Cllr Sebastian Kindersley (Lib-Dems, Gamlingay), the Chair of Cambridgeshire County Council submitted a written statement to the County Council’s Highways and Transport Committee, with a host of criticisms of how East-West Rail between Bedford and Cambridge is proceeding.
For those of you not familiar with the consultation that ends on 24 Jan 2025, see this video here. Also, if anyone in southern Cambridge wants to share coffee and conversations about this or any other Cambridge-related things, see this on Sunday afternoon.
Comments from the Chair of Cambridgeshire County Council
I only spotted his submission at the foot of the meeting papers for the County Council meeting earlier on (21 Jan 2025)
“Who said what about East West Rail at the meeting?”
Have a listen to the debate here (time-stamped to 5,200 seconds) and also see the extensive officers’ report (that Cllr Kindersley rightly commends) at item 5 app1 here.
The over-complicated governance structure of Cambridgeshire
I won’t bore you with the theme of Cambridgeshire’s governance issues – it’s why Cambs Unitaries Campaign exists (which reminds me – we’re due a meeting soon). As the Chair of the Highways and Transport Committee (and my local county councillor) Cllr Alex Beckett (LibDems – Queen Edith’s) states here, there are so many other different institutions that people could lobby, including (as I did) city and district councils. The list of my blogposts returning from a keyword search of ‘fragmented’ speaks volumes.
When you’ve got ministers in a hurry – as Mr Pennycook the Housing Minister is with his plans for Cambridge, corners inevitably get cut. What makes things a little more awkward is that East West Rail falls within the remit of Lord Hendy, the Minister for Rail. Different department, different chamber in Parliament. On top of that, being a major piece of national infrastructure means that input from a host of central government organisations is required – hence the EWR Economic Growth Board established in 2023. Mirroring them outside of Whitehall, the sub-national transport authority that Cambridgeshire is part of – England’s Economic Heartland, provides the secretariat support for the East West Rail Partnership – which Cllr Katie Thornburrow (Labour – Petersfield) holds the rotating chair. You can watch footage of Cambridge City Council’s debate on East West Rail here. Interestingly, quite a few freedom of information requests are being thrown at the project by the public (See here).
At the moment the Development Corporation / Growth Company has not yet been established by Peter Freeman. Therefore it is unlikely that in-depth conversations will have happened about policy and strategy between East West Rail, the development corporation, local government, and central government.
“Achieving the necessary value from the government’s investment in East West Rail will require stronger strategic alignment across government.”
National Audit Office 13 December 2023
If any of you would like to email your MP to ask Transport Ministers for a progress updated against this recommendation, feel free to do so -> https://www.writetothem.com/
It can’t be me because my local MP is Daniel Zeichner, the MP for Cambridge and because he is a Minister of State at the DEFRA, he cannot ask questions on the floor of the Commons. Over to you, residents of South Cambridgeshire?
Cllr Kindersley also notes:
“South Cambridgeshire District Council says in its covering paper [see Item 6 here, not the appendices] to its response to the EWR consultation that “officers consider there to have been a lack of meaningful engagement with EWR Co. to date, particularly limited information sharing by EWR Co”.”
This is more worrying and actually warrants parliamentary intervention by any of the MPs that have constituents living in South Cambridgeshire District. (Pippa Heylings MP and Ian Sollom MP respectively). That can either be in the form of facilitating a meeting between East West Rail and local council officers alongside the relevant committee chairpersons, or going direct to ministers and asking them what they will do about this state of affairs.
There are two campaigns in South Cambridgeshire District that have issues with the southern route chosen:
The problem for both of them is that the Government is sticking to the decision of the previous government to go with a southern entrance into Cambridge – see the statement by Mark Harper MP (then Transport Secretary) on 05 June 2023.
“This announcement has been made and confirms the proposals which will be taken forward for further development. These include…a southern approach to Cambridge.”
Mark Harper MP (then Transport Secretary) on 05 June 2023.
Cllr Kindersley also identifies a host of indirect issues too
Like: Where is the water going to come from?
“Cambridgeshire is facing various infrastructure problems, most specifically water. The comments do not highlight the water scarcity that will impact both water needed for
construction and operation and water to supply the dependent development on which EWRCo’s business case rests.”
And finally, who has offered what and how much to pay for the housing that will be ‘unlocked’ and help pay for the new line? (presumably via a land value uplift?)
‘Should we be asking what private investment has been offered, conditional on a rail link between Bedford and Cambridge?”
…asks Cllr Kindersley.
I asked East West Rail about lifelong learning and training adults to meet the chronic shortages in existing and soon-to-be-needed key roles locally.
I incorporated it into my consultation response as this was covered by the County Council in their response – and I wanted to make sure that someone is having a conversation about new lifelong learning centres. Because judging by the response from the my PQ asking the Combined Authority what conversations they had had with the large sci-tech land owners about establishing new lifelong learning facilities (have a listen and ask yourself if they answered my substantive question) I get the sense that nothing as yet is happening on creating new training facilities for a new generation of engineers and construction workers (whether school leavers or adults retraining) that will meet the demand created by East West Rail as the work moves slowly but surely towards Cambridge. (Far better to train up people who already live locally and who are willing and able to retrain rather than relying on moving people across the country?)
And finally: New civic squares
I’m still of the view that Cambourne should have a grand new civic square (that doesn’t look like Stevenage Town Centre or any other post-war Newtown for that matter) for station passengers to spill out onto when they exit the station. The problem is the speculator that bought up the development rights has not planned for this.
Above – from the North Cambourne vision document here (click on the supporting evidence’ tab)
I hope the politicians can force the developer to think again.
Above – taking inspiration from central Europe, I’d want the entrance to the railway station to look something like this in Budapest, Hungary. i.e. not Network Rail’s ‘minimum viable cost’ design. Or the cold grey ugly thing at North Cambridge Station.
As mentioned in this blogpost, the long-postponed Cambridge East Station is something that councillors should start initiating conversations about with Marshalls Airport and local residents to see if a second urban centre on the airport site is feasible. Especially now that serious conversations are happening about upgrading the Cambridge-Newmarket line.
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Below – go and fly The Kite with Together Culture. Much more fun.
The Cambridge Town Owl 