Both Conservative candidates for Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire have raised the issue of the Haverhill-Cambridge railway. It’s an issue I have spent the past decade campaigning on.
I’ve put the video links to the recent hustings in my previous blogpost here. There are two more hustings for South Cambridgeshire Constituency coming up this week and another in Cambridge Constituency – see Phil Rodgers here.
What the historical record tells us
It feels like a different political era when the City of Cambridge was represented in Parliament by Dr Julian Huppert of the Liberal Democrats, and Andrew Lansley of the Conservatives during the Coalition Government when the Greater Cambridge City Deal was negotiated and signed off – as this press release from 20 June 2014 by The Government shows.
“The Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, Minister for Cities signed the deal in Cambridge at high-tech company Featurespace. The signing also included the leaders from all 3 councils; Councillor Steve Count of Cambridgeshire County Council, Councillor Lewis Herbert of Cambridge City Council and Councillor Ray Manning of South Cambridgeshire District Council. As well as representatives from the local enterprise partnerships (LEP) and University, Julian Huppert MP and Andrew Lansley MP also attended.”
Gov.UK Press Release 20 June 2014
Politicians from all three main political parties were represented – including Cllr Lewis Herbert (Labour – Coleridge) as the newly-elected leader of Cambridge City Council following the city council elections that saw his party regain political control after over a decade out of power. In one sense he didn’t have much to do with the creation of the policy or agreement, but went onto chair the decision-making City Deal Board in those early years. Just before then, I had stumbled across the Rail Haverhill campaign, and found out they were having a meeting in Haverhill. I took Puffles – then a cult figure on Twitter – with me.
Above – Puffles the Dragon Fairy at the Haverhill Arts Centre, 16 April 2014
Fast forward six months to 28 January 2015 and I table a public question to the City Deal Board asking councillors and officers to commence negotiations with their partner county councils and with the Rail Haverhill Campaign, because this seemed to be the sort of programme of funding that could deal with the huge and growing volumes of traffic coming into Cambridge from the South East.
Above – former Cllr Lewis Herbert with my tripod in the background! 28 Jan 2015 at Shire Hall, Cambridge
The starting point with any rail connection proposal to Haverhill is this:
- Coalition Government (Conservatives and Liberal Democrats)
- Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge, Conservative MPs for South Cambridgeshire (Andrew Lansley), South East Cambridgeshire (Sir Jim Paice), and West Suffolk (Matt Hancock).
- Labour-controlled Cambridge City Council (no formal transport planning powers)
- Conservative-led, and UKIP-supported County Council (2013-17) followed by Conservative Majority (2017-21)
- Conservative-led South Cambridgeshire District Council (to 2018)
“Why didn’t the Conservative politicians of the day back the Rail Haverhill proposals like the present MP-candidates are?”
That is something their party’s candidates will have to explain to the voters – and I put the issue of the GCP to their candidate Shane Manning at the Future of Cambridge hustings last week. Have a listen to our exchange and his answer.
‘We got that wrong’.
Which was refreshing to hear – because in terms of finding a way forward, understanding what previous cohorts of politicians – whether in government or running a council or quangos – got wrong, is essential to identifying an improved policy. Furthermore, it’s perfectly reasonable for politicians to say: ‘We took a hammering at the ballot box on this issue – we had to change our policy on this’. Whether you agree with what Sir Keir Starmer has done and is doing for Labour, he has taken the view that one of the big reasons why Labour lost the 2019 general election was the set of policies within that manifesto he stood on.
Back to the case for Haverhill
Later that year in November I gave evidence to the GCP Assembly trying to make the case for the Rail Haverhill route to be re-established. You can watch my evidence session here – with former Conservative councillor Roger Hickford chairing – he later left the council in controversial circumstances in 2021.
Despite two years of campaigning, the GCP only reluctantly decided to assess the case for re-opening the rail link from Cambridge to Haverhill. The problem was that the instructions they gave the consultants only covered the route from Cambridge to Addenbrooke’s. It did not cover rail journeys going beyond. I called them out on this at a GCP Meeting in March 2017.
Above: GCP Assembly 01 March 2017 at Shire Hall, Cambridge
Again, the Conservatives were in *Political* control of the GCP with 2 voting seats to one voting seat for Labour on the Executive Board.
This was supported by a submission from the former Smarter Cambridge Transport campaign.
“We believe that the Steer Davies Gleave report on Mass Transit Options was deeply flawed. It failed to distinguish between the network and mode. It wrongly concluded that light rail is too expensive for Cambridge, in part because it considered only two sizes of network: 42km or 90km. A smaller network (highly integrated with buses and heavy rail network) would be more appropriate for Cambridge in the 2030s (though it would of course be wise to plan for future extensions)”
Smarter Cambridge Transport 09 April 2018 to GCP, p17
The techincal study is called the A1307-Rail-Viability-Technical and was published in 2015 – but the GCP have moved the file (again) so good luck in finding it. This is what campaigners mean by quangos making it difficult for the public to hold them accountable. Over-burdened councillors also don’t have the capacity to hold senior executives to account.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats’ missed opportunity to change the game
Not least because I saw it as a missed opportunity to put rocket boosters (or rather, ‘electrify) the campaign for Cambridge Connect Light Rail
Above: “I want that one!” Proposals from Cambridge Connect – you can read their full submission to the Combined Authority here
I wrote about despondency over the future of Cambridge in December 2021 about the failure of both Labour and the Liberal Democrats in Cambridgeshire to ‘seize the opportunity’ that the electorate across the county had given them to change the direction and culture of transport and infrastructure planning in our county. In the end the new councillors simply carried on ‘business as usual’ with what felt like instructions from senior officers of the GCP. Not surprisingly, the electorate caught up with that with the result that local politics turned ***absolutely toxic*** in the run up to the 2023 local council elections.
In the early 2020s Cambridgeshire lost far too many high calibre councillors and campaigners because (in my opinion) senior transport officers insisted on continuing as normal – failing to listen to the political impact their decisions and their behaviour (again in my opinion) was having on the electorate and wider public. Not surprisingly, it became crystal clear to city councillors that if they wanted to hold onto their seats, they had to force their own parties to abandon attempts at a congestion/road user charge and go back to the drawing board.
Which is where we are today.
Liberal Democrats coming in for criticism over proposals for the Cambourne-Cambridge busway.
I’m surprised that the party has not come up with a clear-as-daylight policy on the Cambourne-Cambridge busway – a transport project that has made consultants a fortune but not much else. Here’s the then Conservative Councillor Francis Burkitt of South Cambridgeshire District Council making the case for a Cambourne-Cambridge transport scheme in November 2015 at Cambridge Rugby Club
Above – Cllr Francis Burkitt in Nov 2015
In July 2017, the newly-elected Conservative Mayor of the new Combined Authority undertook a Q&A session in Comberton – which I also filmed here.
Over the past decade, responsibility for the transport paralysis we see in and around Cambridge rests on politicians from all three of the main political parties – in both central and local government.
“So, what’s the answer?”
This was something I discussed in April 2023 at the Queen Ediths hustings (see the video here) when I was asked to be on the ballot paper by a few of you last year – treating the whole exercise as a big civics evening class rather than actually campaigning for votes (and thus asking voters to put a series of Qs to the other candidates!)
Above – despite inviting voters to get in touch with the other candidates and ask some very specific Qs on transport, 261 people still voted for me!
Ultimately the answer has to come from central government – and it is one that will take time: A major overhaul of how England is governed – as Parliament recommended in October 2022.
Question to put to candidates: Do you agree with the recommendations from the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee that the system of governance in England needs a major overhaul?
Alternatively, they can be invited to make the case for this structure and explain how and why it is working so splendidly in their opinion.
As I mentioned earlier, this structure was commissioned by, and signed off by Ministers. It will need ministerial action to change it. Which is why MP-candidates need to be cross-examined on what they will do about it – even if that response is: “Do nothing”
Food for thought?
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Below – one cross-party campaign that I support is the Cambs Unitaries Campaign which has support from members of all parties represented on city and county councils, and non-affiliated people. Its next public meeting is the day before voting day on 03 July 2024
The Cambridge Town Owl 