Cyclists, walkers and horse-riders will also be able to begin using the route between Swavesey and Cambridge from Sunday as the high quality, wide, safe and car-free path next to the guideway opens. The Swavesey to St Ives section will begin to be raised and surfaced in August. During the work this section will be fenced off and not open to the public.

As the Guided Busway passes the Northstowe site, this opens up a range of new circular routes into the countryside from Northstowe and nearby villages. North from Cambridge as far as Swavesey, the maintenance track will have a hard surface suitable for cycle commuting. North of Swavesey, where water runoff is a concern in the floodplain, the bridleway will have a permeable surface suitable for walking, running, riding and recreational cycling.

Area 7 hold a central Database for all Team Chefs to log copies of the Flu Vacs for all competitive members.  This allows for the Flu Vacs to be checked ahead of the event and for Declarations to be processed much  quicker.  At the recent Winter Dressage Qualifiers, only 17 riders out of 80 competing have details logged on the Db and only 3 are up to date.

Please can you ensure you update the copy of the Flu Vac you have with either your Team Chef or you can send a copy to me at 113 The Row, Sutton, Ely, Cambs  CB6 2PB. Please ensure you write on the copy of the certificate your own name, your Club and whether you are Junior or Senior. This information will be used ONLY for advance checking of Flu Vacs for Area  competitions and will not be passed to any other parties. It really does  cut down the time taken to check Flu Vacs on the day – you will still be asked to present your Flu Vac on the day, but only for the purposes of declaring.  It is in your interest to help as this is the one activity which takes the longest time and it will also help the organisers of the events.

Thank you.

PS: If you are on the Dressage Teams, I have all of your Flu Vacs at present

One of my riders had a problem at the RWHS: she was stopped by Trading Standards Officers for a horse passport check, only to be told that hers was  illegal. Fortunately, she received an official caution rather than being prosecuted. Her offence? She had not got a completed Section 9 certificate (Medicinal Treatment, concerning "slaughter for human consumption or not") in her passport. Her passport was issued by the Welsh Pony Society before passports were mandatory, so the certificate was not included. How many of our members would fall foul of this part of the law? Numerous, I suspect.

Here  is a simple checklist of the sections that Trading Standards Officers inspect:

• Name of horse is shown together with colour and sex
• name, address and signature of current owner
• completed certificate in Medicinal Treatment concerning "slaughter for human consumption or not", plus, if any treatments have been given, that the vet has completed the section fully
• drawing and description of horse signed by a competent authority, or vet plus vets stamp
• plus, of course, they want to be able to see the full flu vac history (in either the passport or old style flu vac card or a combination of both).