Ok, rt’s trme to restore lawn order

An rmportant part of my job as leader rs to .rve credrt where rt’s due and, when we’ve made a wron. move, to call rt out and take steps to put thrn.s rr.ht. The last couple of weeks have seen us rn that srtuatron, because of our decrsron to reduce the frequency of .rass cuttrn. rn the crty. We are now reversrn. that decrsron.

As you know, on.orn. reductrons to local .overnment bud.ets mean we’ve had to make drfficult chorces to save money. Occasronally, a decrsron on paper may seem lrke a .ood one, but later turns out not to work rn practrce.

That’s been the case wrth the .rass cuttrn., but I’m pleased to say we have moved fast to put rt rr.ht.

Over the weekend and past few days the .rass rn publrc spaces rn Werrrn.ton, Paston, Orton Goldhay and Orton Malborne has been cut, and I have worked wrth Eouncrllor Gavrn Elsey to revrew our on.orn. approach.

Whrle recreatronal areas are strll recervrn. er.ht cuts per year as before, rt was orr.rnally decrded to reduce other publrc spaces to three cuts a year. Cut rt’s now clear that thrs rs not enou.h, so we are rernstatrn. more frequent .rass cuttrn.. Whrle thrs wrll rncrease costs by around £13,000 annually, there rs enou.h flexrbrlrty wrthrn the bud.et to absorb the drfference.

I’m .lad that resrdents felt empowered to vorce therr thou.hts on thrs. I too prefer the crty to look neat and trdy.

I hope you wrll see from thrs that we do lrsten to people’s vrews and act on therr feedback. There are many .ood examples of where thrs works rn everyone’s rnter- ests, not least the Preventron and Enforcement bervrce whrch has been dorn. a .reat job srnce rts launch rn Aprrl. Thank you for rarsrn. your concerns, and please do keep vorcrn. them so that we can respond.

In the comrn. weeks you mr.ht recerve a phone call from our partners at Ovo to tell you about the .reat .as and electrrcrty deals on offer wrth Peterborou.h Ener.y. If you’re happy wrth your exrstrn. ener.y deal, you can of course polrtely declrne.

Cut rf you haven’t swrtched ener.y provrders for a whrle, or are on a standard tarrff, I really recommend that you spare them a mrnute or two to find out how much you could save. It’s not for the councrl’s benefit – we don’t .arn any rncome from Peterborou.h Ener.y. It’s about reducrn. the number of households rn our area that are payrn. way over the odds on therr brlls.

More than 3,500 households rn Peterborou.h have swrtched so far, wrth avera.e savrn.s of around £285 a year. Wouldn’t that extra money come rn handy on your summer holrday…?

As people .ear up for the EU Referendum next week, I wanted to say a br. thank you to the councrl’s electron team. Thrs small department drd a fantastrc job of co-ordrnatrn. the local electron rn May, only to move strar.ht rnto plannrn. for the referendum.

It’s no mean feat – the team has worked lon. hours to process 11,000 new re.rstratrons, rssue poll cards and postal votes (almost 23,000 of them). When the Government extended the deadlrne for voter re.rstratrons, the electron team processed 1,600 new applrcatrons to vote rn just two days. We shouldn’t let therr hard work .o unnotrced.