The next Greater Cambridge Transport Strategy – due for November 2026

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On the never-ending saga of Cambridge’s transport problems – which included comments about e-bikes and e-scooters

We found out the date the new strategy (which unlike the last one will have a light rail component to it) in the Transport Committee Papers from today’s meeting (15 Sept 2025)

Above from late agenda item in the Transport Committee papers here

Public questions to the CPCA on transport issues

The public questions are at item 4 – and you can listen to the responses from the CPCA in the webcast link also on the same page. Public Qs start at 6m40s in the stream. I asked:

“Please could the CPCA make a statement on what it intends to do about the lack of docking stations for VOI E-scooters both in city centre locations and in residential areas. Repeated calls to get them installed have resulted in little action, and they pose a risk to local residents who are blind/partially sighted as the RNIB has repeatedly stated.”

“The Mayor regards the careless and inconsiderate parking of e-bikes e-scooters as being a significant national problem…”

“We encourage residents with concerns about specific locations to contact the Strategic Transport Team so they can be investigated. An accessibility group is being establish to advise”

This was followed up by CPCA Transport Committee members. Scroll to 42mins in the video on the director’s report, with Cllr Brian Milnes (Lib Dems – Sawston and Shelfords, also on the board of the GCP) speaking at 44mins, and Cllr Alex Beckett (Lib Dems, Queen Edith’s – Chair of the Highways and Transport Committee on Cambridgeshire County Council) at 49mins.

“DfT are hosting an event on 11 September for local government officers following the publication of the On-Street Micromobility Regulatory Framework in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill and the extension and expansion of e-scooter trials. The Combined Authority will attend this event and can provide an update at the Committee meeting.”

Above – from the director’s report Item 6 para 3.3

See also the exchange in Parliament on 11 Sept 2025 here.

This subject was something I moaned about back in early August in this blogpost (scroll halfway down). Personally I find the bright orange colour scheme too jarring to look at – and when they are clustered/dumped around the city, it looks awful. Why couldn’t they at least try a ‘Cambridge Blue’ colour scheme like below?

Above – a seated e-scooter limited to 15.5mph – at least it sort-of matches the Cambridge Blue colour scheme and is less visually intrusive than bridge orange!

The next Transport Strategy

This was discussed halfway through the meeting at around 56mins, with the paper being the late agenda item here.

As per the diagram at the top, ‘key stakeholder engagement’ begins in the autumn – taking the sign-off at the CPCA Board Meeting on 24 Sept as a given. After that:

  • The draft new Greater Cambridge Transport Strategy is due for completion in June 2026 and submitted to the CPCA’s Transport Committee (after the local elections of that year)
  • That document is due to go out to consultation over the summer – from July 2026 (when everyone is on holiday!)
  • Approval by the CPCA Transport Committee and Board by November 2026, and submission to the Transport Secretary by December 2026

How long it will take ministers to approve the strategy is anyone’s guess. Much will also depend on things like the Cambridge Growth Company’s proposals which should be published around the time of the Autumn Budget in November 2025 (so a couple of months plus a few weeks?) and any announcement from the New Towns Task Force on the location of any separate new town for Cambridge, east of Tempsford (on the Beds/Cambs border near St Neots) that has already been pencilled in.

It remains to be seen how much of the Cambridge Connect Light Rail Plan (in the strategy document here produced for the previous mayoralty) will be included.

Above – from the Cambridgeshire Light Rail Strategy from 2021 by Cambridge Connect here

I’m also reminded of Norman Baker’s case for light rail back in 2022 which I wrote about at the end of this blogpost. The former LibDem Transport Minister said in a piece in Tramways and Urban Transit Magazine that ministers should:

  1. Incorporate light rail into national decarbonisation plans
  2. Overhaul the Transport and Work Act 1992 – simplify processes
  3. Identify where in the UK light rail is best suited – eg Leeds
  4. Reallocate funds from the £27billion Road Building Programme to light rail
  5. Empower local councils to levy [prosperous] businesses to pay for infrastructure
  6. Assess how to improve construction and delivery of light rail schemes – learn from Edinburgh tramways and others
  7. Explore variations in light rail – including very light rail /DLR for smaller cities and large towns
  8. Integrated ticketing (Still waiting for this on buses)
  9. Mobilise supporters effectively (easier said than done)
  10. Require transport ministers to present an annual light rail report to Parliament and be cross-examined by MPs and Peers on it in public.

Above – past copies of Tramways and Urban Transit

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: