Well if they are going with the tried and tested route of ‘designed-on-a-spreadsheet’ vernacular with a separate piece of abstract modernist sculpture plonked by the building, then expect to be lampooned!
Above – CGI of proposed dinosaur-sized monster POO next to building that could have been designed on an Etch-a-sketch in the 1980s
See the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service and type in 23/00159/COND23 into the ref box that appears when you follow the ‘simple search’ tabs. Select the ‘Public Art Delivery Plan’.
Above – you should see a document that tells you how they intend to install the giant dinosaur-sized monster poo sculpture on a site that’s in Cherry Hinton ward – within Cambridge City on its eastern edge.
Fast backwards to that long hot summer of 1995
…which was a sort-of coming-of-age era for me in my mid teens because it was the first time I had gotten drunk and the first time I had smoked a spliff. Which had the local community and ecclesiastical establishment found out, would have freaked out.
It was the day term had broken up for the summer on a day that three teachers almost got into a fight with a former pupil who had rocked up that afternoon. You could feel the tension throughout the place. It was also a time where, having been pulled in multiple different directions by different people, institutions, for want of another term, cultural forces, I snapped. And joined some of my school friends later that evening first at Cherry Hinton Hall to play football (there were at least two dozen of us), then to Lime Kiln Hill, then back to a friends house, where we all got drunk and/or stoned.
In those days such was the force of the clampdown on underaged sales of alcohol that it was easier for teenagers to buy narcotics because dealers didn’t ask you for ID to prove your age.
Politicians didn’t want to know about that then, and it’s as if they still don’t want to know about it now, thinking that every other swing-seat voter has the political views of the former Tory Prisons Minister turned TeamNigel MEP via Strictly politician.
Above – from G-Maps here
The red balloon is the entrance to the Lime Kiln Nature Reserve. Bottom left outside of the screen-grab and a short walk back down Cherry Hinton Road is Cherry Hinton Hall and grounds (where we played football that evening), Top centre with the grey balloon is Arm, and that chalk patch of land used to be a field full of wheat that was at the top of an old cliff face/chalk pit that we ran up the top of to get to the field.
Strange to think that nearly 30 years ago when us teenagers were smoking spliffs and sticking two fingers up at John Major’s ‘back to basics’ policies on law and order, they’d be installing a giant statue of a dinosaur-sized monster poo outside a bland block of identikit sci-tech labs. Even more strange is how state-of-the-art the interiors of the buildings are in all things sci-tech when you consider how utterly obsolete the equipment and curriculums we were stuck with as well.
Which is why I won’t let go of the Adult Education issue
That’s my message to the Sci-Tech sector: What’s your response to those adults who were utterly failed by a previous generation of education and science policies who now have no options on getting trained and upskilled to fill the very vacancies you keep complaining about due to skills shortages?
And for the politicians, the same question as here: What does a world class offer on adult education look like? Because judging by the response to a PQ asked on my behalf at the Combined Authority’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee earlier, your sector has been found wanting.
Above – from Cambridge& (which had support from local government institutions when first established) – Don’t complain! ***You invited it!***
Back to the dinosaur-sized monster poo
“You’ve moaned about public art before”
I know.
And every so often the local press and public will pick up on a particularly unpopular one – whether Caroline Wright’s abandoned plans for a ‘golden river bank’ along the River Cam, through to what I think is the hideous barrier to pedestrians designed by Gavin Turk in front of Cambridge Station. (That doesn’t mean it’s OK to send threatening messages to the artists concerned – not just because the Malicious Communications Act 2003 and other laws apply, but also because lampooning stuff is much more fun! (As is being able to take it – says the chap who used to turn up to the opening of an envelope when it came to community meetings and actions)
Other relevant blogposts on public art include:
- Does Cambridge’s Public Art glitter? (Feb 2022)
- Cambridge’s Public Art Strategy (Oct 2024 when looking at Cambridge South’s Public Art)
I looked into the strategy more closely for the second one.
Cambridge’s public art strategy
“You can read it here along with the city council’s public art supplementary planning document from 2010 (is it due a refresh?)”
“Looking at the SPD, I note:
“A critical requirement is that the commissioned work should be original, of high quality, designed for the community and produced or facilitated by an artist or craftsperson. In terms of delivery, projects may focus on the process as much as the product and be community based.”
Above – Para 5.7 SPD (2010)“
I’ll leave you to judge either way which pieces of public art post-2010 meet or fail to meet that criteria.
“Haven’t we been to ARM before?”
That thing about turning up to the opening of envelopes or turning up unexpectedly to officially public meetings that are easily overlooked because of the lack of wider publicity? That.
Cambridge 2030 at ARM on Fulbourn Road – 14 Oct 2024
Actually, with hindsight this was a really useful event – which I wrote about here. If anything, it reflected for me the need for senior politicians and civic leaders to bring together the wealthy, affluent, and influential ‘stakeholders’ with people living and working on the frontline of the poverty and inequalities in our city – and force the former to see the realities of the latter. Because at the moment (and as I showed with The Paddocks’ proposals further down Cherry Hinton Road) it feels all too easy for the former to commission consultants to be their ‘firewall’ and protective barrier from the communities directly affected by their investment decisions.
And finally… …That is a ***massive increase in motor traffic*** looming for my neighbourhood. What benefits do we get again?
“The East Cambridge Tech firms & landowners should pay for a new Fulbourn Railway/Light Rail Station” …as I wrote just over two years ago here.
The map below is from that blogpost from 2022 – you can see the ARM offices at the bottom-left, including the chalk-coloured patch that is having the new building, The Optic built on it (With ARM securing the tenancy) as announced here.
“Above – the red balloon icon is where a new Fulbourn station could be opened – one that Cambridge Connect proposes opening. (The old village station is north-east of Fulbourn village – see disused stations here)”
At some stage we will need to talk *again* about that Cambridge-Newmarket line – perhaps more urgently. Because if ARM are moving in, and RailPEN with their application now out for formal consultation for the Beehive Centre now up, conversations with East West Rail on upgrading that line need progressing and far more swiftly than at present.
Above – from my blogpost here on East West Rail showing the site of a possible railway/light rail stop for RailPen’s Beehive Centre and Cambridge Retail Park revamp – the post also calls for a new railway station for a second urban centre at the Barnwell Road / Coldham’s Lane roundabout.
The problem is exactly how Cllr Seb Kindersley (LibDems – Gamlingay), Chair of Cambridgeshire County Council said recently: *Everyone is busy making plans for Greater Cambridge – but they appear not to be talking to each other*
Challenge to everyone with an interest and a stake in the future of our city. Can we get together and resolve these shared challenges, or is this one thing that is something even the Cambridge& people cannot solve?
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Below – go and fly The Kite with Together Culture. Much more fun.
The Cambridge Town Owl 