Matt's Crow Country: Ambulance station will benefit Melbourn

IT S good to see that NIMBY-ism is alive and well in South Cambridgeshire. As soon as plans for a new ambulance station in Melbourn were announced, residents were quick to pick up their pens and write letters of complaint, presumably accompanied by anguis

IT'S good to see that NIMBY-ism is alive and well in South Cambridgeshire.

As soon as plans for a new ambulance station in Melbourn were announced, residents were quick to pick up their pens and write letters of complaint, presumably accompanied by anguished cries of "not in my back yard."

Sadly for them their efforts were in vain, as South Cambridgeshire district council's planning committee gave the scheme the ok last week.

In fairness I can kind of see where they're coming from. Back Lane is hardly a major trunk road, and the prospect of ambulances screaming through at high speeds is not one which anyone would look at with great relish.

But surely with this kind of scheme the people in the area have to look at the bigger picture.

The residents of Melbourn should now be able to benefit from drastically reduced ambulance response times, with vehicles not having to negotiate their way down the A10 from Addenbrooke's Hospital.

A lot of villages would love to have this kind of facility on their doorstep. Perhaps the people who have complained should consider what they would feel if one of their loved ones required urgent paramedic treatment? Having an ambulance in such close proximity could be the difference between life and death.

I heard some joker on the radio this morning suggesting that butter should be banned.

The comedian in question was in fact Dr Shyam Kolvekar, one of the nation's leading heart surgeons.

Dr Kolvekar is reported as saying: "By banning butter and replacing it with a healthy spread the average daily sat-fat intake would be reduced by eight grams.

'This would save thousands of lives each year and help to protect them from cardiovascular disease - the Uk's biggest killer."

Now as it happens I'm not a big fan of butter, but it seems to me that this is the world upside down. Aside from the fact that our street corners would soon be occupied by illegal butter dealers, surely a better idea would be to educate people about the need for healthy eating and exercise?

It's typical of the nanny state in which we live that someone as eminent as Dr Kolvekar thinks that its better to ban something rather than looking at the underlying causes behind the rise in the number of people needing heart surgery.

I notice that brown bins were collected in Royston this week.

That is despite North Herts district council saying they wouldn't be emptied until January 25.

Perhaps waste bosses at the council had a change of heart in the face of the criticism from the public highlighted in last week's Crow. Whatever the reason, it is good to know that Christmas dinners are no longer festering in Crow Country's dustbins!