While the big institutions decamp to Leeds for the UK property corporate fest, some new things are bubbling away closer to the grassroots of our city
You only have to look at the Combined Authority’s LinkedIn feed to see who is saying what about our county. In the meantime, there are a few things bubbling away.
- ACORN Cambridge the community union whose members are primarily in rented accommodation are running an organisation and activist training day on 31st May 2025 at Downing Place URC opposite John Lewis on the corner of Downing Street/Place.
- Together Culture on Fitzroy Street, the independent workspace and social community organisation has just announced how it intends to expand (we are all these people and more), transforming the concept of traditional corporate freelance/pop-up workspaces into one of community-building, civic-society-strengthening, and mutual support.
- The Cambridge Room, founded by the Department for Architecture as a new urban room for Cambridge, (meet their team and trustees here) will be having further events next month. Not least because we need to talk about the proposed Kett House monstrosity that goes against so many of the positive things several of us discussed at Dr Mark Drane’s workshop and talk. (Note The Cambridge Room itself does not have any opinions either way due in part to its charitable status – its function is to provide the space for individuals, communities, and opinionated so-and-sos like me to talk about plans and proposals for the city!)
What does a design that demonstrates contempt for city residents look like?
In my opinion, something like this:
Above – you can send in your views to the consultants (and see the rest of the display boards) here
What’s interesting is how this contrasts with the vision Peter Freeman CBE, the Chair of the Cambridge Growth Company was setting out last week at Great St Mary’s. The best thing Mr Freeman could do over the next couple of months is make it very clear to the developers that these proposals are incompatible with his vision of the future of Cambridge. Especially given this is one of the main gateways into the city. (Go down Newmarket Road heading westwards, or even Histon Road at the Cambridge end with the dull St Edmund’s monstrosity squatting at the end, and you’ll see ones developers ruined earlier).
One of the interesting things that came out of the Together Culture event earlier on was trying to flesh out the concept of the active citizen
Because it’s actually really tricky. Cambridge Independence Publications based in Great Shelford down the road from the city has tried to do this in a couple of publications for teenagers and secondary schools – their most recent one from March 2025 here. And that was four years after they published this version of Active Citizenship. Because their publications are highly influenced by government policy, chances are they will have to change it again when the Secretary of State for Education’s review of the curriculum reports back – something that the Association for Citizenship Teachers has pressed hard for improvements on.
Above – trying to untangle what being an active citizen looks like
This was just after I had popped into Waterstones to look at their new titles.
“Democracy is dying because we are clinging to a dangerous and outdated myth: talking about politics can change people’s minds. It doesn’t.
“So people who really care about democracy must ask: how can we stop arguing and do the deep work to build stronger foundations for political life, and a better world for us all?”
Above – from Don’t Talk About Politics (2025) by Sarah Stein Lubrano
Heading to the final few pages (I know!) the theme that stood out was living by the values you preach – and that goes for institutions even more than it does for individuals.
In my case it took me over a decade to get to a place where I’m focusing on face-to-face outreach (the next Teacambs2 event is on Sunday 08 June) in the face of not only a very difference social media environment to a decade ago, but also because of the rapidly-changing social needs in part caused by the lockdowns – and the collective realisation of how lonely and isolated so many of us are.
Which is also why I don’t buy the boast of Eddington on LI about the praise it got from one of the witnesses at the Lords Built Environment Select Committee here.
“It’s great that Eddington has been recognised for its successful delivery model. However in the UK land assembly and construction and delivery process, it’s extremely rare to have a landowner/ master developer who leads/ stays with the build out and delivery process throughout – hence why some of our biggest challenges arise!”
Sharon Brown of SB Planning Ltd to Eddington, 20 May 2025 in response
Basically it helps immensely if:
- You already own the land
- You have the lobbying power to gain concessions from The Government (including bypassing local government processes and planning requirements) that enable you to go via central government planning approval routes – my main complaint being linked to former Cllr Kevin Price’s concerns as Executive Councillor for Housing in the late 2010s.
My point remains that if Eddington stands alone as a success on its own merits as an exemplar development, why are the people of Abbey Ward not sharing in the similar successes in the same city?
Which brings me back to the haunting question one of the children at a recent primary school summer fete asked me last weekend when as part of our neighbourhood forum outreach, we asked him and his friends about what they would like to see in a growing Cambridge, with a template with a list of suggestions.
“What’s a youth club?”
I borrowed his words and turned them both into a title of a blogpost, and also a challenge to affluent and influential persons and decision-makers to ponder and meditate on before exploring the wider issues the question raised. (And if the suggested responses to those wider issues involve charity, then I strongly suggest people go away and rethink the task and the challenge).
- With their parents generations growing up at a time of closing community centres in the 1980s and 1990s in the face of austerity imposed by ministers, are today’s children growing up not knowing about essential public services that should be theirs by right and because they belong to our communities?
- The much-lauded ‘Greatest Generation’ are strangely ignored by senior politicians when it comes to the lessons learnt from the great cataclysm of the Second World War – one my late Grandfather fought in. The publications of the time – such as this on community centres republished in 1946 to meet huge demand, shines a much-needed light. Interestingly, the book was featured in a recent article in Planning Perspectives (vol 38 – 2023) by Elizabeth Darling here.
What’s been really inspiring of late – despite my miserable blogposts, are the growing number of grassroots movements beginning to emerge in response to recent political decisions and who are demanding something better than what is being proposed from the institutions that hold so much power. At the same time, the movements need a far greater number of people to be active participants at a time when social media is not nearly as effective as it once was a decade ago. And that really is a challenge.
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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The Cambridge Town Owl 