Over 50 events scheduled for Future of Cambridge consultation

Posted byCambridge Town OwlPosted inUncategorized

In what is probably their biggest public engagement programme in their histories, Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council have pulled out all the stops to get the public’s response to the emerging Greater Cambridge Local Plan

TL/DR? Read the summary of the draft local plan here.

You normally see me moaning about organisations and institutions, but credit where it’s due for putting together such a comprehensive list of places and events.

This is brilliant by Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire District Councils

I can’t complain when they’ve done exactly as I’ve suggested – and then some!

Back in 2014 I was trying to get my head around community engagement locally. I still am! I wrote a blogpost that included the phrase ‘Go where the people are’. It’s a phrase I repeated in subsequent blogposts post-2020 here.

***Lots and lots of lovely community events for you to go to over December 2025 and January 2026!***

Above – detail from the list of events coming up over the next two months that you can browse through here (remember to scroll down!)

Your elected councillors will be at many of these events and they will have been briefed by planning officers

Don’t know who they are? Type your postcode into https://www.writetothem.com/ and then drop an email to them introducing yourself to them – and then ask a question about the local plan and/or any local issue that falls within the remit of the city/district council.

Advice for councillors and officers following my first three workshops on the local plan documents in South Cambridge

Cllr Katie Thornburrow, (who along with Cllr Dr Tumi Hawkins, who are jointly responsible for the emerging local plan) participated in my first workshop at Rock Road Library in Cambridge, and wrote a review in her blogpost here.

There are three specific maps that I found are useful to have print-outs of:

Your local branch libraries (a county council function) have affordable community rooms for hire – that’s why I use Rock Road Library’s community room regularly. Councillors, consider getting together with your colleagues in neighbouring wards to hold local events that are not on the list above. (Ideally go for mid-late January to give time to publicise your events). Given that all of the libraries will have printed copies of the contents *and* basic printing facilities for A3 print-outs (something that participants found really useful in my workshops) you have physical items that make group discussions/pair work much easier. Furthermore, participants remarked that being able to write on the large print outs and take them away was a huge benefit in their discussions. (Yes, printing does cost, but it’s worth it for the quality of the exchanges vs death-by-power-point)

It is impossible to know everything about the the contents – so don’t try. Instead, focus on the bits that you are responsible for and/or most interested in, and have to hand the contact details of whoever is responsible for the other main sections. For councillors this may involve dividing up the different sections between your councillors and party volunteers. You will get both the experts (This is Cambridge) and the obsessives (you are dealing with human beings) so make sure you have conversation exit-points to redirect someone who wants to go into a level of detail that is beyond your remit/pay grade/interest level.

Assume that *really difficult question* that you don’t want to respond to will get asked by someone. Prepare accordingly. I learnt this the hard way during my civil service days – only in my case it involved being caught out in a fast-paced debate in the House of Lords late at night where I was one of the few left advising ministers. The briefing note I gave wasn’t factually correct and the minister had to write an apology to the peer concerned. Yeah – ouch!

Be absolutely crystal clear with the public that if Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire City Council do not prepare and submit a sound local plan based on a significant evidence base, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government has the powers to impose a local plan on us.

“We will take tough action to ensure that”planning authorities have up-to date Local Plans and reform and strengthen the presumption in favour of sustainable development. …where necessary Labour will not be afraid to make full use of intervention powers to build the houses we need.”

Above – Labour Party General Election Manifesto 2024, pp36-37

Be absolutely crystal clear with the public where ministers get their powers from. i.e. the current government won the general election with a significant majority of MPs in the House of Commons. Therefore they won the right to implement their manifesto.

For anyone who disagrees vehemently with what is contained within the proposals, they have the right to get involved with political parties that may take a different view, and/or with pressure groups that are also campaigning on the issues they are concerned about. But this is not a consultation about whether there should or should not be a local plan because the law requires every local council (district/borough/unitary) to have one that is based on a large evidence base. Making major changes to this inevitably involves changes to the law, which inevitably involves engaging in politics. Which is a recourse that all of us have as citizens.

Advice for residents

Go prepared – familiarise yourself with the essential points in the summary document. If it’s easier to read on paper, print it out, and print out the maps in a larger format.

There’s no such thing as a stupid question with development planning on this scale. Also, we weren’t taught about this at school so most people will be approaching this with a fresh pair of eyes.

If you stumble across an expert in a workshop or event, pick their brains. This being Cambridge I have run workshops where one or two participants have shown up who have had far more expertise than I have. But this is not a bad thing. If you are one of those experts, please be willing and open to share you expertise with your fellow residents. It would be wonderful if by the end of the consultation to have raised the collective level of knowledge about how our city functions (and malfunctions), and what the current and future challenges are for our city and county.

Future workshops

Watch this space!

First of all a big ***Thank you*** to those of you who have contributed/donated towards the costs of my first three workshops – which have included a huge amount of printing ink (what happened to those really useful ink cartridge refill shops we used to have?!?), paper, and room/venue hire. (Places like the Cherry Hinton Hub are always pleased to see new people with their newly opened cafe at their library). My workshops are free but open to donations to ensure that money is not a barrier to people. I am fortunate that there are enough civic-minded people who have been willing and able to help cover the material costs for those participants who otherwise would be unable to afford ticket fees.

This week: I’ve not scheduled anything, but I am intending to go to the Rail Future East annual meeting in Cambridge on Sat 06 December from 2.30pm for the talk by Sarah Hughes and Jim Chisholm on joined up thinking in Transport. (Which will give you enough time to go to the Mill Road Winter Fair before wandering down to Station Square, coming out at the Brooklands Avenue Junction for the short walk to the venue.)

I’m going to recharge batteries/spoons this week and try and schedule some more informal gatherings for the weeks beginning 08 December, 15 December 2025, and then for the weeks beginning 12, 19, and 26 of January 2026.

A couple of people have been in touch asking about running events in their community / for their campaign group. Give me a shout if you’d like one too. antonycarpen [@] gmail [dot] com.

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: