Shapour says “The Liberal Democrat motion states that the City Council will receive no increase in revenue from this important upgrade. Yet the motion itself admits that an upgrade A14 will help to grow the economy of the city. Inevitably this will increase the business rate take and benefit the council which is a large commercial property owner.”

“This is the only option on the table at the moment. If Jullian Huppert and his party hadn’t been implacably opposed to any upgrade it is highly likely that the upgrade would have been involved in the first trache of infrastructure investment. Okayed by the incoming coalition government. It reflects badly on the Lib Dems that they are trying to kill off this investment that is vital to the economic growth of Cambridge and the surrounding region.”

For a more detailed argument see bellow.

The key to this motion is the assumption that upgrading the A14 will not result in any financial benefit to Cambridge City Council. Therefore the request for a contribution should be rebuffed, potentially blocking the whole scheme.
The motion acknowledges that a full upgrade of the A14 will help grow the economy of the city. This WILL inevitably lead to the city getting more money from business rates. If you don’t believe me, talk to business, the univsersites and local residents. They KNOW that the A14 is limiting the growth of the Cambridge economy. It will help existing companies to grow, the retention of companies getting fed up with the A14 and it will help to attract new business. Let’s not forget that the council is a major commercial property owner, so will benefit.
Therefore I believe that point 2 is not true. Future funds WILL accrue to the City Council.
In addition, there are two major points that the motion completely ignores; the impact on the Alconbury Enterprize Zone and the Huntingon viaduct.
The A14 upgrade is a crucial part of making the Alconbury Enterprise Zone work. Success at Alconbury will feed back to the surrounding region. It is anticipated that there will be £180 million to spend across the LEP region – including Cambridge – to spend on infrastructure. In this light, a £5 million pledge represents a very sound investment.
The Huntingdon viaduct is a key part of the A14 locally. It is ageing and weak, and cannot be expected to take its current traffic load for much more than 20 years. It is therefore essential that the infrastructure is put in place to relieve this pinch point. Any policy that opposes a full upgrade to the A14 has to have a long term strategy for handling the Huntingdon viaduct – a point this motion completely ignores.
Neither the local contributions nor the proposed tolling are ideal, but we have to face the fact that the government’s coffers are empty. We have been talking about upgrading the A14 for a long time, and even before the current economic downturn central government balked at the cost of fixing the problem.
This is the best offer we are going to get. We either need to get behind it – and that means admitting that the upgrade will be beneficial to Cambridge – or live with the consequences of leaving things the way they are.

Abbey
Arbury
Castle
Cherry Hinton
Coleridge
East Chesterton
Kings Hedges
Market
Newnham
Petersfield
Romsey
Trumpington
West Chesterton

Cllr Meftah, shown here (right) being congratulated by County Council leader Nick Clarke, has lived in Trumpington for many years, and runs the Cantab Millenium computer business on Mill Road. He came to England from Iran in 1980. Several years ago his life story was recorded by a local art project.

The Conservatives success, combined with Labour gains, ends the Lib Dems’ 12-year majority on the City Council and reduces them to holding exactly half the seats.

Cllr Meftah was congratulated by Cambridge Conservatives Chairman Linda Yeatman. “It was a carefully planned and well run campaign. Shapour was out house to house calling on Saturdays and night after night, we had a steady stream of helpers from across the city coming out with us.“

“Shapour was tirelessly good-natured throughout, and shook many hands on doorsteps and left a smile on the faces of the people he talked to.“

Conservative campaigner and Foster Road resident Shapour Meftah has called for the council to reject any such plans.  “It is totally inappropriate for Trumpington and would have a devastating impact on the local environment.  Just imagine the grid lock on match day.  Any councillor supporting this would be scoring a terrible own goal.”

The DfT will fund the first two stages of a new A14 survey with the first phase, will see experts reviewing the problems and challenges surrounding the A14 corridor, due to be completed by Christmas. The second stage will look at what solutions, including rail freight and public transport as well as road measures, could meet these challenges.

A previous £1.4 billion A14 improvement scheme was abandoned last year following opposition from Cambridge Liberal Democrats including MP Julian Huppert, despite the unanimous backing of local Conservative councils and MPs for the scheme.

Cambridgeshire County Council Leader Nick Clarke, said: “Addressing the transport problems along the A14 corridor is a top priority for this council. From the point when the Government announced they did not have the funding for the original scheme we have been campaigning for action on these issues, and made sure Cambridgeshire and our partners have been able to have a say.”

The freeze in 2011-12 was promised in the Conservative 2010 election manifesto, and rewarded councils that froze council tax with the equivalent of a 2.5% council tax increase paid out of central funds. All English councils took up the offer.

The Chancellor today announced that £805 million had been found to continue the freeze offer into 2011-12. The total annual saving to an average (Band D) Cambridge household would be £72 if local authorities take up the offer.

“This is great news for Cambridge households struggling with the rising cost of living and Labour’s debt crisis,” said Cambridge Conservatives Deputy Chairman, Timothy Haire. “We call on the City Council to keep their rate rise to below 2.5% so that Cambridge residents can benefit.“

After a warm welcome from Linda Yeatman, Chair of the Conservative City Conservatives, Mrs Ford spoke about her role in the European Parliament, and particularly her work
on the Industry committee where she has been leading discussions on research and innovation funding in a bid to simplify the process and cut down on the bureaucracy associated with securing such funding for UK companies.  Mrs Ford then took questions from the audience on issues including food safety, nuclear weapons, the Eurozone and global financial crisis and funding for research and development facilities in the Eastern region.  Mrs Ford also led a lively discussion on localism and divesting power to local authorities.

Speaking after the event Mrs Ford said:

“Opportunities like this to meet with people across such a spectrum of different industries are invaluable.  The feedback I received on the key issues that really matter to people here in the East of England, such as the problems faced when securing research funding, and the issues associated with peer review, were incredibly useful and in fact I have already had the opportunity to raise the need to look at the impartiality of the peer review process, in the European Parliament on Monday.”

For further information, photographs or quotes please contact Sarah Stamp, Press and
Communications Officer to Vicky Ford, on 07584 028671 or at communications@vickyford.org

The Conservative-led council has proposed that it will borrow money to cover the £21 million cost of the scheme, if repayment is guaranteed by the next franchise for the Cambridge – King’s Cross line.

Mrs Villiers commented, “They’ve made a very good pitch for it and I can see that potentially there could be really significant benefits for the economy and jobs in an area which is already very important in terms of technology, innovation and economic growth.”

Addressing a special session of Parliament, the Prime Minister described the events as “criminality pure and simple” and stressed there was no excuse for such behaviour. He made clear, “We will not put up with this in our country. We will not allow a culture of fear to exist on our streets. And we will do whatever it takes to restore law and order and to rebuild our communities.”

He set out the three key priorities on which the Government’s response is focussed:

• Restoring order, with a series of measures to help ensure more robust and effective policing, such as allowing the police to remove face coverings where there is reasonable suspicion that they are related to criminal activity;
• Supporting the victims, with, for example, a new £20 million high street support scheme to help affected businesses get back up and running quickly, and making compensation available under the Riot Damages Act;
• Tackling the deeper problems, taking the action necessary to fix our broken society.

David Cameron concluded by saying:

“This is a time for our country to pull together. To the law abiding people who play by the rules, and who are the overwhelming majority in this country, I say the fightback has begun, we will protect you, if you’ve had your livelihood and property damaged, we will compensate you. We are on your side.”

“And to the lawless minority, the criminals who’ve taken what they can get, I say: we will track you down, we will find you, we will charge you, we will punish you. You will pay for what you have done.”

Read David Cameron’s full statement to the House.