Fenstanton News:

Junior Football Pitch and The Woodland Walk

After a seven year delay Persimmon Homes have finally started to honour the legal obligations that were agreed to ( by Westbury Homes) as part of the planning consent for the development of Hampton Close and Cranesbrook.

The area scheduled for a junior football pitch has been fertilised and the ground aerated. The fence has been repaired and the car parking area surfaced. All being well the pitch can be used for training later this year. The football club need to raise money for changing facilities etc before they can use it for league matches.

The bridge over Moores Brook will be repaired and the company did agree to remove the self-sown willow trees in the balance pond even though they have no responsibility for this.

Quite a lot of effort went into persuading Persimmon to do the right thing. This included a round trip of 300 miles to attend their AGM to speak during the meeting. However, the critical factor was undoubtedly being exposed on the air by Carol Carmen of the Andy Harper programme of BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.

Please can you help by deterring dog owners from walking their dogs on the pitch and keeping an eye open for anybody vandalising the fence ?.

Flooding in the A14 underpass.

This has been a serious problem ever since it was constructed. However, one of the causes has now been identified. Following heavy rain on Sunday 6th June Colin Saunderson checked the underpass. Sure enough there was a small puddle over the drain. This was disappointing because he had swept the whole area and cleaned the grill only five days earlier. He removed just two handfuls of leaves from the grill and lo! all the water promptly disappeared.

Encouraged by this Colin returned the following day with a couple of plastic drums that he filled with water from the village pond. Nearly twenty gallons of water were emptied onto the drain in a very few minutes. It all disappeared almost as quickly as it was poured on. Clearly it is very important to keep the subway as clean as possible. The parish clerk is seeking a solution to the problem.

The exit point for the water from the underpass appears to be a ditch between the A14 and the bowling club. Unfortunately it is clogged with silt (see picture) and needs to be flushed out. Attempts are being made to get the Highways Agency to rectify the problem.