One of Cambridge’s most controversial firms abandons plans to take a lease on the Shire Hall complex on Castle Hill after the Tories moved the county council to a business park with no public transport from Cambridge. What now for the historic site?
Spoiler: Council says…[Click here]
Some of you may have seen the announcement earlier below
Above – you can read the full article here.
When the preferred bidder was announced back in 2019, the news went down like an iron brick.
This was around the time when all sorts of things were going on in local government in and around Cambridge – as my blogpost from my old blog back in May 2019 shows. Even the Housing Minister at the time slammed the developers of Cambridge Railway Station over the aesthetics of their buildings.
Above – from 13 Oct 2018 by the then Housing Minister.
“When was this collapse announced?”
Very recently with the publication of the papers by Cambridgeshire County Council here – scroll to the end.
The thing is, in the olden days I used to turn up to city and county council meetings in the days before both councils started live-streaming their meetings on a regular basis. Tip. If you’re bored and lonely during the day, table a public question to your local council. That way someone has to talk to you about politics!
Above – councillors responding to public questions on 17 Oct 2017 at the old Shire Hall
My PQ on the future of Shire Hall was the first in this group and I threw in some archive photos for good measure. This was because at the time I was looking at persuading the council to reuse at least part of the site for an extension to the Museum of Cambridge (See my blogpost here). I assumed that Cambridgeshire was going to remain a safe-as-castles Tory-controlled council and that the county party despised Cambridge’s politics so much (based on the exchanges I had seen in the council chamber over several years) that if they had the chance to move out of Cambridge, they’d take it. Hence I assumed it was a done deal. Accordingly I tried to make the case for a deal where whatever commercial purposes they proposed for the site, it would part-subsidise a heritage attraction on the site where the settlement of Cambridge was ultimately founded.
The County Council’s meeting looming on 28 Nov 2023
I spotted the above-table and noted no mention of anything to do with heritage. Therefore I’ve tabled a public question to that meeting (You can do so too – email democratic services via the email in this link, stating the meeting you want to ask your question at (see the calendar here) and the text of your question). I’m also contesting their point about extensive involvement – especially recently.
Ultimately I’ve asked them to pause their actions until after the general election because the funding of local councils may be something that a future national government may take a very different view towards compared with the present government. Furthermore, it may also take a different view accounting for heritage assets. Finally, Cambridgeshire could end up with a very different party political balance of MPs. Best not rush things.
Furthermore, I have asked the County Council to instruct officers to make a meaningful effort to engage not just with local history communities (of which there are more than a few – particularly outside Cambridge), but also teenagers and young people who might have more imaginative ideas about what the site could be used for.
Either way, there’s no need (beyond financial) for the county council to be rushing into a decision on the future of the site.
Whatever your views are, if you live in Cambridgeshire please email your county councillor via https://www.writetothem.com/ and let them know what you think.
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