As Cambridgeshire County Council continue with their battle to reduce their outgoings in the face of the government’s austerity programme they have now published their proposals for Economy, Transport and Environment in Cambridgeshire. You can find the full version here but the headline bullet points are as follows (with our highlighting of items likely to be of particular interest to villagers):

• Remove funding for School Crossing Patrols to save £171,000 and offer schools and local communities the opportunity to take the function on.
• Generate income by charging utility companies for the time they spend on the network rather than fine them for staying longer than scheduled
• Reduce winter maintenance on the highways to save £650,000 – this will reduce the road network treated from 45 per cent to 30 per cent
• Rising bollards in Cambridge to be replaced by CCTV to save £50,000
• Withdraw funding from some libraries and seek community assistance to run them this is in addition to reducing opening hours of retained libraries to save £375,000 over two years
• Removal of the mobile library service to save £160,000 over two years
• Introduce 24 hour bus lane enforcement
• Remove non-statutory concessionary fares to save £125,000
• Create a shared planning service with district councils
• Reduce funding for Fenland Learning Centres by £90,000
• Reduce support for bus services by £1.4m over two years to focus funds to support community led services not regular scheduled routes.
• Increase on street car parking fees in Cambridge by at least 20 per cent to raise over £300,000

As the county themselves say there will be some significant impacts to Cambridgeshire communities if these changes go through and job cuts to over 50 posts can be expected.