20/03/2017 Look East (West)

bigger problems to deal with. Join me to find out more now

100 million to spend on social housing but will

A BBC investigation finds a consultant on

a failed care contract had his own business fold

And it may be spring but winter is fighting back.

Join me later in the programme for

a full look at the weather for the week ahead.

The new devolved authority for Cambridgeshire has started life

with ?100 million to spend on social housing.

They had their first official meeting in Wisbeach today.

It was set up to make decisions on big infrastructure spending.

But as Mousumi Bakshi reports, it'll be hard to please everyone.

Seven years after her search began, Katie Phillips finally has

Priced out of Cambridge, the mother of two moved

into this affordable housing scheme in Caxton near Camborne last month.

We went on a list to hopefully get given a house, bid every week, every

month, any time we could on anything because we couldn't afford to move

out because we were paying so much in private renting.

Then after seven years, we got this opportunity

and it has been amazing, I just feel so lucky to get given it.

Katie lives in South Cambridgeshire, one of the most expensive places in

the UK and so it makes sense that devolution money will be

But concerns that other parts of the county will

We don't just want to build a lot of affordable

housing in one place, we want to build the infrastructure

that will enable people in key roles, key jobs such

as, you know, nurses and hospital workers

and teachers perhaps even, that they can

have an affordable house in one part of the county

and they can quickly get to work in an economic hotspot.

So if you want to get on to the housing ladder,

how far do you have to leap just to get onto the first rung?

New figures suggest people working in Fenland take home an

In South Cambridgeshire, the weekly wage is around ?200 more.

But when it comes to buying power, people in

South Cambridgeshire are relatively worse off,

with the average price of a detached house ?507,000,

more than double the cost of a similar property in Fenland.

Today the authority that will be headed up

a ?170 million affordable housing package, with at least ?70 million

The government says the rest of the money will filter through

to the parts of the county that need it most.

It's not just about Cambridge, it's not about the areas that most

people have heard of, it's about those parts

of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough that sometimes,

perhaps in the past, haven't got all the support

they needed and now there is a real opportunity through powers,

through money and the right leadership to make a difference.

The dichotomy of dealing with both urban

and rural Cambridgeshire will be one of the challenges facing

The BBC bus has been in Wisbech today, one of the most

underfunded and deprived parts of the country, and what matters to

As well as transport, the combined authority

will also have responsibility for boosting economic growth but it is

low-cost housing that has made a difference to people like Katie.

But will Wisbech get the funding it needs from the new authority?

I asked the leader of Fenland District Council,

John Clark, what he wants money spent on.

I think first of all it has got to be transport.

We want to be connected to Cambridge and Peterborough,

which we are connected to Peterborough but Cambridge is

the main thing that we feel it would improve this area

by being under an hour to get to Cambridge.

And is it train lines or roads you want investment in?

We would like to see it go from Thorney directly with a river

crossing all the way to Wisbech, but we would also like to see buses

improved and we would also like to see the rail link direct from

So how will you ensure that your voice is heard

as loudly as, say, Cambridge City Council's voice?

How will you make sure that there is a fair allocation

I think first of all it will be down to lobbying

the mayor, the mayor will have a lot of the ultimate decisions to make on

But today we have had the allocation for the

100 million for housing, all the councils have talked,

it's all been allocated and it's all been agreed.

So what's politics like in a meeting like that?

Because obviously you have got politicians from cities,

from more rural areas, different political backgrounds as well.

I don't think there has been any conflict whatsoever.

As we say, we know the city is under a Labour

administration and the rest are Conservatives and we have got the

But up until yet, sitting around the table,

politics hasn't entered into it at all.

It's what is best for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and

how do we deliver it and I am really

pleased that politics, at the moment,

is not taking a part in that.

The BBC has learned that a key advisor on a failed health contract

in Cambridgeshire had already seen his own consulting

The Uniting Care contract was worth ?800 million.

But the deal collapsed after just eight months in 2015.

A BBC Inside Out investigation has found that Martin Peat,

who worked on that contract, had a business which was declared

Our political reporter Tom Barton explains.

This is Jack, do you remember he came yesterday to see you?

76-year-old Jim Noble has a high fever and this morning

Normally someone his age in his condition would be

But instead, today, Jim is being seen at home in

St Neots by Jack, a trained paramedic from Cambridgeshire's

The joint emergency team's one of the few things to have

survived from a project which saw the trust which runs Addenbrooke's

Hospital and the one which delivers mental health services in

Cambridgeshire come together to form Uniting Care partnership.

That company should have delivered health

services for older people in Cambridgeshire.

But after just eight months, it collapsed.

So, how could such a high-profile and expensive

contract be allowed to fail so spectacularly?

Well, big expensive contracts are extremely complicated

to put together and, whether you're in business or in the NHS,

Key to ensuring that the NHS commissioners

had all the expert advice they needed

It had been relied on to help put together some of the biggest

contracts in the health service and it did have successes,

like setting up the friends and family test to

But when it came to the Uniting Care contract, key details were missed.

As a result of the Uniting Care disaster, NHS England closed

the Strategic Projects Team down last year.

Look East can reveal the consulting team at the heart of

The team's most senior adviser on the

Uniting Care contract was this man, their commercial director,

I can reveal that when Martin Peat was working for the

Strategic Projects Team back in 2012,

That company, Martin Peat Consulting Limited,

was wound up by this High Court order

which declared it insolvent and unable to pay its debts.

The reason, the company owed the taxman, HM Revenue and Customs,

So the man overseeing the process of awarding

the biggest contract in the history of the NHS was someone who it seems

was unable to stop his own company from going bust,

leaving the taxpayer thousands of pounds out of pocket.

We put these points to Martin Peat and he told us

NHS England told us that the Strategic Projects Team's

role in the contract was restricted to the process of the agreement

and that the Clinical Commissioning Group led the contract

and make decisions based upon advice from auditors and lawyers.

As Jack heads off to see his next patient,

there is already evidence that this team is a success.

But how much more could have been achieved if the project

which set up the joint emergency teams hadn't failed?

And what could that have meant for patients across Cambridgeshire?

Lorries will soon be banned from overtaking on part of the M11.

HGVs won't be allowed to use the fast lane between junction eight

for Stansted Airport and junction nine for Saffron Walden.

Highways England says it will speed up journey times

The ban will be in place between 7am and 7pm.

Let's get the weather for the week ahead with Dan Holley.

Certainly a much cooler feel to things out there now

Largely clear skies, we do have one or two showers

just feeding in from the west on that breeze.

Temperatures dropping close to freezing by the

morning so maybe a little bit of frost here and there.

Not quite so widespread thanks to the strength of that wind.

But a lovely sunny start to Tuesday, and keeping quite a bit

of sunshine for the bulk of the morning.

We will see more cloud building through the day and again,

one or two showers just feeding in on that breeze in

the afternoon but very hit and miss, some places staying dry.

Temperatures close to average at around nine or ten

For the middle part of the week, low pressure, three of them all rotating

around each other and that gives us some uncertainty in the forecast.

We'll have a band of rain trying to work its way eastwards

on Wednesday but some uncertainty about how quickly

Stay tuned to the forecast because things may change between now

The uncertainty then continues into Thursday with a risk of that

as we get a north-easterly wind developing.

The same can be said for Friday, again, the risk of

a little bit of rain trying to work its way up

But for the bulk of the day, probably dry.

Eventually that rain could arrive as we head towards Friday evening.

But it doesn't hang around because that low-pressure pulls away.

As we head into the weekend, high high-pressure building in,

toppling in over the top, settling things down.

So, as we go into the weekend, it does look mainly dry.

It will be pleasant by day but also the risk

of some frost at night and, of course, as we go through the

weekend, British Summer Time starts on Saturday night with the clocks

That's it from me, I'll leave you with the national forecast

for something dry and settled, sunny spells but a bit on the cool side.

This week we are starting off with a taste of winter. This is Paul and

maritime air, it has come from a long way north and will push in lots

of showers. The last of any mild air gets swept away with the cloud.

Tonight we have showers mostly across the northern half of the UK,

which will turn wintry and that means more snow, particularly across

Scotland and Northern Ireland, perhaps northern England. With those

temperatures it is not just snow that is a concern, it is icy roads.

Quite a few wintry showers still packing in across the north and west

of Northern Ireland, west of Scotland by this stage. Eastern

Scotland much more sheltered so it should be drier and we may have

early sunshine here as well.