Kilian Bourke

A section of the revised plan showing the 45cm strip of "pavement"

Thanks to pressure from Petersfield Lib Dem, Sarah Brown. over questions about the accuracy of their drawings, Sainsbury’s have issues updated diagrams showing their proposed Mill Road loading bay.  The loading bay was part of the planning application for the Mickey Flynn’s site on Mill Road, which Sainsbury’s wanted to turn into a metro-style supermarket.

At the planning application, which was rejected by a majority of councillors, Sarah highlighted inaccuracies in the drawings and described the proposals, which could obstruct the pavement, as being dangerous for pedestrians including wheelchair users and those with pushchairs.

In addition to the planning application, Sainsbury’s need the City Council to agree for land at the west end of the proposed layby to be designated as public highway. That land is owned by the City Council, which is currently running a consultation about the issue.

“The same drawing was used in the consultation”, Sarah said. “I wanted one which fixed the problems I identified; the east end was simply wrong – it showed the pavement being wider than it is, and the whole diagram didn’t show where the extent of the new pavement would be.”

Now, after pressure from Sarah, Sainsbury’s have released updated plans, which show the land to be designated as pavement as only 45 centimetres wide!

“I was astonished when I saw the new plans”, said Sarah. “The strip of land they want designating as highway from the City’s property is part of the new pavement, which is only 45cm – that’s a foot and a half.”

“Sainsbury’s planners seem to be suggesting that the layby would double up as footway when it’s not in use for loading. It seems to me they’re asking people to step into the road. What about when the bay is in use? The ‘pavement’ would be blocked. Would this require wheelchair and pushchair users to cross the road to the other footway at this point, from behind a parked lorry?”

“We were told this is one of the worst blackspots in the county for accidents – what’s being proposed here is completely unacceptable to my mind” Romsey Lib Dem and deputy leader of the City Council, Catherine Smart, described the idea as “completely impractical”. A copy of the updated plan can be downloaded here:

City Councillor Sarah Brown

Dear Romsey resident,

Good news! Your Lib Dem city councillors have made a bid for funding for new heritage street-lamps on Mill Road, hopefully bringing to a close a long-running campaign to secure improved street-lighting for the area.

One of the heritage-style streetlights we hope will be installed on Mill Road

Because of the number of accidents on Mill Road County Councillor Kilian Bourke had succeeded in making it a top priority for new street lights, but when the County Council’s contractor ignored his request to discuss details of the scheme he intervened and stopped the project so other options could be looked at.

Catherine Smart, your local city councillor, felt strongly that it would be better to use Victorian-style streetlights like those on the other side of the bridge. These were more appropriate to Romsey’s railway town heritage, and would ensure visual continuity between the two parts of Mill Road. City Councillor Paul Saunders felt that having made Mill Road a Conservation Area we had to fight to conserve its character.

Councillor Smart has persuaded her colleagues to put in a bid to the City Council’s budget for an upgrade to a higher standard of column and this has been accepted. The picture above illustrates the type of street-lamp that we are hoping to get for the entirety of Mill Road, all the way down to Perne Road.

We hope you support our proposal. Although budgets are tight and it will not be cheap, the visual impact of this scheme will last for 50 years, so we felt that getting this right had to be a top priority.

To have settled for less would have been a missed opportunity for Mill Road – especially when we have fought to make it a Conservation Area!

Happy New Year from your Romsey ward councillors,

Catherine Smart, Kilian Bourke and Paul Saunders

At the last East Area Committee councillors were invited to comment on local transport projects that developer contributions could be spent on.

I suggested that we should invest some of this money on improving access to the Tins cycle path from Mill Road.

Not everyone is aware of it, but if at the bottom of Mill Road (technically Brookfields) you cross Perne Road and carry along down Burnside you quickly come to the Tins Path and Snakey Path, which link Romsey to Cherry Hinton.

These are great commuter routes for cyclists coming from Cherry Hinton Rd, but also give Romsey residents immediate access to green spaces that are very different to those in the city centre.

The reason many Romsey residents don’t use this route more often is that the junction in question basically does its level best to hide the existence of these paths from human consciousness, while making it difficult and even dangerous to reach them.

The crossing is intimidating for cyclists and pedestrians, and especially off-putting for families with young children on bicycles.   This is exactly the opposite of what should be happening – we should be promoting our green spaces and cycle routes – so I am pushing for the council to expand “The Tins Phase II” project to fix this situation.

Lots of money is being ploughed into the Tins Path project to improve a strategic cycle route, and rightly so; but surely it makes sense to invest a bit extra to make that cycle route and green corridor accessible to the wider community?

There has been considerable local concern about Tesco’s request to deliver to its Mill Road premises by making part of Sedgwick Street two-way.

Personally I don’t think the council should be going out of its way to help a company that has appeared to consistently disregard local opinion at every turn, but as a very local issue it was obviously important that we consulted with local residents.

That is why Romsey city councillor Catherine Smart conducted a street survey which she addressed to residents on the streets that make up the current Tesco delivery route.  This was the right thing to do.  When there is a local problem you start by consulting with those most directly affected by it.

Having considered the responses to her street-letter, Catherine has explained on the Romsey Lib Dems’ web-site that the majority of people who would be most affected were resolutely against these changes.

If Tesco chooses to submit a formal application she will therefore oppose it, and will inform the County Council’s officer to that effect.  I fully support her position on this, as does our other city councillor Paul Saunders.

It gives me great pleasure to report that the Conservative decision to award county councillors a 25% pay rise was scrapped today in Shire Hall.

At a time of wage freezes, redundancies and cuts to front-line services this increase was totally inappropriate. It is strange that this, the only point that mattered, seemed to totally pass the Tories by. I couldn’t have spelled it out more clearly in the debate.

Read the rest of this entry.

SIGN THE PETITION!

Last Tuesday county councillors voted for a 25% increase to their allowances, with further increases for the Leader and members of his Cabinet.

In a free vote that was passed by a majority of four (33-29), all but four Conservatives voted in support of the recommendations.  18 Liberal Democrats voted against, and 1 for; 3 Labour councillors and the only Green also voted against.

Read the rest of this entry.

On Tuesday I moved a motion calling for county councillors to press their parliamentary parties to adopt the Cambridge Amendment to the Localism Bill, on the same day that Julian Huppert discussed it in the Commons.

The intention was to get as much cross-party support for it as possible so I talked to the Labour group in advance of the meeting.  By including reference to a Labour amendment to the Bill – that also promotes retail diversity-  we were able to support it jointly.  It was disappointing that, despite Conservative Lord True having spoken warmly of the Cambridge Amendment, the local Conservative group were not interested; I was pleased though when not only Labour but also the council’s solitary Green and card-carrying Marxist Simon Sedgwick-Jell supported it, as well as local Independent Nichola Harrison.

Tonight Catherine Smart moved the same motion at the City Council and secured near unanimous support for it, with only Petersfield’s Kevin Blencoe abstaining.  Despite the consensus, however, the exchange between Labour and the Lib Dems was a bit more vexed than I had expected.  In particular, Labour suggested that the Cambridge Amendment was a jumped-up version of theirs.

Here a fact check is called for. Both amendments are about promoting retail diversity, but they do so in different ways.

Read the rest of this entry.

Design for Romsey Mosque

It is regrettable that the EDL has chosen to march in as liberal a city as Cambridge.  I suppose the upshot is that they couldn’t have chosen a more barren recruiting ground.

I consider myself lucky to live in such a tolerant, open-minded city – that is part of the reason I have chosen to stay here – and doubly fortunate to represent one of its most diverse and inclusive wards: Romsey, a former railway town that has changed rapidly without losing touch with its past. We are a motley crew, and proud of it!

The murals on the railway bridge say so. “Respect and Diversity in our Community” reads one; on the other side of the bridge is a mural of national flags thrown together and contorted so that they are sometimes unrecognisable, and part of a much bigger patchwork.  On top of these are superimposed (a bit disconcertingly) numerous eyes.  This is apt: Romsey Town is a place where difference is embraced as diversity, but where people are respected as individuals first, not because or in spite of their ethnicity.

I look forward to the new Mill Road mosque. The current one in Mawson Road is not fit for purpose, and its replacement – a stunning design - would incorporate plenty of public space and even a cafe.

I wasn’t planning to go to the counter-protest: the newly formed Cambridge Muslim Council got it spot on when they said we should get on with our business and leave the police to handle matters.  The EDL’s decision to march in Cambridge on this of all weekends is a deliberate provocation calculated to attract maximum media coverage and I didn’t want to play into that.

But when I was collared on my lunch break in CB1 cafe by Councillor Nichola Harrison I was powerless to resist her vice-like grip and joined the Mill Road part of the march.  On the way back in to town I finally got around to posting a cheque to Love Music Hate Racism, something I’ve been meaning to do for years.

Looking forward to the rest of The Big Weekend, although it will be hard to top last year’s star act: The Wurzels.

This morning Lords Greaves and Tope submitted our amendment to the Localism Bill.  This would give local people greater powers to promote retail vitality and diversity on the high-street.  The text hasn’t appeared on the parliamentary website yet so for the time being here is a copy of the amendment as drafted.

It is really encouraging that our parliamentary party is helping us try to influence national legislation in this way.  We are the party of localism and that is how it should be. Ros Scott and now Tony Greaves have been first-class in helping us take our local campaign national in this way.

If you support our campaign please contact me at kilian.bourke@gmail.com or 07737782295. The more people who are involved the better our chances of getting this passed.

More to follow,

Kilian