.
There are 4 options and to a great extent they are only of secondary relevance to Orchard Park in that all 4 include the planned local food-store. However since 3 of the options include super-stores on the University and/or NIAB sites these could impact the viability of the Orchard Park store.
David says: this should be a redundant exercise for Orchard Park. It should already have its food-store. Unfortunately no council took leadership to make this happen so that we now have people who’ve been living at Orchard Park for over 2 years still waiting for their shops. It’s really not good enough. New developments must have their facilities in early so that communities can build and not be dormitories reliant on services from elsewhere.’
‘The County Council is supposed to have a ‘leadership of place’ responsibility and its strategy calls for the development of sustainable communities. It should back these up with actions to get shops etc built and operating at an early stage in the life of new communities.’
Local Lib Dem district councillors, Jonathan Chatfield and Edd Stonham, have spoken out against the proposals to allow homes to be built on Orchard Park close to the A14 on plots originally reserved for community or commercial buildings. They were commenting on an application from Barrett Homes for permission to build 182 dwellings on plots on the northern fringe of the development tight up against the A14.
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