Disclaimer: These observations are not the ‘official’ minutes of the meeting, these are supplied by Whittlesey Town Council, normally (1) month following the meeting and can be viewed on their website.
This month’s WTC meeting started at 7:30pm and finished at 10:35 ^^ 3+ hours of at times arduous debate.
After Cllr Laws presentation, there was another presentation by Mr Bernard Gray-Esson, on the events planned for the 75th anniversary of VJ day in 2020.
There will be various events taking place and Mr Gray-Esson was seeking support for the events.
The first will be a service of remembrance on the 08th Maya 2020 at St Mary’s Church in Whittlesey.
Next was The Public Forum, there were 3 speakers.
Both SR & LD spoke about the Kings Dyke Crossing.
1/ The present Kings Dyke Project started in 2013 and communication to the public by Cambs County Council has been near none existent.
2/ The original costing of £13:1 Million appears to have been vastly under estimated – The cost of the land purchase is only a relatively small amount in the overall cost escalation.
3/ No one appears to be responsible or accountable for the delays 
and costs.
4/ Whittlesey Town Council should ask or demand the chief executive or the leader of Cambs CC to come and account for the project to a open public event or the Town Council in the very near future.
5/ Can Mayor Palmer again give an undertaking that the scheme will definitely go ahead in light of the latest cost increases.
Standing orders were suspended and Cllr Chris Boden attempted to answer some of these concerns, what he did say was that Metro Mayor Palmer and the Combined Authority are in charge of the project and have been for some time. The contract is ‘still’ being sorted and negotiated and he hoped that this would be concluded in days, not months!
He stated that Mayor Palmer was committed to delivering the Bridge, and there were 3 options on the table.
1/ Go ahead with the plan and costs acceptable.
2/ Go elsewhere with the plan and look for a different builder/developer.
3/ A No go option.
County Councillor David Connor gave an update of the local LHI applications (Local Highways Improvement) namely work at Pondersbridge for Road Safety Improvements.
The projects needs in the region of £32,000 of which £15,000 has been raised, The PCC – has committed another £10-£10K – which still makes a shortfall. A robust debate took place as WTC have already made their allocated share towards the project and the consensus being that Ramsey Town Council should make a reasonable contribution which up until now has not happened.
Mr Robert Windle gave an update on The Whittlesey Sports Association along with the recent ‘It’s a Knockout’ event at the Field of Dreams recently.
Please see below the new contact and groups belonging to Whittlesey Sports Association.
WSA-Doc-01