Daily Archives: 5 Nov 2015

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5 Nov 2015

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Infrastructure

So, National Infrastructure commission lots of builders, road planners, railway experts etc – right? Wrong!

The commissioners are:

Lord Heseltine – politician
Sir John Armitt – an engineer (good)
Professor Tim Besley – former Bank of England adviser
Demis Hassabis – artificial intelligence researcher and neuroscientist
Sadie Morgan – a founding director of dR and Design Panel Chair of HS2
Bridget Rosewell – consultant and former Chief Economic Adviser to the Greater London Authority
Sir Paul Ruddock – chairman of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the University of Oxford Endowment

The commission will produce a report at the start of each five-year Parliament, offering recommendations for priority infrastructure projects.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/infrastructure-at-heart-of-spending-review-as-chancellor-launches-national-infrastructure-commission

Can you imagine the meetings!

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5 Nov 2015

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Education (local)

High numbers of children with special educational needs and requiring extra resources in Cranbrook schools

From a Cranbrook Town Council Facebook page, we learn the following from the town council’s objection to the siting of Gypsy and Travellers sites near the town:

“Cranbrook currently has two schools to accommodate the influx of children that would naturally be part of any Gypsy or Traveller site.St Martin’s is already working at capacity. This is a school that already has a significantly high proportion of children with varying degrees of Special Education Needs.The new Cranbrook Education Campus has a current intake where over 50% of pupils require extra resources.”

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5 Nov 2015

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Affordable and Social Housing

Planning permission does not equal houses built

15,000 houses given planning permission in Ebbsfleet – 350 so far built. Incredible – this is commuter belt for London and on the Eurostar route – so houses should sell like hot cakes. But developers don’t want to build the infrastructure!

“Although Ebbsfleet was earmarked for major development back in 2003, and permission has been granted for 15,000 housing units, only 350 have so far been built. This is credited to a reluctance on the part of private firms to fork out for infrastructure, rather than a lack of demand. And so, accordingly, £200m of public money is being used to jumpstart the process.”

http://gu.com/p/4ev5q