TL/DR? Northstowe has been in the news – and their issues sound similar to Cambourne. Which indicates that the issues are structural, and risk being repeated. Again. And again.
Back in 2012 I wrote a blogpost about local council buildings as civic spaces. It was in the days when I was more known for having a Twitter account in the form of a dragon fairy than anything else.
Above – Puffles the Dragon Fairy at South Cambridgeshire Hall, Cambourne, ready to scrutinise what was probably a GCP or a local plan hearing in the middle of the last decade
At the time, I had been picking up several of the issues around Northstowe because they touched on my old civil service policy areas. Northstowe had been cited as one of Gordon Brown’s ‘eco towns’ in the late 2000s. Then in 2012, The Guardian wrote about it.
“With none of the vision of the slum-replacing postwar new towns, Northstowe is unlikely even to be noticed”
Owen Hatherley for The Guardian, 29 Feb 2012
It has been noticed alright. For the wrong reasons. And at no fault of the residents. In my opinion at least.
The BBC’s Ben Schofield went over to interview some of the local residents about the problems. Some of you will recognise former South Cambs Parliamentary Candidate Dan Greef featured in this piece.
“Northstowe has delivered new homes but many residents are not happy with the lack of community facilities… But more than 1,200 homes are now occupied, with no shops or community facilities, beyond three schools.”
Ben Schofield, BBC East, 12 July 2023
So why have the people of Northstowe been failed?
For me it comes down to governance structures. Powerless local councils stripped of their funding and status alongside a fragmentation of public services by successive governments has produced a system of ‘contractual accountability’ and not ‘democratic accountability’. The quotations from L&Q Estates in Mr Schofield’s article speak volumes.
“L&Q Estates – said it had “met our goals and planning obligations…the company understood “residents’ concerns and frustrations regarding delivery” but that Northstowe “has all the necessary ingredients to become a successful community”.”
L&Q Estates to Ben Schofield, BBC East, 12 July 2023
Above – the company’s goals are not necessarily the same as those of the residents moving in. Furthermore, no mention is made of the soundness of the planning obligations that the firm, local government, and partner organisations agreed to. You only have to look at Brookgate and the railway station redevelopment in Cambridge to understand that what is agreed contractually by organisations is not necessarily what the people who have to live there have to deal with. Which is one of the reasons why more than a few local residents are now going to public consultations asking new developers to have a look at what Brookgate did and avoid repeating their mistakes.
One of the reasons I keep going back to the firm as an example is that public policy-world is not very good at learning from its mistakes. One core reason is the turnover of staff in policy-making functions. I served in three very different policy areas in three years in my Fast Stream days and it broke me. Just as I thought I might be getting the hang of a policy area it was time to move on. Furthermore, towards the end I realised I was both out of my depth and was struggling healthwise so asked to come off it.
“What are the lessons learnt?”
Stephen Platt wrote a very interesting piece in the late 2000s about Cambourne which I featured here. As I mentioned in that post – which also referred to Northstowe’s masterplan, I would like to see a major piece of research undertaken to assess what Cambourne is like now, and to what extent the promises were delivered. Furthermore, with proposals for North Cambourne now firmly on the table following the Chancellor’s announcement on East West Rail, I think it’s essential that the evaluation is commissioned soon – and ideally before any conversations are had about what North Cambourne might be like. My concern is that the firms with development rights have already decided on a layout before the residents in the town have had a chance to consider anything.
Above – someone snapped up the development rights ***ages ago*** as I mentioned here
Residents complaining about the lack of essential facilities – ones that are outside of the remit of local councils
During my civil service days, the leader of one local council told me that being the leader of a London Borough was the opposite of being a print press baron: You had all of the responsibilities without the powers to fulfil them. Which sounds about right. Residents have understandably complained about the lack of NHS dentists and GPs. The problem is the nationwide shortage of dentists which is a chronic failure of central government. There is no NHS dentist space available within about 30 miles of Cambridge the last time I asked. (See also Healthwatch Cambridgeshire on dentists from 2022 – feel free to join them if you want to campaign for improved local health services).
If local councils cannot do anything about getting new GP surgeries to open, what hope is there? The mismanagement of the NHS by successive Conservative health secretaries (South Cambridgeshire constituency collectively has some explaining to do regarding electing Andrew Lansley!!!) has resulted in more than a few talented doctors moving to places like Australia. And who can blame them? There’s a further Government failure to work with Commonwealth partners (one legacy of Empire is similar legal and medical education systems) to negotiate agreements for everyone to increase their training capacity – and for the wealthier members to provide funding for both new facilities and training to countries with lower per capita GDP levels.)
One of the questions I put to the Combined Authority was to start discussions with ARU Peterborough about opening a new school of dentistry there to try and meet some of that local shortage. Build it by the railway station and students living in Huntingdon and St Neots, as well as North Cambridgeshire, can also commute in for training.
The problem remains with a broken system of governance.
As I mentioned during the local election campaigns, local councils have neither the funding nor the legal powers to deal with the issues that local residents rightly expect their councils to have competency over. That this has been demonstrated time-and-time again reflects that in the run up to the next general election, voters need to cross examine candidates on their parties’ policies on overhauling local government – structures, finances, the lot.
Food for thought?
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The Cambridge Town Owl 