News
Peterborough City Council agrees to increase council tax by five per cent
At a full council meeting on Wednesday, March 8, 2017 councillors approved a five per cent increase to council tax, the maximum allowed without a local referendum. Read the full story in the Peterborough Telegraph here. Prime Minister Theresa May gave councils permission to increase council tax by three per cent in 2017/18 on top of the 1.99 per cent general rise that was already approved.
Continue reading “Peterborough City Council agrees to increase council tax by five per cent”
Economical Christmas Dishes from 1916
Christmas 1916 was beset with food shortages, bad news from the front and the worst weather for over 30 years. Rationing wasn’t brought until December 2017 but there were growing shortages on the domestic front, as bread and meal prices increased sharply on the previous year – the consequence of German naval action. Many families couldn’t afford what they had previous years and had to make the best of what was available.
The recipes below are from the Peterborough Standard, 16 December 1916. There are links to more detailed alternatives where available. Continue reading “Economical Christmas Dishes from 1916”
New site ‘officially’ launched
Welcome to the new and improved Eye Village website. With a fresher look and feel the new website is designed with you in mind. Its taken over a month of work and a quite a number of late nights to get to this stage.
Time has moved on since the original site was conceived and it had become time-consuming to manage. The new site should work should work a lot better on mobile devices with easier navigation and have more interactive sections. There’s a whole host of smaller changes, all designed to give you a better experience. If you have any problems please contact me here.
The home page has been updated and the news pages are now a lot easier to comment on. The heritage section has always been my favourite section and that stays much the same as it was, the directory has been revamped, companies based in the parish of Eye can add their business for free to this section.
The site costs £60 a year in hosting so if any Eye businesses would like to sponsor the site or advertise please click here. You will get a banner on the front page and a link to your website at the bottom of each page (currently I pay all the running costs myself).
Thank you for visiting.
Further housing planned for the village…
The Local Plan
A new Local Plan is being developed by Peterborough City Council. The local plan sets out local planning policies and identifies how land is used, determining what will be built where.
The original local plan was supposed to identify land required for building between 2012 until 2026 but because it was based on the Regional Spatial Strategy which was revoked in 2013 the council are having to create a new plan based on the Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA).
The village has seen continuous building over the past six years. Of the 283 homes that where allocated in the 2012 to 2026 plan over 85 per cent have already been built. Mayor of Peterborough and Eye Councillor David Sanders is reported to have said at a scrutiny committee this week “You’ve ruined Eye and you should be ashamed of yourselves.” at plans to build 250 more properties in the village. Over the past 20 years, Eye has the largest growth of any village within the Peterborough area. With a larger village comes increased traffic, pressures on services and rising crime as shown here.
In the new plan, a large area to the east of the village has been proposed for further housing. The new estate will completely encompass the school and residential home Field House. Part of this area was in the original plan but due to a campaign by local residents, it was removed from the final 2012 Peterborough Site Allocations DPD. The area taken out by the council (south of Thorney Road (SA.5.7)) was added back in when the plan went before the Secretary of State. Now just four years later the entire area has been added back in within a larger area. The new site actually larger than all the existing sites from the 2012 document in Eye (excluding Eye Green) added together.
“Britain is running out of land for food and faces a potential shortfall of two million hectares by 2030 according to new research.” BBC
For further information on the village’s response to the 2012 document click is here. Population charts for the parish are here.
Update.
The consultation is now live. The eight-week public consultation on the ‘Further’ Draft Local Plan runs from Friday 16 December 2016 until Thursday 9 February 2017. The new proposals are for an additional 3,500 homes across the city council area as part of the process to develop a new Local Plan. Read more here: Consultation on Peterborough’s Local Plan.
St Michaels Gate, Peterborough – The political view…
Radio interviews transcript
Subject: St Micheals Gate Evictions
Date: 21 October 2016
Station: BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
DJ: Paul Stainton
Interviews with Peterborough City Councillor Ed Murphy and David Seaton and MP for Peterborough Stewart Jackson.
Cllr Ed Murphy
Paul: Before we get onto the families there have been accusation that Peterborough City Council only got involved when the media got involved, that they’ve messed up here, that they could have brought these houses, that the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing. Some have said its solar panels mk2.
Ed: I think it is solar panels mk2. That cost £3.5 million that we wasted on that before the council saw sense and did what people were telling them and did the sensible thing. On this one now we’ve got people saying it doesn’t make sense. At the call in on Wednesday night one of the officers admitted that they knew about St Michael’s Gate in May.
Paul: But we had someone on this show saying they didn’t. Continue reading “St Michaels Gate, Peterborough – The political view…”
St Michaels Gate, Peterborough – The tenants view…
St Michael’s Gate is just south of parish border. Tenants at 74 homes are being evicted by a private firm which did a deal with the council to move its homeless people into the properties. The story hit national news and Peterborough MP has asked for a debate around the subject in The House of Commons. Below is a transcript of the Radio interview taken on Friday 21 October 2016.
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire – Paul Stainton
Paul: Not good news for the tenants in Peterborough. Remember we broke the story a couple of weeks ago now brought it to you that they were being evicted from their houses just before Christmas for no reason really other than profit. Buts there’s been another week of twists and turns in the saga. You remember around 70 families in Parnell faced eviction from their homes after this deal had been struck by Peterborough City Council with a property provider. Well, the deal we see residents thrown out and replaced with homeless people who are currently being put up in travel lodges across the city. Then the property developer will slice up the houses and make more accommodation and make more money.
Continue reading “St Michaels Gate, Peterborough – The tenants view…”
EU Referendum – Results
The result for the Peterborough:
| Number of votes | % | |
| Remain | 34,176 | 39.1% |
| Leave | 53,216 | 60.9% |
Turnout: 72.4%
By Ward
Eye – Thorney & Newborough – Remain 1846, Leave 3568
Guilsborough Road estate – Planning decision appealed
Decision appealed...
O&H Properties Ltd has appealed Peterborough City Council’s decision to refuse planning permission to build 55 homes on a site adjacent to Eye’s Nature Reserve. The number of homes applied for was 60 per cent higher than the 35 recommended in the Peterborough City Council’s Site Allocation Plan (if the plans had been for 35 homes it would have most likely have been passed without incident).
The design of the new estate is of a much higher density than the nearby Pershore Way and concerns over a buffer zone to the A47, a shortage of primary school places due to new residents coming to the area, and cutting into the adjacent Wildlife Site, were all listed as reasons why the application should be rejected.
The planning application is currently with the Secretary of State, you can view the appeal and make comments here.
If wish to make a representation you can fill out the online form here (click on Make representation), you can email the Planning Inspectorate Customer Services Team at enquiries@pins.gsi.gov.uk or write to them: Planning Inspectorate, Registry/Scanning, Room 3/05 Kite Wing, Temple Quay House, 2 The Square, Temple Quay, Bristol BS1 6PN. Please ensure that you quote reference number APP/J0540/W/15/3014912 in your correspondence and if you are sending your comments by post the Planning Inspectorate require you send them three copies of your correspondence.
The closing date for comments is Friday 12 June 2015.
Continue reading “Guilsborough Road estate – Planning decision appealed”
The Croft is demolished
The Croft has all but been demolished to make way for new housing…
The Croft which accommodated 39 residents was opened on the 2nd April 1969. It was closed by Peterborough City Council in 2012 after the Council’s cabinet approved its Older Person’s Accommodation Implementation Strategy, which condemned five of the city council run older people’s homes to close.
At the time Peterborough Pensioners’ Association Mary Cooke backed the relatives’ fight. She said: “Its supposed to be all about choice these days, but where is their choice.”
The city council’s strategy, together with NHS Peterborough, saw residents move from older care homes into privately run independent living flat complexes, known as extra care homes. Continue reading “The Croft is demolished”