Issue - meetings

To receive any declarations of interest from Members of the Executive Board.

Councillor Francis Burkitt stated that his Register of Interests was lodged with South Cambridgeshire District Council and was available for viewing on its website.  In the context of item 9 he reported that he had no other specific interests to declare and confirmed that he was not pre-determined on this matter and therefore intended to participate in the discussion and vote as he would with any other item. 

Councillor Burkitt was of the view, however, that it was perhaps good practice to remind people of the following items which he, the Legal Officer and the Programme Director felt were 'interests' that would not disbar him from participating:

·         he was a District Councillor for Coton and Madingley, villages which were part of the study, and he therefore naturally knew many people in those villages;

·         when the Cambourne to Cambridge public consultation was launched, and in his capacity as a District Councillor, he coordinated and published a response to the public consultation that was branded as CambridgeBOLD.  At that time he was a Member of the City Deal Joint Assembly, which was an advisory body with no decision-making powers.  When he became a Board Member, with decision-making powers, he ceased doing any CambridgeBOLD work, and the initiative lapsed at that time and effectively ceased to exist, except that it remained on public record as one of the consultation responses;

·         he was a Member of Cambridge Past, Present and Future, was a patron and had been a Board Member for four years.  This organisation owned the Coton Countryside Reserve and, separately, some of the field in Coton adjacent to Cambridge Road that stretched up the hill;

·         he had been at Trinity College Cambridge and had sat on its Finance Committee, with the College owning Moor Barns Farm in Madingley;

·         he was born in Cambridge and had lived there on and off for most of his life, so he naturally knew lots of people who lived along the Cambourne to Cambridge corridor.

To receive any declarations of interest from Members of the Joint Assembly.

Helen Valentine, in respect of item 8, declared that she had been appointed onto the Joint Assembly by the University of Cambridge but that she was not employed by the University and was not obliged to represent its views.

Dr John Wells declared a disclosable pecuniary interest in item 8 as he was employed by the University of Cambridge.  He made the point that he was not in any way involved in the University’s decision-making processes regarding this scheme, but intended to leave the meeting room prior to consideration of the item to avoid any perception of undue influence.  Dr Wells also declared that he had been appointed onto the Joint Assembly by the University of Cambridge, not as a direct representative of the University, and that he was a resident of Hardwick.

Councillor Bridget Smith, in respect of item 8, declared that she was the Vice-Chairman of the A428 Local Liaison Forum.