Such is the size of the University of Cambridge that you’ll inevitably find examples of excellent practice swimming against the cultural tide of an institution reluctant to open up
Image – Cambridge Past Present and Future – who objected strongly to the Beehive Redevelopment plans. Founded by a partnership of town and gown people, some of you may want to join them as members
The Cambridge Room
The new Urban Room for debating the future of our city and county (amongst other things) is now open. I went along to their latest event on the Beehive Redevelopment facilitated by Prof Flora Samuel of the Department for Architecture at the University of Cambridge, where local residents and local councillors spoke about their experience of the planning process, the public consultations, and the shock decision by the Building Safety Minister to call in the application on behalf of the Deputy Prime Minister Secretary of State for Housing & Local Government.
As well as Cambridge University researchers, we also had Peter Studdert, the former Head of Planning for Cambridge City Council, and Cllrs Katie Thornburrow, and Dr Tumi Hawkins, the executive councillors for Cambridge City, and South Cambridgeshire District Councils respectively.
There were several dozen of us in the new unit in the Grafton Centre opposite Boots, and the challenges of facing a large financial institution that can purchase the consultancy and lobbying firepower were aired in detail – mindful that RailPen have got to do it all over again with the Cambridge Retail Park site.
As well as touching on the local history, I described the development, RailPen’s actions, and the wider shortcomings of politics and public administration as a failure of strategic planning – in particular the failure to integrate transport planning and development planning into an overall masterplan for the area given the railway line next to the site. The idea that the sites – much of which is currently used for surface car parking, will have three new multi-storey car parks built on them at a time when fossil-fuelled cars are being phased out, reflected the short-term thinking.
The Cambridge Room event was a textbook example of how academics, local councillors, local council officers (past and present), local professionals in the field, and local residents can get together and discuss complex and controversial issues.
Let’s have more of these please!
I’m in the process of organising a quartet of workshops throughout April, and then in May, Hilary Cox-Condron and Patrick Morris will be hosting an event for The Trials of Demcracy at the Cambridge Room – the project funded by the city council.
Cambridge University’s Pro Vice Chancellor for Innovation ignores local government and city residents
“I don’t post often, but the last few weeks have been pivotal for University of Cambridge and our mission to accelerate innovation.”
Above – the Pro-VC on LinkedIn – 26 March 2025
His failure to mention local government or the people who make up our city (the latter of which I’ve long-stated includes those who commute into our city, without whom we would cease to function (and which I would be dead because many of the healthcare professionals who treated me in Addenbrooke’s and Royal Papworth live outside our city) spoke volumes. This was called out the following day by Terry Macallister in a letter to the FT.
Above – but it’s behind a paywall
That omission of local government or residents doesn’t surprise me. I’ve been calling out the University of Cambridge’s senior figures over their continued reluctance to engage with the people who make up our city for over a decade – such as in this video clip at one of the first GCP/City Deal meetings back in early 2015 where I put a Q to Prof Jeremy Sanders representing the University of Cambridge’s Board Seat created by Ministers. In those days, there was no in-house filming facility in Cambridgeshire’s local council offices – often it was either me or Richard Taylor in our spare time who would rock up to these things, knowing the significant decisions that they would make down the line.
The City of Cambridge as a Monaco-style settlement for the super-wealthy to meet the super-scientists
It was the same Prof Sanders who in the year before that meeting tabled his 2065 vision of the Future of Cambridge that former councillor Sam Davies MBE recalled – and which I wrote about last year here.
“Cambridge will be one of the key venues to come and be seen, and to rub shoulders with the global intellectual elite. If it sounds like an exclusive conference venue, then that may be about right.”
Sanders, J (2014) in Cambridge 2065, p48
I observed in that same blogpost how one former Vice Chancellor would be turning in his grave if he heard such remarks from a fellow senior figure.
“We regard Cambridge as part of our inheritance as members of the University. It is our duty to pass it on to our successors improved and not impoverished. It will not be unchanged, because every generation has to build and rebuild.
“This second aim has no direct advantage to the University, and some people may question why we have included it in as a second aim. We do so to give a recognition to the fact that Cambridge is more than a University, it is a City in its own right, and its significance as a regional centre has grown and will continue to grow.
Sir Ivor Jennings in the Cambridge Daily News 01 June 1962 in the Cambridgeshire Collection
Above – Sir Ivor Jennings was a former editor of the Local Government Chronicle, and one of the few senior university figures in the post-war era who understood the need for the University of Cambridge and its member colleges & institutions to work with the people of our city. Something picked up on by a then final year student Delilah Knight for Varsity Newspaper in 2022 as she made the case for a new large concert hall that Sir Ivor said the University should co-fund.
The Hills Road / Parker’s Piece vision of a concert hall opposite the Yolande Marie Lynn-Stephens’ Catholic Church has been vanquished – the site will be an innovation hub
Back in 2021 I wrote that the new large concert hall should be on the site last occupied by Cambridge Assessment on the other side of Hills Road opposite the large church
Above – the old Cambridge Assessment site on G-Maps here
Hence my backup plan of having the new large concert hall as one of four anchor institutions on the Cambridge Airport site served by a new Cambridge East Station.
- A new large magnificent city hall for a new unitary council
- A new large lifelong learning centre – possibly named after the late Sir Mike Marshall
- A new large concert hall
- A new railway station and transport hub, Cambridge East.
Because Cambridge has grown far beyond the capacity of the historic centre and now needs a new second urban centre
So far, no one has come up with a concept for that – but if Peter Freeman’s plans for a new development corporation for, and a large urban extension of Cambridge as proposed by the Minister for Housing and Planning take place, someone will need to.
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:
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Below – Together Culture’s Kite Navigator – explore the history of the neighbourhood that both Together Culture and The Cambridge Room are located in
The Cambridge Town Owl 