One of the emerging things from the Capital Park first community engagement event.
Turns out the building is in a conservation area and is also on the ‘At Risk’ register.
Residents of Cherry Hinton, Fulbourn, and South Cambridgeshire, one for you to email your local councillors to find out why, and if necessary persuade them to start the process of listing. See https://www.writetothem.com/
“What did the display panels show?”
Little of any real substance – almost like they were announcing their arrival and starting from scratch.
Above – click on each image to see the photo in full from the event.
I made a short video after the event which you can see below
The site was only recently purchased by the Longfellow Group. Yet as the documents from the Greater Cambridge Emerging Local Plan 2031-40 show, the previous owners showed an interest in developing part of the site.
Above – you can view the above document by going to https://oc2.greatercambridgeplanning.org/form/40087 and clicking on the “supporting evidence” tab.
Below: what the previous owners instructed Bidwells to submit to the Greater Cambridge Planning Service. It’s too early to tell whether the current owners – who have also instructed Bidwells to advise them, are looking at doing with the site.
Above – the options submitted by Bidwells on behalf of the previous site owners
“What did you tell them?”
Basically to get in touch with Rail Future East and Cambridge Connect Light Rail only they have already got a proposal for upgrading the Cambridge-Newmarket railway line that involves re-opening old stations and opening a new one with their name on it.
Above – proposals from Cambridge Connect and Rail Future.
Want a light rail network like the above? Join Rail Future and get involved in their campaigning. Failing that, please read their newsletters and archived past ones here. Essentially I’ve said that having a ‘Park and Rail’ stop at Six Mile Bottom where the A11 dual carriage way passes is an ideal spot for transferring many road commuters onto light rail/suburban rail, reducing traffic into Cambridge.
The Cambridge-Newmarket line between Cambridge and Newmarket is single track diesel line for much of the way. (It didn’t used to be single tracked). Yet it goes past the proposed Land South of Coldham’s Lane site that Cherry Hinton residents grilled developers on recently – have a read of the Mission Street proposals here, and also the rail junction of the Cambridge-Ely line and the Cambridge-Newmarket line, which is also where Coldham’s Lane Bridge is. As I explained halfway down my previous blogpost, that should be the site of a new suburban or light rail stop for the proposed redevelopments coming in from the RailPEN Pension Fund which I mentioned in this post. Sadly, the noises coming out of the latter regarding RailPEN is that they are focusing on maximising returns to such an extent that not only is it causing issues here, but that their attitude is bringing them negative publicity over the properties they own the freeholds of regarding the cladding scandal.
“According to the Times, the housing and communities secretary [Michael Gove] wrote to the chief executive of the Railways Pension Scheme (Railpen), accusing it of making residents “suffer” and expressing “severe” disappointment at the pace at which it is planning to remediate the buildings.”
Construction News 06 Apr 2023
Railway workers, pensioners, and residents deserve better.
To conclude, I left it to local residents to comment on the concepts on the boards – noting the new site owners said they were surprised not more residents used the site until some of the residents told them to take down the “Private Property – keep out!” signs dotted about the place. So hopefully those will come down soon! In the meantime, send the developers your views. (And if you live close by, let your local councillors know too!)
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The Cambridge Town Owl 