Monthly Archives: June 2022

Some of you will have seen the front page of the Cambridge Independent with some alarm. As things stand, the developers won’t be able to do anything for now because they don’t have planning permission, and under the existing local plan they can only build on land allocated for development, for which we are toldContinue reading “How to scrutinise the additional 41 new sites developers have put forward for Cambridge & South Cambs”

Because Addenbrooke’s Hospital has been under growing pressure in the face of a rapidly-increasing population. And successive Health Secretaries have failed to provide the necessary resources. And we found out the hard way the consequences of this the hard way when the CV19 Pandemic hit in early 2020. In case you missed the news, theContinue reading “Ministers must take responsibility for their failures to ensure hospital beds keep up with population changes”

I returned from the consultation event from East West Rail in Cambridge earlier today. Above – me on telly! (BBC Look East (West)) earlier this evening. You can see the boards below. For more details including posting your own comments, please see https://communityhub.eastwestrail.co.uk/. Also, for the record, ***I support the re-opening of the direct railContinue reading “Is East West Rail underselling the benefits of re-opening the Oxford-Cambridge Railway?”

The rise is even greater for the City of Peterborough – designated a third generation Newtown in the 1960s, now at 215,000 Which makes both cities two of the fastest growing settlements in the country – with the economic drivers including agri-tech and manufacturing for Peterborough, and life sciences and ‘knowledge intensive’ industries in Cambridge.Continue reading “Cambridge’s population rises to above 145,000 in 2021 Census”

If you’ve not seen the display boards from the developers and their media partners, please see my earlier blogpost here where I’ve photographed and uploaded them for you. (And if you found them useful, please consider a small donation to help sustain my reporting and research) It was only covered at the very end, butContinue reading “Beehive Centre Redevelopment – first webinar highlighting making space for girls”

As some of our council houses become too expensive to upgrade, but also too expensive for people paying fuel bills, the city council is looking at comprehensive redevelopment. Some of you will have seen the report by Gemma Gardner in the Cambridge Independent here. The meeting of Cambridge City Council’s Housing Scrutiny Committee on 21stContinue reading “Cambridge Railway Station’s eastern entrance – and its local context in Coleridge – the one with the dragon slide in it”

You can read How metro mayors can help level up England here. Given the problems we’ve had in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough from the very start, this report should be of interest beyond local government and party political circles. Hence the short video summary here. The Institute’s summary of recommendations include: Devolving full responsibility for functionsContinue reading “Institute for Government needs to follow up its report on Metro Mayors with one on local government & local public services – including the historical context”

Mike Scialom at The Chesterton Festival and Adrian Peel at the Arbury Carnival remind us of the importance of larger community events. But they rely on volunteers, and this year (2022) we lost the Cherry Hinton Festival. In order to build on north Cambridge’s successes, and the lack of success this year in Cherry HintonContinue reading “The importance of community summer fairs – and the long term paths in the face of some personal lessons learnt”

Friday afternoon – what a splendid day to bury bad news! You can read the above blogpost by Mariano delli Santi here It relates to this policy announcement by the Culture Secretary. “New data laws to boost British business, protect consumers and seize the benefits of Brexit” Gov UK 17 June 2022 One of theContinue reading “New, weaker data protection laws looming?”

Several of you have asked about the consultation boards, which I’ve taken photos of and have uploaded to this blogpost. The media representatives for the developers are Four Communications, so any views on what’s on the boards, please email them to projectotter [@] fourcommunications [dot] com ***Alternatively*** email your local councillor https://www.writetothem.com/ I’m also awareContinue reading “Beehive Centre Redevelopment, Coldham’s Lane, Cambridge”