Kevin Wilkins

Work is nearing completion on the new Addenbrooke’s access road from Trumpington. This weekend should see the lifting in of the concrete beams to form the new bridge over the railway line. Rail possessions were booked two years ago to ensure that the line can close from 0200hrs on Saturday and reopen at 0300hrs on Monday, to ensure the work is undertaken safely. Buses will be provided as an alternative to trains, and this will be organised and publicised separately by the rail operator. If wind speeds over 25mph are experienced then the work will be postponed until the following weekend. The Addenbrooke’s Access Road remains on course to open in September 2009.

The City Council is preparing a Heritage Lottery ‘Parks for People’ funding application for improvements to Jesus Green. These include a new tree avenue, new planting, a river walk, a performance space, a wildflower and biodiversity area, an adventure play area, and a new pool entrance and café facility. More details at the City Council website.

The County Council has secured £57m in Government funding for a Private Finance Initiative scheme to replace and improve 44,000 exisitng street lights across Cambridgeshire which have reached the end of their design life. The Liberal Democrats are pressing for this to be done in the most energy efficient way.

The original proposals paid little regard to climate change. They assumed the number of street lights would increase, and that they would as at present burn all night. We have been pressing for a stringent review of the number of street lights, with lights being removed where they are not needed, and intelligent systems to dim or switch off the street lights at times (such as the middle of the night) when they are not needed.

The kind of careful approach to street lighting which we are proposing will not only reduce carbon emissions and reduce electricity costs; it will also make it easier to see the stars at night.

Following concern from a resident about the delays in the re-opening of the Central Library, I have received the following update from Lesley Noblett of the County Council:

As I am sure you will know, the construction work has been beset with problems. It was always going to be a highly complex project, given that so much was being done to the building - stripping it back to its basic framework, cutting out whole sections of the structure and reconstructing completely new ones - and all happening within the very tight constraints of a busy shopping centre, with limited access for the contractor. However the construction work then uncovered major faults in the original structure of the building - walls and staircases not properly linked to the main framework, and even more asbestos than anticipated. All of this has tested the ingenuity of the contractor to the utmost and seriously disrupted their project programme. And of course, we were not in the same category as the Grand Arcade project in terms of money - we have had to be very careful in the use of public funds. We are however now looking forward to a handover date at the end of the year.

There then follows the part that is really exciting for us - the fit-out programme that will take us into the early part of the new year. This is going to be a very high tech building - with an automated sortation system for returned books; the latest Radio Frequency systems to enable people to check their own books in and out; Wi-Fi; accessible technology for disabled people; a British Film Institute “Mediatheque” and more. All of this needs careful planning to install and test - and most importantly for staff to become familiar with. We will also be doing some essential testing with customers to make sure that everything is working well before we open fully. We may not be as big as Terminal 5 - but with such a complex building we certainly want to make sure we learn from their problems!