Transport consultant Edward Leigh, of whom a number of you will know, was commissioned by Cambridge Past Present and Future and was cross-examined by leading counsel at the inquiry. See my earlier blogpost for a summary of the inquiry and what it’s about.
- You can watch Part 1 of Mr Leigh’s evidence here (14 Oct 2025)
- You can watch Part 2 of Mr Leigh’s evidence here (15 Oct 2025)
- You can read Mr Leigh’s 2021 report here
- You can read Cambridge PPF’s opening statement here – scroll to document 29-04
- You can read the outline case at 23-18-1
It is ***really heavy going*** so not for the faint-hearted
One of the big contentions that Mr Leigh makes is that the Greater Cambridge Partnership could have part-funded an upgrade to a major road interchange. The GCP rejected that saying it was a Highways England project [i.e. a central government responsibility]. But as other county councils have part-funded other similar projects, Mr Leigh contends that there was no reason not to fund such an upgrade. You can:
- Read more on the old Smarter Cambridge Transport page here on the A14 Girton Interchange
- Read the in-depth report by Mr Leigh for Cambridge PPF and Coton Parish Council
What this issue is about is the lack of a road connection between the M11 heading south towards London, and the A428 going east (which then merges into the A14)
Above – from G-Maps here. If you were on the A428 wanting to get onto the M11, how would you do it?
This is why on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire during rush hours you often hear mentions of “And there’s major traffic at the Girton Interchange / Madingley Mulch Roundabout / Black Cat Interchange…”
What Mr Leigh proposed in his Smarter Cambridge Transport article is as below
Above – Smarter Cambridge Transport 10 July 2021
The table below shows some of the convoluted routes to get from one major road to another.
Above – Smarter Cambridge Transport 10 July 2021
Land value uplift – really heavy stuff but important
You can watch the video footage here from the footage of 14 Oct 2025
They go into the report at CD29-60 (see here, scroll down) and it’s a 572 page report by the consultants WSP which incorporated a major consultants report by Aspinal Verdi for South Cambridgeshire District Council from 2021
Above – screengrab of the front page of the land value uplift assessment (CD-29-60 here)
Mr Leigh’s evidence on 15 Oct 2025
***My head is already hurting!***
This was when the inquiry got stuck into the alternative proposals from Cambridge Past, Present, & Future – which creates additional bus lanes on the existing carriageway alongside other interventions.
Above – p27 of the report by Smarter Cambridge Transport here.
One of the things mentioned in the exchanges was the initial objection from the Superintendent of the American Cemetery as reported here on 09 July 2021.
“The Superintendent called for the GCP to consider using existing infrastructure to achieve its goals.”
On dealing with a problem that is the M11
You can have a listen to the exchanges here
One thing that has come up time-and-again is the one-sided nature of the evidence bases and consultants’ reports. Mr Cameron KC for the county council is able to cross-examine the opponents on the details and assumptions of their alternative suggestions even though there is no way any of the opponents except those with the deepest pockets could hope to commission.
But then that brings us to a wider question of what are a reasonable set of options for any transport scheme, at whose expense should they be drawn up, and should public inquiries have a stage that is a sort of ‘examination in public’ stage that can deal with many of the issues that came up over the past decade and not leave us in the position where we have the county council submitting an application that is such woefully-poor value for money?
I’ll leave it for the rest of you to go into the detail – and perhaps ask Cambridge Past, Present and Future to publish some expert summaries of what the exchanges revealed.
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