South Cambs District Councillor (SCDC) Bill Handley’s Report to Over Village News, August 2024

Greater Cambridge Housing Strategy 2024 to 2029

A new five-year housing strategy plan for Greater Cambridge has just been published with affordable housing, improved housing conditions and the building of low carbon homes among the priorities. Its publication follows a public consultation, which gathered the views of a wide range of interested groups including people who live and work in the region, The strategy sets out the aims and priorities for new and existing homes – which involves building the right homes in the right places that people can afford to live in as well as improving existing homes.

The councils face a number of challenges, including an ageing population, population growth and the need to achieve net zero carbon in the years ahead. An ‘affordability gap’ exists, meaning that middle income households are being squeezed out of the market, with limited options either for home ownership or in the private rented sector. There are also acute recruitment issues in the area linked to the high cost of housing and affordable housing helps to provide options for people on lower to average incomes who would otherwise struggle to afford to rent or buy locally.

The strategy can be found here: Greater Cambridge Housing Strategy 2024 to 2029

Police Engagement

Cambridgeshire Police is currently undertaking a number of community engagement events. The next one is on Wednesday 28 August at 7pm. You can register now to for more details and to receive the meeting here: https://tinyurl.com/36ykca8z. Alternatively, please email communitymeeting@cambs.police.uk with ‘SOUTH CAMBS’ in the subject to receive an invitation and link

Four-day week update

Full council recently discussed an update paper about the four-day week trial. As a reminder, the reason the trial was initiated was because SCDC had been finding it increasingly difficult and expensive to deliver services because of staff shortages due to difficulties in recruiting staff in our very expensive region.

It was noted that since the start of the trial in January 2023 the council’s performance, as measured by Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) was maintained or improved in 22 of 24 business areas assessed. Staff turnover reduced by 39% and there was a marked reduction in the intention to leave. There was a 53% increase in the average number of applications for roles advertised externally leading to the  recruitment of 134 new colleagues – including some in traditionally hard to fill roles such as waste vehicle drivers and planners. Surveys have shown that the four-day week trial influenced 76% candidates in their decision to apply for jobs at the council. There was an improvement in staff mental and physical health and the number of complaints received fell by 20% in the Shared Waste Service and by 8.5% in other departments. The financial assessment of the trial shows a known full year net cost saving of £371,500. This largely due to the reduction in agency staff.

So, what now?

It was hoped that, by now, an independently verified report on the trial would have been finalised and a public consultation held. However, the previous government were opposed to the concept of a local authority 4-day week (even a trial) and intervened. They imposed a ‘Best Value Notice’ and threatened to use ‘financial levers’ to discourage the council from continuing with the trial; the former demanded a considerable amount of officer time and the latter meant that a financial evaluation of the trial could not be carried out. The election of a new government and the subsequent dissolution of the Department for Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities has added to the delays. Clarification of the new administration’s position is awaited and if (as expected) the financial threats are removed, a report will be published, consultation held and a full council debate held.

Other matters

We are currently in a period of transition, as the new government finds it feet, as well as the summer parliamentary recess. There are a number of extremely important matters in the district on which we are all ‘marking-time’. The new government has pledged to build many more houses and to change the planning system to facilitate their policy; this will undoubtedly affect us in South Cambs. We can expect a more active Combined Authority with a more prominent mayor and East-West rail and C2C will, once again, become big issues.

I will do my best to keep you updated with the facts in my monthly reports.

Bill Handley August 2024.

Contact 01954 200287 (please leave a message) or email cllr.handley@scambs.gov.uk