*You’ve submitted too many comments*

Posted byCambridge Town OwlPosted inUncategorized

This is what happens when you come up with too many ideas and you crash the system

Especially when some of them come from 2-3am digital scribblings from the previous evening

***I know! All of you can fill out your ideas instead!!!***

Because the system has (quite understandably) done the equivalent of singing this song to me in my face:

Above: Sultans of Ping F.C. from the mid-1990s

The problem is not only consultation fatigue, but the feeling that most consultations are pre-determined box-ticking exercises anyway.

TBPB = The Powers That Be

Which is why in one sense the Minister for Housing is playing with … well I was going to say ‘political fire’ but given the events of the past couple of days, I need to think of another metaphor. Essentially the Government has indicated it will follow what the previous Conservative Government did with the North Cambridge Station area developments by approving them over and above the concerns of the Environment Agency over water supply. In his radio interview on BBC Cambridgeshire on 01 August 2024 the Minister Matthew Pennycook acknowledged the problem, said he didn’t have an ‘off-the-cuff’ response, but that ministers were onto it. The difference being that in terms of political cultures, Labour ministers are far more willing to intervene (or at least threaten intervention) than the Conservatives who want to be seen allowing markets to work. Even when they are broken by design.

“How do I pin my ideas to the digital poster?”

Click here and scroll down to the box titled: “Place based – what makes us stand out?”

You end up with a page looking like the above. Click on the purple icon in the top right and you’ll be asked to click somewhere on the map. (You can zoom in like on G-Maps)

Then type the name of the place you’re pinning your comment to, and leave your comment – ie somewhere you

  • really like that needs preserving or improving
  • really don’t like that needs changing/moving/removing
  • know we don’t have something specific but that its installation would be a really good idea

“So, what should I put down then?”

Your own ideas. Because I wouldn’t wish my unimproved visions, pie-in-the-sky schemes, or white elephants on anyone. Not without sound scrutiny and amendments. I tried to bring some of them together in something vaguely coherent in April 2023 but inevitably struggled on that count. The challenges facing our city and county are far too great for one person to try and get their head around. Hence my view that group efforts by the likes of:

…amongst others are the way for people to get involved in subject-specific local campaigns that don’t involve getting directly involved in party politics. If you wanted to get involved in party politics in Cambridge, my take is that you’d have done it by now given the Cambridge City Council elections last May, and the General Election of last month.

Then again… if you are interested having been inspired by the result, you can look them up online knowing that for most parties you need to be a member for a certain period of time before you can stand for election.

Anyway, go and put your ideas down and see what happens. And if nothing does, then there’s always the county council and mayoral elections coming up in 9 months and counting.

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: