First meeting papers for the Combined Authority with Mayor Paul Bristow

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Cambridge Labour select their former mayoral candidate Cllr Anna Smith (Lab – Coleridge) as Cambridge City Council’s representative on the Combined Authority Board

You can see the meeting papers for:

…which are on Wed 04 June 2025. (Get your public questions in for the latter by the end of the week!)

“Who will be the statutory deputy mayor?”

No idea. But the representatives for each council member are as follows – with only Cllr Smith the only representative not currently leading her council. (Cllr Holloway was recently elected leader of Cambridge City Council, but has delegated CPCA work to Cllr Smith, now executive councillor for communities, having previously been a former acting mayor (When Dr Nik Johnson was on medical leave) and a former city council leader. (She remains one of my local councillors as a Coleridge ward councillor)

Above – from the AGM Papers – Item 7 Annex A

Further down at Item 8 Annex B are some interesting appointments for membership of the themed committees:

  • Transport and Infrastructure
  • Skills and Employment
  • Environment and Sustainable Communities

Another of my local ward councillors, Cllr Rosy Moore (Lab – Coleridge) is on the last of the three – alongside the sole Green Party representative Cllr Lara Davenport-Ray, who is part of the joint administration at Huntingdonshire District Council.

On Transport and Infrastructure, architect Cllr Katie Thornburrow will represent Cambridge alongside her Labour colleague Cllr Sam Wakeford for Huntingdonshire District – Labour also being a component of the joint administration there.

On Skills, Cllr Dr Antoinette Nestor represents Cambridge, Cllr Wakeford also taking Huntingdonshire’s seat for that committee as well.

On Overview and Scrutiny – which gets to cross-examine the Mayor, former Cambridge City Council leader Cllr Mike Davey is joined by Cambridge Green Party’s Hugh Clough – a management accountant by profession. Always useful to have people with professional skills on committees. They will be joined by former CPCA mayoral candidate for the LibDems, Cllr Cllr Aidan Van De Weyer who will be representing South Cambridgeshire.

All of the substantive committees are due to meet throughout June.

The first board meeting will involve commissioning a host of new workstreams based on Mayor Bristow’s manifesto

One other big challenge will be overhauling the Combined Authority as the Government’s devolution agenda – including the creation of unitary councils for Cambridgeshire & Peterborough, starts to take shape. If seven component councils are reduced to say only two, will it mean that the unitary councils will have two, rather than one seat on the committees?

The local growth plan item has a couple of pictures in it – the Government requires combined authorities to have ten year plans in place.

Above – a diagram with lots of opportunities for consultants. I hope the CPCA brings this work in house. (Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington explain why here)

Above – county infrastructure gaps:

  • skills shortages, labour shortage
  • housing both not available (and where it is, unaffordable)
  • energy and power – infrastructure is not capable of meeting the predicted increased demands
  • digital – think connectivity as well as skills
  • water – we have known about this for decades

Other looming council meetings

My continued moan about the way local government is structured is much of this is simple rubber-stamping of procurement processes with very little ‘politics’ up for debate. This was exactly how Margaret Thatcher’s Government designed the system – something that campaigners at the time warned about. Three items of the CYP Services Committee have three agenda items with the word ‘Recommissioning’ in the title. I recall reading years ago that one of the most radical policy ideas to come from that centralising Conservative Government of the 1980s was to outsource or privatise all of the local public services, with the councils only meeting annually to oversee the commissioning of public services to be delivered by private providers. (If anyone can find the reference, shout!)

Once meetings get back into the flow of decision-making, I’ll try and set up a fortnightly e-newsletter so people can keep track of who made what decision.

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: