Susan  was elected to represent the Melbourn Division on Cambridgeshire County Council on June 10th, 2010.  The division includes Foxton, Heydon, Melbourn, Meldreth, Shepreth and Great and Little Chishill.  This is a four year term.  At the County Council, she is the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Transport.

Local residents will also know Susan as South Cambridgeshire District Councillor for Meldreth and Shepreth from 2004-2010.

Rail Service Campaign

Susan is a long-time campaigner for the protection and improvement of access to rail service at Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton rail stations, following steep rises in ticket prices, the introduction of car park charges at Meldreth and Shepreth, and First Capital Connect’s proposed reduction of opening hours at Meldreth Station booking office.  In March 2009, the campaign succeeded in persuading FCC to ammend its changes to booking office opening hours to include Saturdays.  The campaign has forced a dialogue on a range of other issues, including disabled access to both platforms.  The first ramp, from the car park to the station platform, was completed in autumn 2009 and efforts continue for a ramp to the London-bound platform.  At Foxton Susan has been vigorously engaged with Network Rail on safety issues, especially the pedestrian crossing gates and also abuses of the vehicle barriers.  She is campaigning for a pedestrian bridge at the crossing.  The issue of the reliability of the pedestrian gates has been a continuing concern, after a number of incidents involving children and others caught inside the level crossing.

In 2010 Susan set up the Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton Rail User Group which is leading on a number of campaign issues.   Recently the RUG succeeded in bringing improved ticket machine screens to all three stations, and also in loosening restrictions imposed for full-sized bicycles on trains.  The RUG has sponsored the creation of railway gardens at all three stations, and these are maintained by local residents, businesses and schools.  Cambridgeshire County Council has supported the RUG’s aspiration of a Community Rail Partnership with First Capital Connect through its Local Transport Plan.  In December 2011, First Capital Connect responded to the Rail User Group’s long-term campaign for a reduction in station car park charges and announced that from January 2012, charges will be dropped by 50% to £1.50 per day at Meldreth, and abolished completely at Shepreth.

Education Transport

Susan’s identification of anomalies in post-16 student rail fares served as a catalyst for organizing a meeting between Cambridgeshire County Council and First Capital Connect in December 2009, where agreement was reached to cooperate of a student discount rail fare. Students from across the Melbourn County Division are now entitled to access this fare which is 50% off the adult fare (as opposed to 30% off previously) and well over £100 cheaper than the County Council-subsidized bus fare.  First Capital Connect subsequently extended the 50% discount to all 16-19 year old students in Cambridgeshire, including those attending state or independent schools.  National Express then matched the discount on its Cambridgeshire lines.

In Shepreth, she campaigned successfully for free Cambridgeshire County Council school transport for Shepreth residents attending Melbourn Village College, a provision that is to remain in place until a safe pedestrian crossing is provided at the A10/Frog End Shepreth junction. Efforts to enhance safe cycling routes to Melbourn Village College have included a successful request to Cambridgeshire County Council for a bicycle wheeling channel at Meldreth Station bridge.

In Melbourn she has been active in helping to recruit a new School Crossing Patrol Officer for the crossing in the High Street near The Moor.  At Meldreth Primary School Susan has helped promote a campaign to encourage chidlren to walk or cycle to school.

Cycling

Susan is a keen promoter of cycling around the villages and to and from Cambridge.  She has worked to get cycle racks to Foxton Station, and successfully proposed to the Traffic Management Committee that the Harston-Foxton cycle path be upgraded when funding becomes available.  Susan has also supported more cycle provision for primary schools county-wide through Bikeability, a government-funded scheme which has yet to be fully embraced by the County Council.  She uses a bicycle to travel to most of her meetings in Cambridge and the villages.

Bus Services

Bus services in the area were dramatically reduced in 2003, and are now set to diminish further with the county council’s decision to withdraw virtually all remaining subsidies to buses that would not otherwise be viable.  This is a county-wide decision and Susan has been campaigning against the decision on the basis that public transport should and can be developed, rather than starved, given the inevitable increase in demand that will arise as cost of living rises and our population becomes older.  The Liberal Democrat alternative budget proposals have set out the detail.

Flood Avoidance

Following serious household flooding in Meldreth in July 2006, Susan has worked to instigate a new Flood Avoidance parish council subcommittee, tasked with action on flooding hot spots and investigating the revitalisation of a historic drainage system that once utilised the River Mel.  Focus on District and County Council drainage services, and their ability to cope with extreme weather events brought about by climate change, emerged through this project. A number of snags in the drainage network have been identified and corrected.

Community Groups and Campaigns

Susan has stood up for fair and equal treatment for minority groups in the district, and has participated in Council programmes that engage young people in democracy, supporting writing and debating competitions.  Locally she is active in supporting BMX biking activities for children. She is a supporter of Polls Apart, a campaign for better disabled access to polling stations, and has worked with young campaigners from Meldreth’s Scope School community for disabled access to rail service.

Susan is a member of the Melbourn and District Villages Association, which works for the future viability of the Melbourn Library Access Point.  She serves on the Shepreth School Trust and the Trigg Charity;  she chairs the Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton Rail User Group, and  Melbourn’s Practical Solutions Group, which brings village, council, police and youth work representatives together on a regular basis to support initiatives for positive community activities.

District Council Work

At South Cambridgeshire District Council, Susan worked to bring new affordable housing to Meldreth, with the 24-unit development at Burtons opening in May 2007.   Susan was a member of the Scrutiny and Overview Committee, where she worked successfully to change council policy on planning appeals, bringing a higher standard of local participation in the appeals process.  She was a founding member of the Council’s Climate Change Working Group, and in that role initiated a successful bid to the Local Strategic Partnership for funding for a climate change awareness pilot project at Melbourn Village College.  She challenged the Council on its bin charging policy for social rented housing and has supported improvements to recycling provisions for secondary schools.

Personal

Susan was born in 1958 in Beirut, Lebanon, and was raised in the Middle East, North Africa, England, France and the United States. Since 1988 she has lived in South Cambridgeshire, first in Foxton and then Meldreth, with her Dutch-born husband, Hans, who is a Professor of Modern Chinese History at the University of Cambridge. Their three sons have grown up locally, attending Thriplow Primary School and Melbourn Village College. The family has also spent several study years in China and Taiwan. Susan has been involved in tennis, toddler and playgroups at Foxton, Thriplow and Meldreth, and is a member of Friends of the River Shep. Through her children, she has supported the Melbourn Dynamos Football Club and community service ventures for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme. Susan and her family became British citizens in 2003.

Education

Susan received her BA in History from Oberlin College in the United States, having studied also at the American University in Cairo. At Harvard University, she received an MA in Middle Eastern Studies and a Doctorate in Education.  Her doctoral dissertation was a study of the politics of world history textbook publishing for the American secondary school market.

Professional Work

Susan has taught primary school at St. George’s School, Jerusalem, and Waterside School in Bishop’s Stortford, and has worked also at Cambridge University Press as a copy-editor for books in Arabic and Oriental Studies. She became a full-time mother when her first two children were born.

She is the author of a book, One Family’s Response to Terrorism: A Daughter’s Memoir, which explores the quest for legal justice in the aftermath of her father’s assassination in Lebanon in 1984, where he served as president of the American University of Beirut.

Voluntary Work

Susan helps at various after-school clubs for young people at Melbourn Village College.

Why the Lib Dems?

“The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.”

(Preamble to the Liberal Democrat Constitution)