Woodfines are looking for these roles based in their new office on the Vision Park.
Team Assistant – Residential Property to provide administrative support to the team and wider department, enabling seamless legal services to be provided to clients and positively contributing to the overall client experience. To be the first point of contact with clients including telephone discussions and meeting/greeting at appointments, taking new enquiries from prospective clients and dealing with the financial management and administration aspects of client matters. Apply before 31-01-2024
Registered Nurse to make safe clinical decisions to ensure that only the highest quality of nursing care is delivered. You will work closely with other nurses in the nurse team and report into the Deputy Manager. You will be responsible for administering medication, monitoring the Care Teams on practice, and working within the NMC Code of Professional Conduct. Your involvement with creating person-centred care plans and risk assessments will be key to the successful delivery of outstanding care and regular updates and reviews will be required. You will be engaging in meaningful activities with the people living in our care home as well as always promoting independence, choice, dignity, and respect. Part time and full-time and bank vacancies available. Flexible hours – 8am – 8pm (DAYS) or 8pm – 8am (NIGHTS) Monday – Sunday as per the rota
Cambridgeshire & Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT) are looking for these roles based at Histon Police Station but travelling around the area.
District Nurse to join the Cambridge North Villages Community Nursing Team working as part of the Neighbourhood team which includes Community Nurses (RN), Advanced Clinical Nurse Practitioner, Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists, Mental Health Nurses, other Mental Health Professionals and Team co-ordinators. You will link closely with colleagues outside of CPFT including GPs and other members of the multidisciplinary team to support excellent nursing care at home, reducing the necessity for acute hospital admission. Apply before 03 January 2024
The Spire Cambridge Lea Hospital in Impington is currently recruiting for multiple roles including these.
Porter 22.5 Hours to collect/deliver items needed by the hospital from/to other hospitals or facilities around the local area, deliver occasional taxi service to patients and Spire executive staff. To deliver a service to Theatres and Ward regarding the collection and return of blood units’ from/to Blood Bank in accordance to local working instructions. Apply Before 19/01/2024
Endoscopy Lead to manage the endoscopy service and lead the team in the provision of care for patients in a safe and caring environment, in the most efficient and clinically effective way, whilst maintaining the patient’s privacy and dignity. To provide leadership, advice and support to other staff in the department and support the Theatre Manager in the overall management of the healthcare environment. Apply Before 19/01/2024
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Staff Nurse – Wards to support in assessing patient’s health and well-being across a complex and changing caseload, assisting in the delivery of care to meet the patient’s needs, looking after general surgery patients including Orthopaedic, Urology, Plastic surgery, ENT and Ophthalmology. You will actively promote best practice and contribute towards quality improvements, collect collate and organise data, interpret all of the information and make a justifiable assessment, making this available to relevant others. Apply Before 18/01/2024
Healthcare Assistant – Outpatients to assist the team in the provision of exemplary patient care, contributing to the support and monitoring of patients, identifying and reporting any significant changes that might affect the patient’s health and well-being to the appropriate person and assisting with the movement of patients in line with hospital policies. Apply Before 18/01/2024
Bank Theatre Practitioner a Scrub Theatre Practitioner in a role which covers multi-specialities to join their team on the Bank. Apply before 15/01/2024
Healthcare Assistant – Wards to assisting the team on the surgical ward in the provision of exemplary patient care, contributing to the support and monitoring of patients. Apply before 18/01/2024
Partial demolition and re-development, including replacement of windows and additional windows added to ground floor, to create new office and workshop space with parking at 9 High Street Histon Cambridgeshire CB24 9JD
Plans for a development of 15 new residential flats in the heart of the village would see two further storeys built above the commercial units on School Hill.
School Hill today (Image: np architects / Camel Projects)
The redevelopment of the School Hill site is being led by property investment company Camel Projects. Phase 1 of their work culminated in 2021 with the completion of business premises that are now home to Histon Library, the Indian Ocean, Cambridge Building Society, Histon Opticians and Stir.
New approach
The residential scheme now being put forward would include 12 one-bedroom flats suitable for double occupancy, plus three two-bedroom properties, and all would have level access to a lift, with doorways suitable for wheelchair access.
In addition, a new-build element of the scheme would serve as the residents’ communal entrance building. Created at the back of the Tesco store, it would be linked to the rest of the building at the first and second floor levels, creating two offices/commercial spaces totalling almost 100m2. The ground floor level below would be used for bin storage and secure cycle racks.
The plans are being put forward after initial designs for the site – which were given planning permission in 2019 – were changed. The successful application included nine residential units above the supermarket, which was occupied by Tesco Express at the time, but their lease was due to expire. Tesco’s subsequent decision to renew their lease for a further 15 years meant those plans didn’t go ahead, and under the new scheme no changes will be made to that building.
Affordable
Camel Projects are proposing that all 15 properties in their new scheme are based on the Build to Rent concept. This would mean a minimum of 20% of the homes would be provided as Affordable Private Rent at a 20% market discount, but the developers are exploring the possibility of providing all of the flats at this rate.
The fall-back arrangement, they say, would be to provide the properties for sale, in which case, under the South Cambridgeshire Local Plan, 40% of these would have to be sold as ‘affordable housing’.
Visual appearance
The developers aim to deliver “a high-quality design, that will be worthy of its status as a focal point for this part of the village”, but the introduction of a two-storey extension on the site is controversial. The site is located within the Histon Conservation Area and the Histon & Impington Village Design Guide states that “development should be no taller than two storeys when fronting onto the High Street”, though it also says “3 storey development may be acceptable set back from the road frontage”.
The Histon & Impington Neighbourhood Plan – drawn up on the back of extensive community consultation – is sympathetic to new residential uses above ground floor level, including an upper floor on School Hill, but the possibility of a third floor there is not covered in the Plan.
The developers have anticipated concerns about the height of the development, pointing out that it is no higher than the roof line of Windmill Grange behind. Also, their design is for the new upper floors to be set back from the retail units below, stepping up to 3 storeys and, in doing so, creating a shared terrace for residents on the first floor and “balconies which add interest to the otherwise plain façade.” A row of front facing gables is included, aiming to better suit the village context than a flat roof.
Parking bays would be marked out beside and behind Tesco Express. Photo: Brian Whitehead
Parking
Another issue likely to prove controversial is parking, though Camel Projects’ Andrew Slaymaker told HI HUB: “We are very confident the parking arrangement on the application are policy compliant and a huge improvement to the current situation.”
The Transport Statement submitted with the new planning application points out that although the community uses the Tesco parking spaces for purposes other than shopping at the supermarket, in fact the land is privately held and not a public car park.
It says the current car park is capable of accommodating 47 cars, but the spaces are not formally marked and are not to standard dimensions, and Andrew told HI HUB: “Even without the current development proposals we would be re-organising the car park to facilitate efficient space utilisation and orderly parking.”
The latest proposals would see 20 spaces created at the back of the site and a further 13 along the side access road beside Tesco. Whilst this total is 3 more than permitted under the 2019 planning permission, 15 spaces – one for each flat – would be prioritised for residents, compared with just 6 under the previous plans. Each resident would be given a single permit to use the car park but no specific spaces would be allocated to any particular retail or residential unit, or the library.
The length of time a retail customer, café or library user could use the car park for free would be limited to 45 minutes between 6:30am and 6pm – just half of the 90 minutes permitted under the planning permission currently in force. After that a charge of £1 per hour would be applied, and only residents with permits or others with special permission would be allowed to park overnight. No provision is made for staff parking at the commercial units on the site, though “travel planning advice will be available” to them.
Image: Camel Projects / SLR Consulting
The Transport Statement also refers to on-street and public car parking available nearby. It suggests that this is not currently at full capacity and can accommodate many more vehicles. A survey commissioned by the developer reports a total of 99 public parking spaces being available within a 3-minute walk of the site, with spaces for up to 9 cars in the lay-by along the site frontage on School Hill offering free short-term parking of up to 30 minutes, and a further 50 spaces at the public car park off the High Street, owned by the Parish Council. It found the maximum current demand for parking in the area to be 65 cars.
Consultation
The plans for completing the School Hill development have been taking shape for some while. In 2022 Camel Projects had pre-application discussions with the planning authority about a proposal for 18 residential units on the site, after which revisions were made. The new proposals were re-presented to the Greater Cambridge Design Review Panel in February 2023, and in July 2023 to members of the Histon & Impington Parish Council planning committee. They welcomed the improvements that the first stage of the development has made to School Hill and the plans for affordable housing, but they also raised questions about several issues, including the percentage of affordable homes and car parking.
The statutory public consultation on the plans is due to close on 2 January 2024 but the Parish Council is applying for an extension to this date so that the planning committee can communicate with the community as a whole and hear the concerns they have.
Local students aged 13-19 have until 31 January 2024 to apply for a grant to enable them to travel or complete a special project – either on their own or in small groups.
The Award is named after the late Henry Morris, who developed the idea of the ‘Village College’ and established Impington Village College. Each year the Trust set up in his name supports young people in Cambridgeshire schools to undertake ‘projects with purpose’ that they plan themselves.
Successful applicants will receive an award – normally in the region of £20 to £200 – towards the costs of their activity, and the expectation is that they will generate any shortfall in funding.
Examples of projects include travelling by train to spend a day at the best skate-park in the country; walking the Norfolk Coastal Path; building a drone; and writing and publishing a children’s book.
With his latest book, Notes from a Small Screen, adorning festive reading wish lists, self-confessed ‘fangirl’ Amanda Borrill sits down for a chat with writer, award winning journalist and Histon resident Paul Kirkley.
In his time as a journalist for magazines such as Waitrose Weekend, Radio Times and Rolling Stone, Paul Kirkley has sat down opposite such cinematic royalty as Tom Hanks, Kurt Russell and Jake Gyllenhall, been to the pub with former Time Lord Matt Smith and even thrown his (strictly metaphorical) boxer shorts at Sir Tom Jones himself – all in the art of securing a great interview. So, when face to face with such an obvious expert in his field, how do you go about interviewing the master? The answer is simple. You don’t. You just enjoy the opportunity to have a good old natter, stash away a few tips for conducting future interviews and surreptitiously attempt to convince him that writing an article for a future issue of HI HUB’s new magazine, HILights, would be an extremely good idea. Well, he didn’t say no!
A tough job but someone has to do it
Paul, poised for some TV action. Photo his own.
Paul’s latest book, Notes from a Small Screen, begins back in 2015 and shares with us eight years of his television columns for Waitrose Weekend, each one written with his irresistible wit and panache. He describes the book as a “bit of a vanity project” driven by the desire of wanting to preserve seven and a half years of writing. But, he adds, “I also think it offers a useful overview of modern British television, which isn’t really available elsewhere”. Paul opted to focus purely on British output and the book opens with an immensely entertaining 5000 word introduction that summarises the state of British television in what, he laughs, “I am pretentiously insisting on calling the last days of the second Elizabethan age”.
So how exactly did he end up getting paid to watch the telly? “All the other Weekend critics were famous faces (Mark Kermode, Mariella Frostrup, Stuart Maconie, Alan Titchmarsh etc)”, he revealed “and I was supposed to be a temporary stand-in until they could tap up someone more glamorous to do it. But, after a few months, I was given the job permanently. I like to think it was because my copy was too witty and sparkling to let go, but it’s equally possible they couldn’t find anyone more famous to do it. (Maybe they were all too busy being on television to watch it.)”.
Flicking through the pages provokes nostalgic memories of all that great TV you loved over the last few years but also introduces you to a whole new bunch of shows you didn’t even know you needed in your life, but most definitely do! Paul’s obvious love for the BBC classics such as Poldark, Happy Valley and Motherland transported me back to nights gone by when my ‘Do Not Disturb sign’ was very much in use. His scathing views on many others, including anything involving food critic Giles Coren, made me laugh out loud. And, in these days where pretty much everything is easily available to revisit On Demand, this is a great reference book for making note of what was hot and what was definitely not. Post-it note page markers at the ready (other brands are available)!
Paul remains modest about the privilege this job brought, telling me “my granddad was a miner, literally toiling beneath the ground in the dirt and the dark. So I always tried to remember that sitting on the sofa, eating crisps and watching telly was a very privileged way to earn money. But I still got quite grumpy about it at times, especially when having to watch yet another ropey ITV ‘psychological thriller’. The struggle is real”. Yes Paul. As is our sympathy.
Top TV moments
With this book spanning eight years of amazing British television, I had to know what, in his expert opinion, falls into his most memorable TV moments from that period. “Chernobyl (Sky Atlantic) was extraordinary – a terrifyingly immersive descent into hell that haunted my waking dreams for months. (I’m not making it sound much fun, am I?) The End of the F****** World on Channel 4 was a brilliant black comedy-drama that deserves a lot more love. And I absolutely adore the Inside No.9 episode Bernie Clifton’s Dressing Room, which is like Samuel Beckett, if Samuel Beckett had written jokes about Blankety Blank and The Grumbleweeds”. And this, of course, illustrates exactly why he really is the best at what he does.
A childhood well spent
Photo: mojzagrebinfo on Pixabay
Growing up in the 1970s there wasn’t the array of dedicated kids’ channels that exist today and those rare opportunities to simply sit and watch TV were usually accompanied by that well worn soundtrack of parents demanding we turn off that television set and go and do something less boring instead. TV producers even created a show named exactly that – as if it needed further enforcing.
Fans of Paul’s writings about Doctor Who will be in no doubt what his No. 1 childhood TV show was and, it has to be said, all that viewing doesn’t seem to have done him too much harm at all. He has published books on The Doctor and regularly writes for Doctor Who magazine. Furthermore, his recent revelations about having been in the room during filming of the groundbreaking scenes where David Tennant bi-generated to be joined by the fifteenth Doctor, actor Ncuti Gatwa, were met with blatant and undisguised envy by Paul’s social media groupies, myself included.
A father of two boys himself now, I asked Paul how his childhood TV life differs from that of his own children in 2023. His answer, I’m sure, will resonate with many. “When I was young, our parents used to tell us we’d get square eyes from watching too much television. These days, I’d love my kids to watch more telly, instead of watching idiots on TikTok and YouTube, or mindlessly shooting people on the Xbox. Television, with its proper storytelling and craft, now feels like the equivalent of making them read an improving book”.
Festive favourites
Radio Times festive edition 2023
With Christmas just around the corner, I couldn’t miss this opportunity to quiz Paul on his memories of TV from Christmas past. Without a doubt there is something very powerful about those childhood memories of a Christmas spent with those you love in front of the box and, unsurprisingly, Paul was ready with his own memory. “Watching Quincy’s Quest“, he shared. “A Christmas TV film starring Tommy Steele as a faulty department store doll who embarks on a mission to find the store’s Santa Claus and save his fellow rejects from the incinerator. It was basically Toy Story, 15 years ahead of its time”. Have to confess, I wasn’t expecting that!
And in Christmas present – what makes for a special family afternoon in front of the fire for The Kirkleys? Tradition rules supreme it seems as Paul replies with, “It’s A Wonderful Life, obviously. As a family, we always watch The Snowman and its sequel, along with a wonderful BBC film called Click & Collect, with Stephen Merchant”.
Finally, although I suspect I already know the answer, TV or Radio Times on their coffee table? “I’m offended you even have to ask”, comes back his mock outrage. “I mean, who in their right mind buys the TV Times? I got to write something for last year’s Radio Times Christmas special. I think that’s when my career may have peaked”.
Peaked? Not a chance. You’ve yet to write for HILights magazine… remember?
Paul’s book Notes from a Small Screenis available on Amazon now. Find out more about Paul and what he gets up to when he’s not watching television by visiting his Interesting Media blog, here.
