CCC proposal:

“I wish to inform you of the proposed casualty reduction works on the A1303 at Madingley Rise.

In light of the injury accident record, we have been investigating the collisions between Coton crossroads and the American Cemetery, in order to develop appropriate engineering measures that will reduce the collision rate.

Between September 2006 and September 2011, 24 injury accidents occurred along this section of the A1303.  Of these, 3 resulted in fatalities, 5 in serious injury with the remainder sustaining slight injuries.

There is a high proportion of loss of control and shunt type accidents on the east bound, Cambridge, approach. Heading west, leaving Cambridge, the predominant accident trend is for overtaking and loss of control. The remaining accidents show no particular patterns.

We have developed a scheme to address as many of the accident types as possible. The work will be linked to other surfacing works in the area to try and reduce the effect on the travelling public and kept costs as low as possible by combining works.  These are shown on the attached plan.

It is anticipated that works will commence in February/early March 2012 as part of a scheme to be delivered by our colleagues in Whittlesford.  It is estimated that the works will continue for 30 days.”

The Public Library housed in the Village College is under review.

People from Comberton and surrounding villages attended a consultation meeting in Comberton Village Hall on 25^th May and heard that the County Council will be encouraging greater community participation in the management and running of library services through volunteering and acting on Friends’ Groups and Community Management Boards.

The Library opened in 1960, and the 2010/11 library profile shows that the number of active borrowers (836) increased by 22% over the last 4 years and that 49% of all issues were of children’s books. An enthusiastic group of users from Comberton and surrounding villages want to keep the library open in the face of budget cuts and have been meeting regularly in the Library. There is now a Friends Group, a poster and publicity campaign including a presence on Facebook, and a blog http://friendsofcombertonlibrary.wordpress.com/ with minutes of the meetings to date and information about joining the group. The next FOCAL (Friends of Comberton Area Library) meeting is 24^th October. All welcome

The County Council Cabinet will discuss the future of the Library on 27 September 2011 and the Friends have been meeting with Parish, District and County Councillors to express their desire to maintain library services in the area and have had support and advice from Council and Library managers. The FOCAL Group welcomes further support.

• If you do not have a library card, consider registering, there are three computer terminals in the Library available to library members
• Join the Friends : we hope to arrange a programme of talks and events in the Autumn and are gathering ideas for the programme (if you know of a local author willing to visit please contact the group)
• Volunteer to support the library service by supporting existing activities such as the Doorstep Delivery service to the housebound or providing expertise in fundraising
• Attend Parish Council meetings if the Library is on the agenda, contact your councillors
• If you know of grants or funds supporting community projects let the Friends know FriendsofCombertonLibrary@gmail.com

There will be funding cuts but if the community takes more responsibility for the running of the library we should be able to retain it and improve what it can provide for local families and visitors.

Suzan Griffiths

Chair of FOCAL

NB The Women’s Institute launched a Love Your Libraries campaign in June, and recently set up an epetition. To login and sign use this link:  I, the undersigned, believe that libraries are an essential local educational and information resource….  http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/1269

There’s a meeting at the Library at Comberton Village College on Monday 18th July at 7:30pm to talk through how local people could help to keep the Library open.

Anyone interested should please come along to help keep this community facility open.  If you come across this post too late to attend the meeting, please contact County Councillor Fiona Whelan directly.  If you are able to offer only a few hours a month, this could allow the Library to remain open.

Several of the exchanges in the list will be fibre-enabled by the end of 2011, whilst the remainder are expected to be upgraded before the end of 2012. Openreach will provide a more specific date for the enablement of each exchange six months prior to an exchange being upgraded to fibre broadband.

Madingley Exchange Race to infinity teamThe new locations announced today include the 10 exchange areas that won the recent BT Race to Infinity competition, where members of the public were asked to cast votes for their community to be upgraded to the BT Infinity fibre broadband service. Madingley Exchange was one of the original 6 winning exchanges in the Race to Infinity which concluded in December 2010. A further 4 exchanges which had a significant number of votes cast were subsequently included by BT.

The connections to the exchanges will be a combination of fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) which offers speeds of up to 40Mbps and fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) which offers speeds of up to 100Mbps.

Openreach confirmed that of the 156 strong list, only the 10 winners of BT’s Race to Infinity competition, will get the faster FTTP connectivity, while the rest of those on the list will get slower FTTC. These speeds will allow customers to benefit from an enhanced online experience when uploading or downloading files, gaming, social networking or watching streamed video.

This is much welcome news for the communities served by Madingley Exchange, and even more thrilling news to members of the MadX Race Group who worked tirelessly for several weeks in bitter winter conditions of 2010 canvassing and collecting votes from all the residents in Caldecote, Childerley, Dry Drayton Estates, Hardwick, Coton and Madingley thus ensuring our winning position in the Race to Infinity.

Our communities can now look forward to enjoying the best that super fast broadband technology has to offer.

http://racetoinfinity.org.uk/bt-openreach-confirms-madingley-exchange-in-next-rollout-phase-for-superfast-broadband

http://www.cambridgeppf.org/documents/CambridgePPF-invitation-17April3pmLaunchofway-markedwalksatCotonCReserve.pdf