Ministers continue to impose cuts on Cambridge City Council and local government generally – despite repeated warnings from MPs. (The majority of whom go on to vote for further cuts when Chancellors introduce their annual budgets).
The two pieces of news today were the headline from BBC Cambridgeshire about the state of Cambridge City Council’s finances in the face of ever-growing demand for its services, and the public apology from Mayor Dr Nik Johnson following complaints early on in his mayoralty. There are a number of meetings coming up at the Combined Authority, including the Board (see their calendar here) on 29 November 2023 which the Sub-Committee Chair said he’d be presenting a report to.
I’m still of the view that the Combined Authority should never have been established in the first place and that it should be abolished as part of a nationwide overhaul of local government as recommended by the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee.
A youth advisory board for Cambridge
I first started making some noise about the lack of involvement of young people in council decision-making over a decade ago. The council is now in a better place, and I feel an obligation to spread the news of any new opportunities the council makes.
Above – from Cambridge City Council on FB
Know anyone interested?
Drop the community development team at Cambridge City Council an email (see their address at the foot of the page here).
Combined Authority, and Council meetings.
There’s a big decision coming up on 15 November 2023 (tomorrow at the time of writing) regarding the Local Transport & Connectivity Plan. (See the meeting papers here).
“The authority’s budget for the current financial year 2023-24 was £22.017m, also known as its net general fund spending requirement.”
BBC Cambridgeshire 14 Nov 2023
What that means is that is the amount of money the city council needs that is in excess of the revenue it generates from existing services – a figure that must be funded by council tax and that minuscule amount ministers leave behind from business rates revenue. For those of you who want the detail, see Appendix 1 of Item 7 of the S&R meeting papers here.
Given the failure of ministers to stick to promises is in the news of late, reforming and reviewing local government finance is one of them – see the Commons Library briefing here from 2020. The following year, the Commons Levelling Up Select Committee concluded that local council finances were unsustainable. And like the immovable blob that they are always complaining about, Ministers refused to budge – keeping the existing broken system in place, and preventing places like Cambridgeshire from taxing the excessive wealth generated in its local economy from funding much-needed infrastructure and public service improvements. It remains to be seen what proposals the party political manifestos come up with.
Housing redevelopment in Cambridge
In the meantime, one of the few mechanisms available for Cambridge City Council to improve the council housing stock in the face of huge demand beyond its capacity, is through densification of sites where existing housing comes to the end of its lifespan. Of particular interest are the improvements in East Barnwell – Abbey Ward.
- A community centre
- A library
- A pre-school facility
- A bowling green and pavilion (at the Abbey Leisure Complex)
- An extended Multi-Use Games Area to include provision for tennis (at the Abbey Leisure Complex)
- Addition play facilities at Peverel Road Recreation Ground
You can read the report for Housing Scrutiny Committee at item 5 here.
Had the council had much greater revenue-raising powers, they would have been able to commission a complete redesign of the entire area around the crossroads at Barnwell Road / Newmarket Road – possibly even putting the through-traffic underneath a tunnel and creating a new open civic space on top.
Could it have happened in a previous age? I don’t know – but some of you may be interested in a brief history of Cambridge’s local development/structure plans 1950-1989 which I found in a book on changes to planning under Thatcher’s government. Interestingly there’s a chapter on Cambridge, which I have digitised for people to read here. The article is 30 years old but I often find such articles written around the time of when decisions were made to reveal interesting things that are easily ignored in mainstream histories. Or simply forgotten where such histories are not written.
Looming by-election in Queen Edith’s
In case you missed it (ICYMI) you can re-watch the hustings videos from last week:
Residents of Queen Edith’s can fire their questions directly to the candidates via Who Can I Vote For? on the Queen Edith’s by-election page here. The by-election is on 23 November and on 27 November the winning candidate gets to answer more questions (and give their opinions on more things) at South Area Committee – and after the East Area Committee that follows it in early December, the system of area committees will be paused for a rethink given the low participation rates. (See the paper to the Civic Affairs Committee here).
I won’t give chapter and verse on area committees as I’m of the view the entire system nationwide is broke. The problems that area committees face are just a symptom of that broken system of local government. Hence why if you are motivated to do so, you can start emailing your councillors to ask what their national parties have proposed for radically improving local government.
And finally
Pro-EU campaigners in/around Cambridge (Cambridge For Europe) are meeting in Cambridge on 15 November 2023 at Sidney Sussex, Cambridge. £3 to help with room booking costs. “European Movement chair Dr Mike Galsworthy will join us to discuss how we build the popular wave back to EU membership“. Doors open at 6.10pm – details & sign up here. I’m of the view that the UK seeking a return to the relationship it had with the EU pre-2016 is not going to happen. The EU has been transformed by both the rotten behaviour by Conservative ministers since the now new Foreign Secretary became PM back in 2010, and also by the war in Ukraine. Just as with the unpredictable behaviour by the German Kaiser in the early 1900s, the Anglo-French entente ended up becoming perhaps that bit more stronger than either had anticipated when it was first negotiated with the encouragement of the Kaiser’s Uncle, Edward VII. (The British monarch and his German nephew did not get on at all!) Ironically without Eurosceptic UK ministers blocking things, the EU has gone down a far more progressive path (so far) than perhaps many had anticipated. Hence the EU that the UK might end up (re)joining may well have a host of progressive policies written into any new treaty – one that may have serious consequences for those business and political interests that financed the pro-leave campaign. Anyway, if you want to talk about such things in more depth, get involved with Cambridge for Europe. These days, I try to keep my focus more local because of health – I can’t leave the city boundaries without someone driving me over them!
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The Cambridge Town Owl 