A day of important meetings about the Local Plan and aspirations for future Council organisation which started with a site visit and ended at Pathfinder House, where I had plotted a perfect counter to Tory leader Derek Holley’s aspirations for a Huntingdonshire Unitary Authority.
To sleep much later than intended after laying awake bothered over the election planning and then quickly up this morning to see how the England Test Cricket Team were getting on in their match against the favoured West Indies. In fact, we had held them to only 160-odd in their innings and then proceeded to easily knock off these runs in reply, having six wickets and ten overs to spare. The book-makers now have England favourites to win the World Cup but we shall see. I broke off my pleasure, as ever, to go out for a meeting - this one a site inspection in Little Paxton being held by the Local Plan Inspector, being held to decide on the future of Cosy Corner and the plans to expand the village population by nearly 25%.
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We met up near to the Tool Hire place, where there was John Grosvenor, a Parish Councillor, and a group of developers on behalf mainly of Potton Developments. The inspector joined us at 10.00am and we took a walk along the Old A1 for the length of the Cosy Corner losenge and then through the Paper Mill property and across to the island and Trapps and then back along Mill Lane. Quite an energetic walk on what proved to be a mild and sunny day. I hope that we have seen the end of winter, but we shall see. Home to make coffee and to find Diana returned from her expedition and, after we had lunch. we watched the TV news and then went upstairs together for a while which was nice.
Out this afternoon, delivering copies of my draft advertising sheets to all and sundry and then, after tea of grilled trout, I prepared for my evening meeting. This was the first in a series of four consultation meetings whereby the Huntingdonshire District Council had invited the Towns and Parishes of the District to meet them over plans for local government reform. I was on the HDC panel as the Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group. This first meeting was at Pathfinder House and was with the five Town Councils of Huntingdon, Godmanchester, St Ives, St Neots and Ramsey.
I had briefed St Neots Town Council delegates and, after a presentation by the chief executive and Derek Holley seeking to persuade the assembled town councillors that we should all have a unitary authority based on the old County of Huntingdonshire, they opened up with calls for more power for St Neots which should have a local authority of its own. Interestingly, most of St Ives and elements of Ramsey also wanted more services to be handled locally and Derek Holley ended up with quite a problem on his hands which I thought was a good evening's work. Home quite late but still found Diana up so as to be able to discuss my plans for tomorrow.