The Government through its housing delivery agency Homes England put out a statement on the rapidly-growing New Town of Northstowe that has been in the news of late
But before we start, have a look at this half hour video all about Northstowe published in mid-July 2024 (a few days ago). You can keep up to date on the towns FB Page here.
“Homes England has signed a collaboration agreement with developers Keepmoat and Capital&Centric, to accelerate the delivery of new homes and build a mixed-use town centre in Northstowe.”
Gov UK Press Release – 18 July 2024
Ten days previously, the Chancellor Rachel Reeve moved quickly and name-checked Northstowe as one of the priority areas that needed ‘unblocking’ in her statement of 08 July. That was four days after polling day that turfed the Conservatives out of office.
“What is Homes England again?”
Homes England is an agency of the state. The work of such an agency is for a specific delivery purpose where it would not be appropriate for a politician to be involved in the day-to-day running of a public service, or the day-to-day commissioning and management of those responsible for ‘delivery’. Or ‘building stuff’. The heads of those organisations are accountable to a minister via the sponsoring department. Furthermore, they are also accountable to Parliament and have to appear before committees of MPs who scrutinise their work.
“Why was Northstowe in the news again?”
Because national media picked up on the problems of sequencing and provision of essential public services – such as in July 2023 in The Guardian and also BBC Cambridgeshire here.
“Moving forward, [Homes England] will act as the master developer for the final two phases of this 30-year project.”
The timetable from Northstowe’s website and town centre strategy is as below
It will be interesting to see if the town centre strategy is refreshed as a result of Homes England taking over as Master Developer for the town.
“Bringing forward the new town centre, to be delivered by Capital&Centric, is the catalyst for this change and will be instrumental in place making at Northstowe.”
Gov UK Press Release – 18 July 2024
Capital & Centric posted a video following the announcement:
Recap:
🏘️“A community led new town centre
🏥 Local healthcare facilities
🏦 Banks, post offices, local stores, and small businesses
🍱 Cafe-bars, delis, local eats
🍃 Village green, lush gardens
🧑🧑🧒🧒 Community vibes, pop-up events, employment opportunities
🏡 A neighbourhood of 2000+ new low carbon homes”
Latest update:
Which reminds me of a scene I saw in Central London in the mid-2000s just before I moved down there. It was all very trendy, buzzing – and ‘urban cool’. I was still working in Cambridge at the time but felt I had outgrown it – again. Looking back, one big problem was that the place felt very… ‘exclusive’. It would be a mindset later spoofed by the BBC Mongrels in their song Middle Class is Magical.
An inquiry into what went wrong at Cambourne and Northstowe?
I called for one a year ago following the stream of negative headlines about both newtowns in Cambridgeshire. Because a lot went wrong and there is much to be learnt for the next generation of newtowns that the new Government proposes.
The few things I recommend for the consultants working on Northstowe who don’t actually live there is:
- Spend some time there whether booking a short stay for a few days to longer
- Visit as many of the villages along the guided busway as you possibly can, and involve them on the sorts of things that might encourage them to visit Northstowe and/or result in them using facilities that they don’t otherwise have in their villages
- Find out what the city of Cambridge does not have – and could never provide for given its land prices, and see whether Northstowe could provide for it as a district-wide facility that also serves the city. Hence mitigating the risk of the place becoming a dormitory town for Cambridge spillover.
Finally, Cambridge needs to get a feel for what these newtowns (so far Cambourne, Waterbeach Newtown, and Northstowe) mean for our city and its future. Both in terms of new public transport routes that can serve existing city suburbs and the growing social infrastructure. Because there is a risk that the city fragments and becomes a series of isolated enclaves defined by who has access to what, connections to where, and has accumulated what wealth. The final debate on the new Cambridge Vision at Cambridge City Council this evening contained some contributions on what is not going right for our city. We need to address these. And even as a city, we cannot do it alone – we sit within a county and a wider economic subregion. You can watch the debate here.
Food for thought?
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:
- Follow me on Twitter
- Like my Facebook page
- Consider a small donation to help fund my continued research and reporting on local democracy in and around Cambridge.
The Cambridge Town Owl 