Dry Drayton Blog

This week the BBC is running a series of news items based on a poll they have commissioned by ICM research into neighbours and neighbourhoods. These links will take you to articles on the BBC site dated Tuesday 6th and Wednesday 7th May. Over a fifth of the people surveyed nationally believed that neighbourhoods have become less friendly in the last five years. More than a third of those surveyed wouldn’t trust anyone in their street with their keys. Half of those surveyed haven’t spoken to more than six people in their street in the last week. One in ten had not spoken to anyone in their street in the last week.

How would Dry Drayton fare in such a survey? Are we becoming less friendly here as everywhere else seems to be in the UK? Is this a symptom of the ageing population here? This survey puts great store in changes in the level of contact, but is that the right thing to be measuring? Isn’t the quality of contact even more important than quantity. Perhaps the real question is “How is Dry Drayton faring in terms of positive, supportive, non-aggressive, non-critical, old fashioned neighbourliness?” 

Dry Drayton features this year, for the first time we think, on the Worldwide Pinhole Photography Exhibition website. On this site are photographs from over 50 countries, all taken on World Pinhole Camera Day, April 27th, 2008. These are all taken using cameras without lenses.

The exhibitors say of the collection “They also share an additional and less formal characteristic: the sincere enthusiasm of their creators who, by participating in this collective event, shared individual visions and techniques. Hence the amazing diversity of subjects, cameras, techniques and photographic materials combined in this exhibit!. Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day was established to celebrate the joy of simple creativity using the medium of lensless photography. We want to show that, from a device as simple as a cardboard box with a tiny hole, you can create inspiring images. Minimal technology and cost: Maximum Passion and Sensitivity!”

The Dry Drayton image was taken at the top of Madingley Road on 27th April. We hope that it has not compromised the security of the very important resident who drove up demanding to know why a photograph was being taken in her village, because she didn’t want anybody to photograph her house.

The image is here: http://www.pinholeday.org/gallery/2008/index.php?id=1250

In response to a query to the web site - it doesn’t seem that there is a local government election in Dry Drayton today - It’s Cambridgeshire County Council in 2009 and South Cambridgeshire in 2011.

Dry Drayton Cheese Lovers will be delighted to learn that after a three month absence the Cambridge Cheese Company is back operating in All Saints Passage Cambridge - don’t be put off by the scaffolding down the passage - they really are back. Treat yourself to some delicious cheese when you next go to town.

It’s that time of year when the grass starts to put on a spurt - and for Dry Drayton this usually means the public spaces looking like a scruffy meadow. How refreshing this year to note comments from a number of people about how good the verges and grassed areas look. The Parish Council seems to have at last got things right on the grass cutting front - so well done them, and well done this year’s contractor. All we need now is a bit more sun to set this off to advantage.

And talking about “time” - here’s an interesting and unusual shot taken by a returning Dry Drayton commuter at Cambridge Railway Station at midnight on Thursday last, when the defunct station clock, had been lowered to be fixed by a team from Ede Wilkinson.

Workmen completed the next part of the verge improvements between Dry Drayton and Oakington this week. These verge inprovements are for horse riders and walkers, but might be usable by somone on a mountain bike. The surface is not metalled as on a cycle track. Unfortunateley the two parts of the improved verges have a 0.4 mile gap in the middle, including the dangerous bend on the Oakington side of the junction. The gap in the middle will be left until the Dry Drayton / Oakington interchange is next upgraded.

Unless you are a horse rider or a walker, these improvements won’t make a great deal of difference. What is really needed is a cycle track along this route to link to other cycleways from Oakington and to the proposed “misguided bus” into Cambridge. Will these improved verges make it any easier to have the route turned into a proper cycleway later? Will the Parish Council and the Village Plan currently being drafted pick up on this?

Having just updated the Houses For Sale page on DryDrayton.net one can’t help to wonder whether the global credit crunch and the difficulty in obtaining mortgages are starting to affect the local housing market. There are currently six houses for sale in the village and we know of others who want to leave but haven’t yet put up the “For Sale” sign.

Dry Drayton school featured in a leading article today in the Cambridge News about over-large class sizes. The story was about the education of pupils suffering if class sizes are too large and Head Margaret Prosser spoke of teaching pupils as individuals in the very small classes in the school.

We were saddened to see from the Cambridge News on Tuesday that the incident on this road on Sunday was in fact a fatal accident and that some of the people involved were from dry Drayton. A witness from Madingley told the Cambridge News “The road is particularly dangerous and they’ve done some surfacing work there recently to improve it”. How, we wonder, does this stack up with our local Councillor’s statement in the most recent Village Newsletter that: “The cycle route from Bar Hill and Dry Drayton to Madingley Road Park & Ride is great and we hope cyclists take full advantage of the route and enjoy the great outdoors while encouraging people to do their bit for the environment.”

Anyone who uses this road will agree with the Madingley resident that this is indeed a dangerous stretch. Although the victim of the fatal accident last weekend was not a cyclist, anyone who has cycled the road knows that cars swoop past just inches away and at ridiculous speeds. The edge of the tarmac falls away sharply in places, making any mistake difficult to correct. As if this isn’t enough, during term time, some motorists heading for Cambridge in the morning thrash through Madingley to try to re-join the traffic jam on the Madingley Hill a few cars ahead.

Isn’t it time Cambridgeshire County Council tried out some traffic calming here, and perhaps introduced the kind of “quiet lane” policy introduced by the Countryside Agency and practiced in Norfolk and Kent - where vehicles have to travel slower and give way on designated quiet rural roads to cyclists and walkers? This should also be applied to the Dry Drayton to Madingley Road - then this could become a great route for cyclists.
 

Residents over 60 in Cambridge City have already received their new go-anywhere free national bus passes. Has anybody seen any yet from South Cambridgeshire District Council?