Page updated May 5, 2011


The Mad Monk articles were written by a resident and were not popular with some.

No one ever revealed who it was but I was piloried in a number of ways including being excluded from being considered for the Clerks Job, it was even raised at my interview, I kept saying it was far too clever to be me but to no avail.
Mike Jocelyn was also suspected

The residents job eventually moved away and he moved away, no one ever guessed who it was
February 2005
November 2005
January 2006 letter
January 2006

Followed by the view from Crow Hill

Beware! another Mad Monk may have returned to haunt us

November 2006

View From Crow Hill
As I stand atop Crow Hill I see things that make me wonder if I'm living in a psychology experiment. Perhaps each new madness is designed push me further to see if I finally realise it's all a joke. That is what comforts me. What frightens me is that all this may be real...
Seven feet of rusting steel. Not the sort of thing most people choose as a symbol to represent their community, but then Cambourne isn't exactly a normal place.
Can someone with authority please confirm that these sculptures are officially considered to be completed? I know the initial plan was for them to be finished in stainless steel, like the kite structure next to the curry house. Somehow, shiny sculptures that
no one much wanted have become rusting scrap metal that everyone loathes. I was walking out of Lower Cambourne along the public footpath to Caxton recently and stumbled across the misplaced sculpture for Upper Cambourne. Oh no, my mistake.
It's a rusting 2CV in a hedge. Easy to confuse the two.

The sheer idiocy of spending enough money to get these things made and installed, but not enough to get them weatherproofed
leaves me gasping like a guppy. Let's have a quiz. What is likely to cost more...
The cost of finishing the original job and making these things stainless steel. The cost of ripping them up and selling them for scrap.
The cost of the legal bills when a child climbs on top, slips and slashes themselves open on the rusty edges.
Don't you love seeing your money spent wisely?
~
I received a letter from the Royal Mail the other day, detailing the changes to post codes in the area. There was a public consultation period - obviously a large change like this can't happen without some pretence at allowing the public their say.
During this consultation the Royal Mail "received numerous replies in support of the changes and others that opposed them." I do think that's a lovely sentence, I like the way it gives the impression that most comments were in support of the changes,
without actually saying anything anything of the sort. My favourite bit, however, was this. "However, the overwhelming majority of those affected chose not to express an opinion on the proposal. In view of this ... we took the decision to proceed."
Because they got less than 50% of the population writing to them, they took the view that whatever decision they took was
ok by us.
Taking at look at the recent local elections, I see that of the 19 seats contested in South Cambs, 17 generated less than 50%
turnout - meaning (according to the Royal Mail) that if the current councillors decided to ignore the results and remain in office,
that would be in accordance with the will of the people. Furthermore, in the last European Pariament elections, the UK turnout
to vote was 39%. Again, the Royal Mail would take this sort of result to mean we could junk the whole load of MEPs and
install some autocratic, bureaucratic, dogmatic and rheumatic committee to run the lives of 450,000,000 people and no one
would notice anything out of the ordinary.
Hmmm, I'm not sure that was a good example...
December 2006

View From Crow Hill
When Cambourne was originally planned, someone noticed that dropping 3,000 houses down and inviting people to live in them was going to have an effect on the local secondary school. Because of this, the Council, the Cambourne developers and Comberton Village
College agreed a deal. If the developers pay us enough money, said the college, we will be able to expand our school and take the
children from Cambourne.
So an agreement was made and signed and over £3,000,000 has flowed from the developers to the school, with more to come (having
first been added to the collective prices of Cambourne houses). In September 2002, the Cambridge Evening News reported on the
opening of the school's £2m art and sports centre:
It forms part of a £5 million extension to the college, which also includes four new science labs, seven classrooms and an arts block.
Peter Woodward, facilities manager at Comberton Village College, said: "The village college is designated as the secondary school for the Cambourne development and as a result of that it's necessary to provide funding for their education and the expansion of the
school. " Our population will rise to 1,365 from around 1,000.
And everything was rosy and everyone was happy.
Until a few months ago, when a Cambourne child was turned away from Comberton Village College because her year was full. Instead, she was offered a place at Chesterton with travel arrangements that entailed leaving home at 6:50am.
So has the population of Comberton Village College hit 1,365 already? Not even close. It is currently 1158. Less than half the
anticipated extra places have been provided, yet 13-year-olds are being turned away.
However, even if Comberton suddenly expanded to 1,365 and there was no growth in other villages (like Caldecote) so all those extra
places were taken by Cambourne children, we would still have a huge problem as the Cambridgeshire County Council Draft School
Organisation Plan from 2000 explains:
The demand for secondary places arising from the growth of the Cambourne settlement will be met by the expansion of Comberton
Village College by 500 places. The first phase (September 2002) will see an expansion by 260 places.
So the Council were expecting 500 places in 2000, but two years later the college were talking about 365. So that's 135 children with
nowhere to go to school. Except even that isn't the whole problem, as that was written before the County Council increased the planned
size of Cambourne to 4,000, which suggests 600 secondary school age children.
Let's hope the parents of 235 children are intending to send them private because there's no education for them to be had here.
I see in the Parish Council minutes that the Council are instituting a set of by-laws to govern our behaviour in Cambourne. Among the
many things that will be outlawed are:
Climbing trees
Cycling on green spaces
Ball games
Shouting
Playing a musical instrument
Kite flying if it annoys someone
I can't tell you where each of these will be outlawed, as the Parish Council haven't yet made it public. You might think the Parish
Council would want to consult the residents before laying down a set of new laws governing what we can and can't do. You would be
wrong.
I assume implementing these laws won't be a cheap exercise. It does seem a little petty to be outlawing cycling, football and climbing
trees when we have so much real anti-social behaviour that is going unpunished. According to the police report in the Council's minutes,
there were 143 "incidents" in Cambourne in the single month of October 2006. If the police are unable to prevent four to five incidents
a day at the moment, what is the likelihood that they will find the time to prevent annoying kite flying?
Feb 2007
The Parish Council budget for the forthcoming financial year has been drawn up, so I've been having a look to see what they
intend to do with our money.
A few facts to set the context:
As Cambourne adds new facilities there are new costs piled onto our tax bills.
This tax year Cambourne Parish Council's precept of £111.41 (for a band D house) was higher than any other parish council in
South Cambridgeshire.
The total sum raised by this was £228,000, a 57% increase on the previous year and again higher than any other parish council
in South Cambridgeshire.
First the good news, and it is very good news. Although they budgeted for £228,000 this year, with a couple of months to go,
it is anticipated that only £166,000 will be spent, leaving £62,000 in the bank. This is really good news. They asked for a lot
of money, then when they realised they didn't need all of it they restrained themselves from spending it regardless. Over a
quarter of our money unspent, you've got to be impressed with thriftiness on that scale. This £62,000 is added to the money
that was already in the Parish Council reserves from previous under-spends to give a total of £132,000 sitting in the bank.
Moving on to the budget for the next year, the first thing to notice is that the Parish Council have planned a three-year budget
to show that higher and higher bills will be a thing of the past. For 2008/09 & 2009/10 the total amount needed will be within
a few percent of next year's figure, and as there should be more houses, the actual amount paid per household should drop -
more good news. I expect this is a result of criticism following the 57% increase they levied last year. It's not all good though,
to get to that point where no more increases are needed, there will be another increase this spring, of about 15%. Remember
this is the total amount needed, so per house the increase will be smaller.
Looking at the individual items within the 2007/08 budget, a few things leap out:
* We will be spending £120,000 on village employees,
* Repairs and Renewals cost £8,000 this tax year, but is rising to £22,000 for 2007/08 and to £32,500 two years after that.
This doesn't include maintenance, which is costed separately.
* Looking specifically at the Hub which only opened last year, the bill for its repair and renewal was £5,000 this tax year, will
be £7,500 this tax year, then £10,000, then £12,500.
* Income from the Hub was £25,000 this year and is budgeted at £20,000 next tax year.
* Income from the Sports Services was £8,000 last year and is budgeted at £11,500 next tax year.
* £35,000 has been set aside for a maintenance building and £10,000 for air-conditioning and stage lighting at the Hub.
The other thing that stands out is that over the three-year term of this budget, various items increase at either 10% p.a. or in
large, seemingly arbitrary amounts:
Actual Est Est Est
06/07 07/08 08/09 09/10
Open space plant maint.: £ 600 £ 700 £ 800 £ 900
Sport repair/renewals: £1,500 £4,000 £5,000 £6,000
Hub telephone: £ 496 £ 550 £ 605 £ 665
Hub refuse collection: £ 500 £ 550 £ 600 £ 665
Web site £ 500 £ 550 £ 600 £ 650
What this suggests to me is that given a range of possible future prices, the tendency has been to go for a high figure, so we are
not surprised by unplanned costs. This makes sense in itself, until you remember the large surplus sitting in the bank. A parish
council is required to keep savings equal to half of its precept - about £119,000 based on the coming tax year. This is sensible
as a "rainy day" fund for when things go wrong. However, if we have this rainy day fund, why the necessity to keep raising
budgets by 10% or higher? We've paid to establish the Council's savings and now we seem to have to pay over the odds to
create a second safety net. One or the other seems fair, both is not.
This is our money that we've earned and I for one don't enjoy giving it up for no good reason. Remember the Parish Council
over-estimated their spending by almost 40% this year, yet this coming budget is higher again. Is the Parish Council really going
to spend 43% more in 2007/08 than they did this year? If not, can I have some of my money back please?
Feedback welcomed at ViewFromCrowHill@googlemail.com