OxCamArc is back, and you can read all about it – for a special fee!

Posted byCambridge Town OwlPosted inUncategorized

Interested parties were sharing the link from the FT throughout today, and understandably quality journalism has to be paid for. But given the significance of the announcement and the number of people affect, why did none of the other news outlets cover it in the same way? Especially the BBC?

I sort-of expected the content of this blogpost from July 2024 to come back with a bang

*Congratulations new government on your election – these are our demands!*

Remember the ‘Radical Capital’ document from 2021?

Above – Radical Capital (Bidwells/Blackstock) 2021

As mentioned, I wrote more about the issues in my July 2024 blogpost

“Why hasn’t the rest of the news media covered this already?”

At the time of typing (7.50pm) I couldn’t see anything on the BBC Cambridgeshire site nor on their business and tech pages. Furthermore, the sector specialist press has simply churned out the press releases (eg here, and also here, with no dissenting or cautionary voices on things like:

  • The capacity of the building industry post-Grenfell revelations to meet the demand
  • The lack of a lifelong learning / adult education / skills retraining plan for adults who might be willing/able in principle, but are prevented by existing financial and caring commitments to undertake the full-time training needed
  • The climate emergency, ecological, and water crises
  • The governance and accountability structures of the towns, cities, and regions before, during, and after the work is done
  • The risk that private sector interests will extract most of the wealth gained, leaving new communities without nearly enough of the essential infrastructure needed to ensure the new and expanded settlements can function.

And on that last point, we’ve been here before with one of the most controversial and high profile firms in Cambridge: Brookgate.

Their Cambridge Station development (which I wrote about here recently) was on the front page of the Cambridge News for the wrong reasons again – as Siobhan Middleton reported here. Given the issues Ms Middleton raised in her report, surely there has to be a conversation, if not an investigation into:

  • The management agents of the housing association
  • The housing association (BPHA – it’s a huge one with over £1.4billion in fixed assets)
  • The main developer of the site (Brookgate)
  • The contractors and sub-contractors, and consultants of the main developer
  • The building control processes – who signed off what and when?

Furthermore, when you look at who is responsible for what on the CB1 site here, the picture is inevitably confusing for local residents – especially those in social housing. That’s not to say this is an issues specific to this site or one developer – this is a nationwide and industry-wide issue. Hence the recent announcement from ministers last week.

“So, what’s all this with the OxCamArc coming back”
  1. A general election
  2. A very effective lobbying operation from some very wealthy institutions

And the celebrations have been splashed all over… Linked In!

Have a look at one of the many partnerships involved here – and note the embedded video which an interesting figure gives a speech to.

Above – Rachel Wolf, Founding Partner at Public First

…where her profile states:

“Rachel co-authored the Conservative Party’s Election Manifesto in 2019… …Rachel began her career as an education and political adviser to the Conservative Party and was a policy adviser to Boris Johnson on his first mayoral campaign and in his earlier role as Shadow Higher Education Minister.”

Above – Public First – Rachel Wolf

As moves go, that’s a bold one in appointing her to be the public face of a very controversial policy that is inevitably going to be party political all across the area it covers. But then maybe that also was a smart political calculation by Labour’s ministers as well. Because if you look at the general election map of the constituencies from the 2024 results, you get a very interesting picture.

Above – BBC News General Election Results Map 2024

Now compare them to the 2019 map of results

Above – BBC News General Election Map 2019

The yellow and red constituencies bottom-left cover Oxford, and top-right is Cambridge, with Bedford in the middle.

Given that Labour’s strength historically is not in rural areas, there is a huge electoral incentive for the party’s ministers to designate some of the towns between Oxford and Cambridge as sites for agglomeration into new cities, and some of the very rural areas as sites for new towns along the East-West-Rail line.

And if I was of a purely red party political mindset I’d be saying: “Build baby build!”

But as I’m not, I get to ask the boring but essential public policy questions such as: What are your top three policy risks for ‘build baby build’ and how are you going to deal with each one? For example the taps running dry because demand for water exceeds supply? Or increased flooding because you’ve built on flood plains and developers and their sub-contractor have cut corners?

Ox-Cam-Supercluster modelling

As part of making the case for bringing back the OxCamArc (will they use the same branding?) the consultancies/partnerships published their evidence-base here. i.e. the Oxford Cambridge Supercluster, whose members you can see are here, chose the political consultancy Public First headed up by the co-author of Boris Johnson’s catastrophic 2019 manifesto as the person and firm to lead it. Which is nice and reassuring for members of the Labour Party. I can also imagine that the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party are going to have some fun with this as well given how strongly they opposed Brexit. In one sense it’s an absolute gift for the latter two opposition parties given the local elections in just over three months time which will cover Cambridgeshire, and the unitaries of Buckinghamshire & the Northamptonshires. We await to see if Oxfordshire County Council goes ahead with their county elections – noting that if they go ahead, there could be rich electoral pickings for the Greens and Liberal Democrats in rural areas opposing the large growth plans.

The detail of the modelling needs scrutinising – in particular the assumptions, risks, and any stress-testing

One of the things that is lacking in the high-level publicity is the policy risk assessment. Before backing this, I’d want to see a host of detailed assessments, alongside some intense cross-examination of the promotors and their advisers by people who are experts not just on the content, but also on cross-examination and scrutiny as well.

  • Climate, the environment, and water resources barely get a mention – which worries me. Even Tony Blair would advise promotors of any programme to be absolutely up front about the problems and risks – i.e. don’t pretend that they are not there. (Even if it’s simply to say: “I have full confidence in our mitigation and risk management strategies” and nothing else!)
  • Does the UK economy have the materiel resources and components needed to build all of this? (And if not, how much will the imports cost, will this increase the UK’s economic dependency on specific supply chains esp those in unstable areas of the world)
  • The UK clearly does not have the skills or labour capacity to build all of this, let alone house/accommodate the builders who need to build all of this, so what’s the plan?
  • Is it Politically possible to have such a big policy that makes a lot of noise about encouraging skilled workers from across the world while at the same time appeasing the tabloid print press and TeamNigel over immigration? (What’s the longer term community cohesion plan?)
  • Hasn’t London and the South East already got enough? What alternatives were considered? (Such as investing in the North of England – especially in transport and communications, and why were such options discounted?)
  • How do you propose to get the promoters of the scheme to share the concerns and losses of those that will inevitably lose out? What additional benefits will those benefiting financially but who don’t live in the area be made to forego, in order to ensure that those living there – especially those on the lowest incomes, with the least influence, and those least able to adapt, have their needs met?

Again, it will be interesting to see how they respond to the growing environmental concerns

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:

Want to talk about these issues with someone in Cambridge? The Trials of Democracy in Cambridge is back for 2025

“Aunty and Pink with be back outside the Guildhall with their inviting sofas and listening ears on Saturday February 8th from 11am – 12 noon.” (And if you can’t make that, Puffles is back at TeaCambs2 on 09 Feb from 2.30-4pm at The Rock on Cherry Hinton Road)