Tag: Martin Curtis

Martin Curtis on Flooding in Whittlesey

17:17 Wednesday 5th February 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[C]HRIS MANN: Turn on the TV or listen to the radio, you can’t avoid the bad weather. If it’s not affecting you right now, it will do soon. .. Let’s look at the situation in Cambridgeshire now, and bring in Martin Curtis, councillor Martin Curtis, who’s the Leader of the County Council. Hello Martin.
MARTIN CURTIS: Good evening.
CHRIS MANN: And also of course councillor for Whittlesey North, appropriately enough, because that’s an area or THE area probably, worst affected by flooding. Just how bad is it there?
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Fairer Funding For Cambridgeshire – The Leader Goes To London

17:07 Tuesday 14th January 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: The Leader of Cambridgeshire County Council is to make a personal appeal to the Prime Minister over the raw deal he feels the county gets in education. Martin Curtis is meeting David Cameron at Downing Street tomorrow. He’ll tell him that a generation of children’s education is being blighted, because Cambridgeshire is the most underfunded in the country, and it’s getting worse. Today the Council Cabinet agreed the latest budget, as part of the £149 million in savings over the next five years. And afterwards Cllr Curtis told me exclusively of his meeting with the Prime Minister, and the reasons behind it.
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Cambs Councillor Wants Time Out For Tour De France

07:38 Tuesday 10th December 2013
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[P]AUL STAINTON: A Cambridgeshire councillor says the County Council should let its staff leave the office to watch the Tour de France next year. The race will pass through Cambridgeshire on 7th July next summer, and it’s a Monday. Fancy a long weekend? So should the people of Cambridgeshire be allowed those few extra hours off work? Well Cllr Ian Manning will make the suggestion at a Council meeting tomorrow. Morning Ian.
IAN MANNING: Good morning Paul.
PAUL STAINTON: Now why do you think this might be a good idea then?
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City Deal For Cambridge Will Help It To Grow

17:07 Thursday 5th December 2013
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[C]HRIS MANN: A billion pound deal called the City Deal has been announced today for Cambridgeshire from the Government. It means more of the money made here will be invested here on housing and infrastructure, and it’s been negotiated by the City, the District, and the County Councils, and others. In a moment or two I’ll be talking to Tim Bick, the Liberal Democrat Leader of Cambridge City Council, who’s with me in the studio, but first of all, I spoke earlier to the Leader of the County Council, Martin Curtis.
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Peterborough District Hospital Site Sold For Housing

08:25 Tuesday 26th November 2013
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[P]AUL STAINTON: It’s been derelict for more than two years, but now the former Peterborough District Hospital site has finally been sold. Since the new PCH site opened at Bretton, Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust have been trying to sell the site to plug a huge shortfall in the budget. Interim Chief Executive Dr Peter Reading explained why the sale had taken so long to go through.
(TAPE)
DR PETER READING: Well two reasons really. One is the collapse of the property market caught the Trust cold several years ago. They originally were planning to develop it themselves in a joint venture, and the collapse in the property market really wiped that option out. They then went down what was a bit of a blind alley, looking at a particular deal that was put forward by a developer by an unusual route, and then eventually decided that actually the best thing to do was to go to the open market and get an open market price. The Hospital, which has been a bit of an eyesore and a bit of a risk for three years since we closed it, will now be demolished, and between 300 and 350 new homes and a school will be built on that site.
(LIVE)
PAUL STAINTON: Now the new owners planning that housing development are Lands Improvement Holdings. The NHS will receive £7.75 million up front from the sale of the land, which is just a fraction of the debt owed by the new Peterborough City Hospital. Joining me now is MP for Peterborough Stewart Jackson. Stewart, morning.
STEWART JACKSON: Good morning Paul.
PAUL STAINTON: Now you’ve called for this to be hurried up and get the sale moved on over and over and over. It’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it?
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Martin Curtis Cambs County Budget 2014

17:07 Monday 25th November 2013
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[C]HRIS MANN: Next year’s proposed budget for our county council has just been published, and there are yet more cost savings and cutbacks, on top of the 1.99% rise in council tax that they’d already flagged up. The minority Conservative administration says it has no choice, because the central government has removed so much of its funding, forcing it to save £149 million over five years, on top of the £74 million saved in the last two. Their Leader Martin Curtis warns in an extended interview with me of even tougher times ahead. He joined me earlier, on the day that superfast broadband was switched on in the County. But first that budget. I asked him to sum it up.
(TAPE)
MARTIN CURTIS: We’re having to make about £32 million worth of savings this year, and that’s despite putting council tax up by 1.99%. That’s what we’re proposing. Within that there’s a lot of very very difficult decisions to be made, not least because a lot of the easier decisions have already been made, and the easier savings have already been taken.
CHRIS MANN: So year after year you’ve had the squeeze put on you by the Government. Have you now reached the stage where yes, you’ve cut the backroom staff, you’ve cut the management. Now you’re having to take really tough decisions which affect the standard of service to people?
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Soham Solar One Step Closer

17:25 Tuesday 29th October 2013
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[C]HRIS MANN: Plans for a solar farm near Soham are one step closer after a meeting today. It happened at Cambridgeshire County Council Cabinet meeting. That meeting again! Ian Bates is the Cabinet Member for Growth and Planning, and joins me now. Hello Ian.
IAN BATES: Evening Chris.
CHRIS MANN: Just tell us about this proposal please.
IAN BATES: Well it’s a proposal to bring forward an investment for the County Council on County farmland. And essentially a business plan would have to be put together, and planning would come next year, more towards the Spring of next year, when we would seek planning permission. But essentially what this is is about investment, where we would benefit and put the money back into front line services. So it’s an investment which would benefit the County Council, benefit the taxpayer, and therefore help us towards delivering services on the front line Chris.
CHRIS MANN: You say it would benefit. Don’t you mean it might benefit? Nothing is guaranteed is it?
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TPA Swipe At Council Chiefs

07:07 Friday 4th October 2013
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[P]AUL STAINTON: Let’s start though with cuts to council budgets, which will impact on all of us, and in particular on front line services going forward. That’s the warning anyway from a union spokesman for Cambridgeshire. Officials from the GMB Union meet today to decide their response to further budget cuts local authorities are going to have to make over the next few years, as their central government grants are reduced yet again. Here’s Richard O’Leary, the GMB’s Regional Officer for Public Services in Cambridgeshire. Earlier he said there are no more efficiencies savings that can be made .
(TAPE)
RICHARD O’LEARY: Since 2010 the cuts in local government have been absolutely savage. By 2015 there’ll be over 500 jobs lost at the current figures in Cambridgeshire. And a billion pound budget will virtually have been cut in half. There literally is no more cuts to make, and the biggest effect in these cuts as well as on local residents are on the staff.
(LIVE)
PAUL STAINTON: As I mentioned, Cambridgeshire County Council has to save £159 million over the next five years. They’ve already made 500 people redundant in the last three and a half years, and the Leader of the Council Martin Curtis has warned that hundreds more jobs might have to go. And he says it’s not really his or the authority’s fault.
(TAPE)
MARTIN CURTIS: We have done everything Government asked of us. We’re the fastest growing county in the country. As successive governments have said that they want councils to invest in growth, we’ve done that, and what we feel is we’re being punished. The level of cuts we’ve got to make in the next couple of years, we’re one of the worst affected county councils. And what we’re saying is actually Government need to revisit this. They actually need to revisit the whole scope of funding cuts to councils in general, and think about whether they can find those savings elsewhere.
(LIVE)
PAUL STAINTON: So last week it was firefighters. earlier this week it was teachers. Could it be council staff who are the next group of public sector workers to go on strike? Well Richard O’Leary from the GMB didn’t rule it out.
(TAPE)
RICHARD O’LEARY: It’s difficult to say. We hope not. Strikes are always a last resort. I was talking to somebody yesterday and made the point that I think there’s only actually been four days of industrial action in public services in the last 25 years. That’s the purpose of our meeting in London today, to gauge the views of our local government reps, to see what can be done to work with local authorities. But also obviously our primary role is to protect members’ terms and conditions, and services to the public.
(LIVE)
PAUL STAINTON: Joining me now is Eleanor McGrath from the Taxpayers Alliance. They think councils could still make savings. Eleanor, where?
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