The candidates have been named. Four political parties are standing full slates, two minor parties have one candidate each, and three independent candidates (not me!) are also standing for election to Cambridge City Council. There are also three candidates for Police and Crime Commissioner for Cambridgeshire & Peterborough
See https://www.cambridge.gov.uk/elections-in-2024 and click on “Statements of persons nominated”
You can see Phil Rodgers’ list here and below
Above – (R) denotes incumbent councillor re-standing for election. Ind = Independent, FA = Freedom Alliance. CPB = Communist Party of Britain.
Four students (Two Greens, one Labour, one Conservative) are contesting this year’s elections. David Carmona, having contested the Queen Edith’s by-election in 2023 as the Conservative candidate is standing as an Independent in Newnham Ward against the official Conservative candidate Susie Williams. Former Conservative councillor for Trumpington, Shapour Meftah is contesting the Coleridge seat currently held by Dr Tim Griffin for Labour. The seat is also being contested again by Sarah Nicmanis, who is also the Green Party candidate for Cambridge at the upcoming general election.
Queen Edith’s ward sees the winner of the Queen Edith’s by-election in Nov 2023, Immy Blackburn-Horgan (LibDems) defending her seat against Oliver Fisher, the Green Party’s MP-candidate for South Cambridgeshire, former Conservative councillor for Cherry Hinton Eric Barrett-Payton, and one of Labour’s ‘ones to watch’, Bethany Gardiner-Smith, political adviser to Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. (She’s also the daughter of former Mayor of Cambridge and Labour MP for Brent North, Barry Gardiner – who I interviewed back in 2017 as Theresa May’s premiership imploded). (What I didn’t know at the time was that I’d have a suspected heart attack a few weeks later and spend Christmas in Addenbrooke’s, so if I don’t look or sound like the same person today as in that video, that’s one of the reason’s why!)
You can meet the Queen Edith’s candidates at the annual hustings on Thurs 18 April from 7pm at St John The Evangelist Church Hall on Hills Road opposite Homerton College. (See the FB link here if you want to add it to calendars etc.)
As usual the hustings *will be filmed* so if you do not want to appear on camera, sit just behind where the camera-person (usually me!) is filming from.
Informal ‘meet the candidates’ for Queen Edith’s and Coleridge wards at Rock Road Library – Sat 27 April 2024 from 10am-2pm
There’s no need to register for the event – pop in as and when. I also invite people who feel willing and able, to donate to the costs of room hire etc. Also, this event *will not be filmed*.
I have provisionally [Booking now confirmed and paid for!] booked the community room at Rock Road Library on the border of Queen Edith’s and Coleridge wards – having received clearance earlier from Cambridgeshire Library Services. Should people and candidates wish to film any exchanges, I will invite them to do the filming on the pavement outside the Library gates – because library rules.
As the event is in a public library, the Cambridgeshire County Council Public Library Byelaws apply. (Made under Section 19 of the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964).
So please don’t do anything that could get you thrown out by the library staff (they have the legal powers to do so) – or worse still, prosecuted under that Act. Please also remember that the rest of the library will be open to the public as normal, and please also remember that it’s a popular children’s library as it was decades ago when I was little. Let’s keep it that way. Please also familiarise yourselves with the Debate Not Hate campaign promoted by the Local Government Association.
The Queen Edith’s Community Forum will have a couple of volunteers there, and I will be inviting the Coleridge Community Forum to have a presence there too. It would be great to see new people stepping forward to help out at planned summer events this year. In 2023 both forums hosted very-well-attended music-in-the-park events with visiting brass bands from nearby villages and towns providing the entertainment.
If you are interested in the longer term future of Cambridge, and on what happens at the local democracy meetings where decisions are made, feel free to:
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Below – The future of Cambridge will be on people’s minds. A decade ago, The Uxcester Garden City plan won the Wolfson Prize of 2014. It set out how it would go about expanding a fictitious large town from around 200,000 to 400,000 people – and which challenges they would need to overcome. How does it read today in the context of Cambridge’s future?
The Cambridge Town Owl 