Guide price £550,000, freehold.
Ground floor: Entry porch, living room, sitting room, kitchen and dining area.
First floor: Two double bedrooms (one with en-suite shower room), family bathroom.
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Second floor: Third bedroom.
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Two storey self-build/custom build dwelling on land adjacent to 4 Doctor’s Close
Erection of 1no two storey self-build/custom build dwelling on land adjacent to no. 4 Doctor’s Close on Land Adj 4 Doctors Close Impington Cambridgeshire CB24 9ND
Change of use to flexible commercial use at Bedlam Farm
Change of use of an existing agricultural building (and its curtilage) to flexible commercial (B8 – storage and distribution) use at Bedlam Farm Milton Road Impington Cambridgeshire CB24 9NG
Certificate of lawfulness for a roof extension, dormer windows, roof lantern, juliet balcony and rooflights at 45 Cambridge Road
Certificate of lawfunless under S192 for a proposed rear roof extension including dormer windows with roof lantern and juliet balcony and 2no rooflights to front elevation at 45 Cambridge Road Impington Cambridgeshire CB24 9NU
Fence height extension at 1 Winders Lane
Replacement and 2 foot height extension of existing fence at 1 Winders Lane Histon Cambridgeshire CB24 9EZ
Public hires to cost more for some Rec facilities
Price increases for using the sports and pavilion facilities at the Recreation Ground will come into force next month. A lot of hire costs will remain the same, but there will be increases for a few facilities. The new prices apply to public hire arrangements only, with fees for clubs calculated separately.
The steepest increase in public hire fees will be for the cricket pitches, which go up from £75 to £120 per match on the 1st square and to £100 on the 2nd square.
The Parish Council, which sets the hire fees, says the increases have been made “to reflect the superior quality of Pitch 1” and that the new charges reflect those applied for cricket pitches elsewhere around Cambridge. The fact that a “cricket game lasts longer than football” is also factored into the pricing structure.
Cllr Joseph Uttridge commented that these charge rises would be acceptable as long as the quality of the pitches is maintained.
Other increases
Football, bowls and tennis hire by the public will also see increases, but by lower amounts. The cost of hiring a pitch for a football match will rise from £69 to £70 and the hourly fee for hire of the bowling green will rise from £9 to £15.
Use of the hard and grass courts for tennis will go from £9 to £10 an hour, or £13 to £14 with floodlights on a hard court. But fees for using the hard court for netball will remain the same. The new prices are broadly in line with Orchard Park, where the tennis courts cost £10, and the price of a court for netball is £20. Slight discounts are available for residents and block bookings.
Commercial hire of the H&I Rec for activities such as training courses will remain at £13 per hour, though use of the changing rooms will rise from £13 to £16.
Club fees
With the exception of the bowls club, all the village sports clubs using the Rec will see price increase too. These will range from £8.25 for the croquet club to £938 for the tennis club.
The increase to the cricket club will be £504, while Histon Hornets will see a £439 rise.
Tennis representative Jane Fidler commented that the tennis club was “surprised” by the 12.4% increase, and a meeting with the club was due to discuss the fee in more detail.
For full details of the charges for and availability of Recreation Ground facilities hire, see the Parish Council website.
Getting to know Jean & Roger – our new litter picker leaders
Enthusiastic to do their bit for our local environment, last October village residents Jean and Roger Venables grasped the grabbers to lead our local litter pickers. Amanda Borrill finds out how it’s all been going.
Founded by Histon ‘super volunteer’, Cedric Foster, Histon & Impington Litter Pickers (HILP) have been ‘wombling free‘ across our community for around 15 years now. Things began small, with just a few helpers taking part on occasional weekends, but now it takes a huge spreadsheet to contain the 150+ long list of volunteers. These days the tidy-ups possess their own regular schedule; with streets assigned and the additional option for ‘tidy uppers’ to get out there with a grabber pretty much whenever works best for them!
In October last year, local couple and long-time members of HILP, Roger and Jean Venables, took over the coordination of this vital village service – telling HI HUB at the time “please forgive us if we do not meet Cedric’s high standards until we have been ‘through the loop’ at least a couple of times.”
Making the communications work
Six months down the litter picking road, I ask them have things gone better – or more rubbish than expected?
Litter picking kit. “It’s been going well, mostly”, they tell me. “We are greatly enjoying meeting new HILP’ers. Can’t say we have enjoyed creating a new email list for (almost all) the volunteers, working out why multi-addressed emails sometimes selectively fail to deliver to Gmail-ers, and learning Facebook for the first time”, they laugh. “But there is satisfaction in making the communications work”.
Jean and Roger have lived here in H&I since 2017. Both of them retired civil engineers, they ran their own consultancy company for around 35 years. “Our focus”, they explain, “was almost entirely on civil engineering projects with an overall beneficial impact on society, on research to improve the quality, reliability or positive impact of civil engineering. Much of this work addressed the environment & sustainability agendas, minimising adverse impact and maximising the gains. Volunteering has been a major part of our lives professionally and in our local community”.
And, it would appear, volunteering continues to be a big part of their lives in retirement. The co-ordination of HILP is no small task and I’m curious to know more about their future plans for the group. “We are working towards all roads, paths and green spaces having a least one picker”, they respond. “Many already have more than one. The next step will be to secure multiple pickers for more of the most-affected streets and to ask them to work in rotation to ‘keep on top’ of the problem as best they can. We would also like to make ‘Big Tidy Up’ events into more than mega-litterpicks and include major clear-ups of selected areas – for example accumulated leaves and twigs”.
A true community affair
Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme pupils in May 2023. Left-right: Sam, Henry, Zedie and Sammy. One thing seems certain – HILP continues to go from strength to strength. The group regularly gets approached by local businesses and schools; with students from Impington Village College (IVC) joining the crew a couple of years ago as part of their Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award and frequent collaborations with the Keep Britain Tidy Spring Clean campaigns. In true community spirit, the HILP kit is also loaned out after the annual village fireworks event – making the onerous clean up of the IVC field faster and considerably easier.
Jean and Roger are clearly delighted to be leading HILP and when asked what they enjoy most about being involved in a community initiative like this one, without hesitation, they respond: “having a beneficial impact on the community’s environment”. And, I am in absolutely no doubt that Great Uncle Bulgaria and his fellow forward-thinking, environment loving, inhabitants of 1970’s Wimbledon Common would be 100% in agreement!
The next HILP village litter pick is on Saturday 7 June. Full contact details for HILP can be found here in the HI HUB Directory. Email Jean and Roger on rogerandjean@rjvenables.uk.
READ ALSO: Histon & Impington litter-pickers join in the great British spring clean and The big tidy up celebrates 12 years of amazing work
Grant success for village charity, HI Friends
Village wellbeing charity, HI Friends, is one of nine organisations across South Cambs set to receive a grant award under the South Cambs District Council (SCDC) Net Zero Villages Scheme.
A total of £360,000 has been made available through the scheme, from which HI Friends has been granted £55,000 towards the purchase of an electric community minibus.
Other recipients include Shepreth, Oakington and Horningsea Parish Councils, a community pub in Ickleton and, in nearby villages, Over and Cottenham Community Centres. Full details of all awards can be found on the SCDC website.
Funding for the scheme was provided by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, with supplementary funds contributed by the District Council.
Tackling climate change
In a press release, SCDC writes that the scheme empowers voluntary groups, parish councils and community-minded businesses to tackle climate change by reducing carbon emissions from community assets, such as village halls, and using nature-based solutions to adapt these buildings for a future with more extreme weather patterns. The grant also welcomed proposals for low carbon transport schemes, such as e-bikes or community shuttle buses.
Launched in December last year, Histon & Impington was originally excluded from the scheme because the village was deemed to be part of the ‘Cambridge built-up area’. But, HI HUB enquires with the Office of National Statistics revealed that Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority – who set the rules for the scheme – had based it on out-of-date information, rather than the 2021 census, leading to SCDC admitting they had wrongly excluded Histon & Impington and six other South Cambs villages from the scheme.
Talking to HI HUB, chair of HI Friends, Neil Davies, said: “HI Friends is thrilled with news of the award of a £55,000 grant award from the SCDC Net Zero Villages Grant Scheme towards the purchase of a new electric powered Community Minibus for Histon and Impington.
HI Friends existing diesel powered Community minibus. “This will have a dual benefit for our two villages in helping to secure the future of the much valued community minibus and in a small way contributing towards the local Net Zero target and less polluted air”.
The community minibus provides transport to residents across the community who might otherwise find travel difficult; offering lifts to attend groups, shopping and outings. The minibus is also available for use by community groups serving all ages.
‘Immensely grateful’
Sharing his thanks to those behind the expansion of this grant scheme to our village, Neil added, “the charity is immensely grateful to Liz Hill of HI HUB for her successful campaign to ensure communities like ours could apply to the grant scheme, and to District Councillor James Rixon for pro-actively suggesting HI Friends make a grant application.
“There is much work still to be done to progress and deliver the project including the procurement of a suitable vehicle and its conversion, as well as the need for new driver volunteers coming forward”.
Read more about the work of HI Friends on their website.
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Hedgehogs: out of hibernation and here in H&I
Despite dwindling numbers, hedgehogs here in Histon & Impington are still in with a fighting chance. Alison Turnbull shares an update on how the community is helping to turn around the plight of these plucky nocturnal visitors.
In rural areas, nationally, hedgehog populations have reduced by up to 75% – with the largest decline being seen in the eastern half of England. However, in urban areas there are stable populations which show signs of increasingaand Histon and Impington may just be one of them. This is where we can all help by protecting gardens and green spaces and taking action at a local level to support our village hedgehogs.
In 2020, hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) were included in the IUCN Red List of species noted as ‘vulnerable to extinction in the United Kingdom’, due to their overall declining populations. Sadly, of course hedgehog road fatalities are highest in and around towns. But while the future seems bleak, the situation is not impossible to rectify.
How can you help?
There are things that we all can do to help support our local hedgehog populations. We talked to Sue Free, one of our community’s local ‘Hedgehog Champions’ – leading on an offshoot of the work of H&I Sustainability. For several years now, the group has encouraged people to report hedgehog sightings which, in turn, contribute to a map showing where they have been seen, and where the gateways are which allow the hogs to roam. This then helps the group to work out which areas need to be added to the ‘hedgehog highway’.
Sue explains: “The hedgehog mapping project has been very successful so far but we still need more people to participate. We’d like to produce a new map each year to give some guidance on changing numbers. It’s really important that we make sure our gardens are connected with gaps in hedges or fences so that hedgehogs can forage widely and be connected to habitats and other populations. Ideally, ultimately, we hope to have all the streets linked in one big hedgehog highway”.
She continues, “Lots of people have already provided a hedgehog gateway into (and out of) their garden by having a small circular hole cut in their fence. We have a special hole saw available and there are volunteers who will help cut the holes.”
Pete Gilheany uses the special round hole saw to extend the hedgehog superhighway for Lara Kingsman Sue explains that the list of sightings, “shows the range of the hedgehogs and helps us to spot features in the environment which might prevent them roaming more widely”.
How many hedgehogs are there in H&I?
Estimating numbers of hedgehogs locally has not been easy; they are widespread but scarce, and may forage some distance during the course of a night. Consequently, a number of hedgehog sightings within a mile on a particular night, could be the same hedgehog! They are opportunistic eaters and will feast on carrion and fallen fruit, as well as earthworms and invertebrates. They will also eat meat-based cat and dog food, purchased hedgehog food and cat biscuits.
In 2024, the HI Hedgehog Heroes collected sightings across 46 streets from 81 separate households. The Hedgehog Highway website has recordings of 92 holes found in this area.
Generally they prefer gardens and hedgerows and tend to follow linear features in the landscape which give shelter. The biggest pressure on hedgehog numbers is the impoverished environment, such as the intensification of agriculture and use of pesticides which has unfortunately reduced numbers of invertebrates in our green spaces.
As hedgehogs are emerging from hibernation, it’s the perfect time to check gardens and outdoor spaces, leaf piles and shrubs. Don’t clear up too much in case they are disturbed, and if you have a pond, ensure there is a gentle slope or a log or other feature to allow a stranded hedgehog to climb out.
Hedgehog Champions will be at the HIGS members’ afternoon and AGM at 2pm on Saturday 22 March at the Saint Andrew’s Centre. Why not come along to log your latest sighting and add your garden to the Hedgehog Superhighway!
If you want to help make Histon and Impington one of the most hedgehog friendly villages and have a fully connected hedgehog highway ready for them to emerge from their winter hibernation, get involved today. Email hihedgehogs@gmail.com for more information and how you can help.
Assistance cards enable bus travel without barriers
Bus users in H&I are set to benefit from a new scheme designed to enable bus travel without barriers.
Acknowledging that not all personal needs or disabilities are visible or immediately apparent, Stagecoach – which runs the number 8 bus route as well as the guided busway and park and ride buses – is introducing a new Journey Assistance Card that passengers can show to seek assistance on their journey.
The scheme is free for all Cambridgeshire residents who may need extra or specific help and support to travel on the bus. Stagecoach’s Journey Assistance Card will give the driver additional information and enable them to make sure the customer gets any extra assistance that they need. The range of cards read:
- Please be patient I am visually impaired
- Please give me time to sit in case I fall down
- Please speak slowly and face me to help me hear better
- Please count my change for me
- Please be patient, I am deaf
- Please tell me when we reach my stop
- Please speak slowly, I am hard of hearing
- Please be patient, I have a hidden disability
- Please be patient, I have difficulty speaking
- Please scan my pass for me
- Please help me find a seat
- Please let me know when we get to…
The bus operator is encouraging residents who may know of a bus passenger who would benefit from an Assistance Card to order them online here.
Ross Barton, Operations Director of Stagecoach East, said: “Our drivers pride themselves on offering the best possible service, but we know that sometimes our customers can be nervous to explain what they need, so our Journey Assistance Cards can really help to make the journey that bit easier”.
To apply for, renew, or replace a concessionary bus pass visit here.
READ ALSO: Bus services to come under public control | HI HUB
