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Suffolk celebrates CQC success
Suffolk’s recent Care Quality Commission statistics are in and Suffolk is now top of
the table for comparator local authority areas.
In Suffolk, 89.04% of Adult Social Care locations are rated as ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’
by the Care Quality Commission, the standards agency for adult care.
When it comes to the national rankings, Suffolk is performing equally well. Ranked
as fourth nationally for ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ rated care locations, Suffolk shines
out as a great area for adult social care.
This is particularly impressive when it is considered that Suffolk has over 100 more
adult social care locations than any of the other areas listed in the top ten.
Councillor Rebecca Hopfensperger, Cabinet Member for Adult Care, said:
“This is an incredible achievement and something that is worth celebrating. This to
me, illustrates that Suffolk is a great place for Adult Social Care, with a wealth of
care providers who do fantastic work.
“There are of course, still areas where we can improve and I know work is continuing
to raise standards where it is required, but I am confident that we are working hard to
address any concerns.
“These results make me incredibly proud and grateful to our care providers for the
fantastic way that we are caring for local people.”
More information regarding the CQC ratings of local authority areas or individual
care locations can be found on the Care Quality Commission website.

A Statement from Councillor Matthew Hicks, Leader of
Suffolk County Council, on the Ipswich Northern Route
(This statement was issued on 30 January 2020)
Since Suffolk’s Public Sector Leaders (SPSL) first took the decision to pursue
development of an Ipswich Northern Route (INR), I have been clear, as leader of
Suffolk County Council (SCC), that the project must be fully collaborative and follow
the processes set out by the Department for Transport (DfT) if it is to enjoy any
realistic chance of success.
This week, SCC met our commitment to SPSL to undertake phase one of the DfT
process, by publishing the Strategic Outline Business Case (SOBC). This concluded
February 2020 Monthly Parish
Newsletter
Samford Division

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that there was a good economic business case to continue the project to phase
two. However, alongside the SOBC, SCC outlined five issues which would need to
be considered if SCC were to recommend whether the project proceeds. These
issues are:
• The way Government allocates funding for road projects has evolved since
2016. There is now a need to provide not only a compelling business case for
the road itself, but also to show how the road will enable or support additional
housing growth. This need for additional housing falls under the remit of
district and borough councils. SCC, as the transport authority for Suffolk, will
need clarity on the willingness and ability of the district and borough councils
to deliver such growth, beyond that already committed to in their respective
local plans.
• The need for widespread political support, both at a national and local level, to
proceed to the next stage, factoring in the levels of public support and any
local changes to the political landscape as a result of the May 2019 and
December 2019 elections.
• A petition received from the STOP! campaign, which is against the project, is
scheduled to be responded to by a meeting of Suffolk County Council on 13
February 2020.
• Serious consideration of the climate emergency declared in 2019.
• Acceptance that the scheme has no realistic chance of succeeding in gaining
government funding as a “road only scheme”.
So far, we have received responses from Ipswich Borough Council, East Suffolk
Council, Mid Suffolk District Council and Babergh District Council. We have also
received a response from Tom Hunt, MP for Ipswich. Dr Dan Poulter, MP for Central
Suffolk and North Ipswich, and Dr Therese Coffey, MP for Suffolk Coastal, have also
made their views on the Ipswich Northern Route clear prior to publication of the
SOBC this week.
This is a complex issue for everyone in Suffolk. The SOBC suggests there is a
strong business case to proceed. However, pursuing a project of this scale and
financial size clearly needs widespread political support as, without this, Government
is unlikely to even support the next phase when £3m is needed to complete the Full
Business Case.
Furthermore, without agreement of the district and borough councils to build the
additional houses necessary to secure government funding (above those already
agreed within their local plans), I do not believe this project can proceed with any
degree of success.
Therefore, after careful consideration of the above and the wider political views,
along with the very real concerns of families and businesses located close to any of
the proposed routes, and all the responses received , it has become increasingly
clear that, as Leader of Suffolk County Council, I am now in a position to recommend
to my Cabinet that the Ipswich Northern Route should not proceed to the next phase
of development.

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To bring the uncertainly surrounding this issue to an end for all concerned, I will be
bringing a paper to a meeting of Cabinet on 25 February where the final decision will
be made, which we must do as the highways’ authority for Suffolk. To avoid pre-
empting my own Cabinet’s decision, I do not intend to offer further commentary
beyond this statement.
New permit scheme aims to address roadwork disruption
On 28 January, Suffolk County Council’s Cabinet gave the go-ahead for a new
permit scheme that they hope will reduce delays on Suffolk’s roads caused by
roadworks.
The introduction of a roadworks permit scheme for the county’s roads will give
Suffolk County Council’s Network Assurance Team enhanced powers to place
conditions on work carried out by utility companies and other organisations, including
Suffolk Highways.
At present, public utilities simply need to inform Suffolk County Council of the dates
when they are planning to do their works. Under a permit scheme, they would have
to ask for permission and the council can either approve, refuse or amend their
request as they see fit.
Applicants would also have to pay a fee when applying for a permit to do roadworks.
The cost will vary depending on the duration of the proposed work, the strategic
importance of the affected road, and the time of day the work is due to take place. If
roadworks occur outside of the peak congestion periods, the fee could be reduced.
The permit scheme is used successfully elsewhere in the country and there is
typically a reduction in congestion on the network.
Councillor Andrew Reid, Suffolk County Council’s Cabinet Member for
Highways, Transport and Rural Affairs, said:
“A permit scheme will provide more power to control proposed roadworks. It places
responsibility on the applicant to better plan their work. I hope a permit scheme could
reduce the impact of that work on the road network and our residents.
“A permit scheme should result in less disruption and less time that vehicles spend in
traffic/delays. Consequently, there should also be a reduction in fuel consumption
and greenhouse gas emissions.
“According to the Department for Transport, other counties that have run a permit
scheme have seen a reduction in disruption and so we will endeavour to ensure
those who live, work and visit our county also benefit.”
There will be a cost to the local authority to administer the permit scheme because
they will need to recruit additional staff and amend existing software to cater for
permits. However, the costs associated with the additional work involved will be
recovered through the fee income associated with the scheme, making it cost
neutral.
The permit scheme will be in place from 1 April 2020.

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Don’t let your waste be fly tipped
Suffolk residents are being urged to dispose of their waste safely to protect the
countryside as part of a new fly-tipping campaign.
Last year in Suffolk, there were 3,496 incidents of fly-tipping reported to councils,
which costs taxpayers and landowners hundreds of thousands of pounds to clear.
Incidents ranged in size from a few bags of household waste left on street corners,
up to tipper loads of industrial waste discarded in Suffolk’s countryside.
The SCRAP fly-tipping campaign is aimed at residents and businesses whose waste
is sometimes fly-tipped by unlicensed operators. It aims to remind people that they
should only allow licensed waste carriers to take waste away for them.
The fly-tipping campaign brings together all of Suffolk’s councils, along with the
Environment Agency, Suffolk Constabulary, the Forestry Commission, the Broads
Authority and rural business groups the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) and the
Country Land and Business Association (CLA).
Peter Stevens, chair of the Suffolk Waste Partnership, said: “Fly-tipping is a blight on
our local environment; a source of pollution; a potential danger to public health and a
hazard to wildlife. This campaign will help us to inform householders and others
about their duty of care to prevent waste ending up in the wrong place.”
Paul West, cabinet member for waste at Suffolk County Council said: “This
campaign will raise awareness of the simple steps that members of the public can
take to ensure their waste doesn’t end up dumped in the corner of a field or on a
roadside verge.
“We look forward to working with our partners to tackle fly-tipping.”
The Suffolk Waste Partnership says people can avoid an unlimited fine by following
the SCRAP code:
• Suspect ALL waste carriers.
• Check with the Environment Agency on 03708 506 506, or on their website,
that the provider taking your waste away is licensed.
• Refuse unexpected offers to have waste taken away.
• Ask what will happen to your waste.
• Paperwork should be obtained – get a full receipt.
For more information about fly-tipping and legal ways to get rid of unwanted items,
please see www.suffolkrecycling.org.uk/fly-tipping
Bury St Edmunds set for £150,000 worth of improvements
to Angel Hill
Suffolk Highways plans to repair areas of blockwork, and improve two existing
crossing points, on Angel Hill and Crown Street in Bury St Edmunds. While onsite,
teams will also be upgrading and reprogramming the traffic signals on Northgate
Street junction.
The £150,000 project is due to take place between 17 February and 27 March 2020.

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Suffolk Highways has worked in collaboration with Bury St Edmunds Town Council
and West Suffolk Council to agree suitable construction methods and timeframes.
Businesses have also been engaged with to address their concerns and ensure the
works cause minimal disruption to trade.
The works will require Angel Hill and Crown Street to be closed in two phases.
• Phase 1 – Honey Hill to Northgate Street: Vehicles travelling from Crown
Street will be provided access to Churchgate Street and Angel Hill. Vehicles
entering Angel Hill via Abbeygate Street may turn left and proceed via
Northgate or Eastgate Street. Pedestrian access will be maintained at all
times.
• Phase 2 – Churchgate Street to The Athenaeum: Vehicles travelling from
Northgate or Eastgate Street can access Angel Hill. Vehicles travelling from
Crown Street can access Churchgate Street. Pedestrian access will be
maintained at all times.
In an attempt to alleviate parking issues for Zone D permit holders, West Suffolk
Council has agreed to allow them to make use of Ram Meadow car park, free of
charge.
Whilst Suffolk Highways currently is unable to provide an exact date on which the
road closure setup will switch from Phase 1 to Phase 2, both key stakeholders and
residents of Angel Hill and Crown Street will be updated once works have
commenced onsite.
New recycling centre opens in Bury St Edmunds
The £3.9million flagship site in Fornham Road, Bury St Edmunds, opened on 16
January and replaces the now closed recycling centre at Rougham Hill.
The new recycling centre is part of the West Suffolk Operational Hub, a £23million
project by West Suffolk Council and Suffolk County Council to manage waste by
relocating a number of facilities to a single site.
The centre is the first open air site in Suffolk where all containers can be accessed
by the public from ground level, removing the need for steps. Visitors are able to
recycle the same wide range of materials as they did at the Rougham Hill recycling
centre.
There is also an onsite Reuse shop selling items either reclaimed from the skips or
donated directly by the public, with proceeds going to the Benjamin Foundation.

Suffolk to host final stage of The Women’s Tour in 2020
The world’s top cyclists will return to Suffolk this June as the county hosts the final
stage of The Women’s Tour on Saturday 13 June.
It will be the first time since 2014 that Suffolk has hosted the final stage of The
Women’s Tour, with riders tackling a route from Haverhill to Felixstowe.

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To mark the announcement, organisers joined Suffolk partners at the Port of
Felixstowe, the UK’s biggest and busiest container port, and one of the largest in
Europe, which will feature in the closing kilometres of the 2020 race.
Clemence Cheng, CEO of Hutchison Ports (UK) Limited and the Port of
Felixstowe said:
“We are delighted to be working with the organisers to bring the 2020 Women’s Tour
to the Port of Felixstowe. We are working hard to attract more women into our
industry, and we hope that hosting the country’s leading cycling event for women
here will help more people to realise the opportunities that exist in our sector.”
The news comes as organisers SweetSpot announced the first details of the seventh
edition of The Women’s Tour, which will take place from Monday 8 to Saturday 13
June 2020, and is the UK’s only round of the UCI Women’s WorldTour in 2020.
More details of the 2020 Women’s Tour route will be announced in the coming
weeks, as well as further information about the route of the Suffolk stage of the race.

Date agreed for plans to tackle Suffolk’s parking problems
Councils in Suffolk are ramping up activity in order to take on responsibility for local
parking management from 6 April 2020.
Parking patrols in Suffolk will soon be managed by district and borough councils, in a
bid to improve parking locally and drive down nuisance and unlawful parking in
towns and villages across Suffolk.
Traditionally, roadside parking offences were a matter for the Police. However,
parking has become a lower priority for them, so Suffolk County Council is
transferring this responsibility to local district and borough councils under a process
known as civil parking enforcement, or CPE.
Councils already manage public car parks in many towns and villages, so the
changes make sense. Suffolk Constabulary is supportive of the move because the
transfer of responsibilities will enable them to spend additional time on keeping
communities safe and arresting and bringing offenders to justice.
Moving the responsibility from the police to local councils requires that statutory
notice is given in Parliament. The parliamentary order was laid on 9

January 2020.
CPE has been running successfully in Ipswich since 2005. Both Ipswich Borough
Council and all the district councils have been working collaboratively with Police and
Suffolk County Council in the planning stages to ensure a smooth implementation
county-wide.
Help us review countywide Children’s Centre services to
expand the offer for families and children aged 0 to 19
On 10 January, Suffolk County Council launched a review of its Children’s Centre
service, with a view to strengthening its current family offer and expanding services.

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There will be no reduction in service budget as a result of this review. In fact, any
savings made through the process, such as on existing building costs, will be re-
invested back into the 0-19 service to strengthen the current offer to families and to
help develop future provision for young people and their families across Suffolk. It is
important to note that this also means there will be no staff redundancies as part of
this review.
The consultation will run for seven weeks until 5pm on Sunday 1 March 2020.
Details of the process, all supporting information and the consultation questionnaire
can be found on the council’s website at www.suffolk.gov.uk/ccconsultation.
Anyone who does not have internet access can complete the online questionnaire at
their local library for free or request a hard copy or easy read version of the
questionnaire by calling 0345 603 1842.
An extensive period of research and evaluation into current service provision was
undertaken ahead of developing the proposal. This involved local analysis of each
centre to understand how many local families have access to the site, who uses it,
and how far it is from other community facilities that deliver family services, including
local libraries.
As a result of this research, a proposal has been developed, which suggests the
following approach:
• Develop 16 full-time Family Hubs.
• Develop 11 part-time Family Hubs.
• Re-purpose nine sites that do not offer suitable accommodation for a Family
Hub or are in an area where there are not enough nursery places. The sites
will be re-purposed for nursery provision or school provision.
• Increase the existing Outreach service across Suffolk
• Close two buildings that cannot be re-purposed as a Family Hub and are
unsuitable for use as nursery or school provision.
• Retain and improve the existing service offer through Suffolk Libraries.
What is a Family Hub?
Family Hubs will be at the heart of the service going forward and will provide the
location from where services are delivered and coordinated. The proposal is to have
at least one main Family Hub in each area of Suffolk and provide services from other
community sites closer to families. A Family Hub offers a range of services to
families for all children and young people aged 0-19 and carers, with a particular
focus on supporting the most vulnerable.
Part-time Family Hubs will be smaller sites incorporating a number of services e.g.
Midwifery, Speech and Language, Child Health Clinics, and group work delivered by
the council or its partners. Part-time Family Hubs allow staff to provide Outreach
services at other venues in nearby rural communities. When the part-time Family
Hub is not in use by Family Hub staff, the building can be used by partners to
maximise usage.

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What is Outreach?
One way to support the most vulnerable families is by bringing services closer to
them through Outreach. Outreach refers to services that the council can deliver on a
mobile basis, in locations where they are needed. This will support existing
community activities such as parent and toddler groups and use some of the
community venues such as community centres, village halls, and sports centres to
deliver Outreach services.
Working with the community ensures delivery of the right services for families. This
could be providing a Stay and Play group or offering tailored individual family
support. Outreach provides help, information, advice and guidance to isolated
families who, without it, might not otherwise have access to such services.
What is meant by Re-purposing?
Some existing Children’s Centre buildings have been identified as potential sites to
support the delivery of much needed additional nursery and school provision. These
sites would be re-designated from their current use and provide primarily nursery
services in addition to some Outreach services for families.
Underpinning the review is the fact that no savings are being made as result of
adopting this approach. Any potential savings made through re-purposing or closing
current sites will be reinvested into the service to support the additional Outreach
offer and support services managed through Family Hubs.

Suffolk’s Anglo-Saxon past to be revealed with £500,000
National Lottery grant for community archaeology project
On 9 January, it was reported that a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant has been
awarded to Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service (SCCAS).
The grant is to fund a large, community archaeological project to uncover the hidden
archaeology in the Deben valley in south-east Suffolk.
Rendlesham Revealed: Anglo-Saxon Life in South-East Suffolk will connect the
unique stories of the princely burials of Sutton Hoo and the site of the royal palace at
Rendlesham. This will put them into the context of the wider Anglo-Saxon
communities and landscapes of which they were part.
Made possible by money raised by National Lottery players, the £517,300 grant will
unlock at least a further £200,000 in match funding from local and national partners,
universities and volunteers. This match funding includes smaller cash grants
generously given by the Institute of Archaeology at University College London, the
Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, The Sutton Hoo Society and Council of
British Archaeology East. This project has also been made possible by the kind
support of local landowners.
Local people will be a vital part of this four-year community archaeology project.
SCCAS and their partners will directly engage local residents, schools, young people
and volunteers from south-east Suffolk and Ipswich.

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Supported through The National Lottery Heritage Fund, there will be a range of
opportunities for local people to volunteer and be trained in on-site archaeological
survey and excavation, as well as taking part in hands-on experimental archaeology
events, specialist and family workshops, guided walks and exhibitions. These
activities will take place in south-east Suffolk and Ipswich from summer 2020-2023.
Councillor Richard Rout, Suffolk County Council Cabinet Member for
Environment and Public Protection, said:
“This is excellent news and I am thrilled that the National Lottery Heritage Fund has
chosen to support Rendlesham Revealed. It is an exciting opportunity to work with
new partners and to bring professionals and communities together. This project will
leave a lasting legacy for heritage and the people of Suffolk and will boost the profile
of our county.”
Events, workshops and volunteer opportunities will be widely advertised, follow
@SCCArchaeology on Twitter, Instagram and @SCCArchaeologicalService
on Facebook to keep up-to-date.
Popular Most Active County initiatives inspire Suffolk
residents to get active and change their lives
The Great East Swim and Run programmes have been inspiring Suffolk residents to
get active for the last eight years.
The programmes offer an opportunity for individuals who are not currently physically
active to take part in a progressive programme of training and support, with the goal
of taking part in the Great East Swim or Great East Run.
More than 470 individuals looking to make a positive change to their health and
wellbeing have taken part in the programmes to date, with more than 85%
completing the full 12 and 16-week programmes, respectively. Participants have
cited that, as well as weight loss and more energy, they felt a boost in confidence,
improved self-esteem, and a real sense of pride and achievement through
completing the programme. On average, more than 70% of participants who were
inactive when they registered for the programme, continue to be regularly active
three months after completing the course.
The programmes are suitable for all ages, with participants from 18 to 80+ taking
part in previous years. Nearly 6,000 participants took part in the main Great East
Swim and the Great East Run events last year, many of whom were Suffolk
residents. Entries are now open for the 2020 events.

Gordon.jones@suffolk.gov.uk 31
st
January 2020
Tel 01206 262799 Mbl 07860 208760