The Public Inquiry for the proposed busway between Addenbrooke’s and the A11 had its pre-inquiry meeting where the public got to see who the participants were
You can see the public inquiry page here, and you can watch the video of the pre-inquiry hearing here.
“How long will the inquiry take?”
The note from the Inspectors states that six weeks have provisionally been scheduled for the inquiry:
- 8-11 December 2026
- 15-18 December 2026
- 12-15 January 2027
- 19-22 January 2027
- 2-5 February 2027
- 9-12 February 2027
Note “The venue for the inquiry will be The Graduate by Hilton Cambridge Hotel at Granta Place, Cambridge, CB2 1RT for all scheduled dates except 8-11 December 2026. On those dates, the venue will be Homerton College, University of Cambridge, Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 8PH.”
So if anyone in South Cambridge wants to pop along and see what a public inquiry is like, we’ve got four days of hearings on our doorstep.
Haverhill Town Council and the One Haverhill Partnership’s representation.
You can watch their short introductions to the planning inspectors here
“We are particularly interested in the connectivity east of the A11. We are interested to hear Peter Freeman will be called as a witness. We would welcome the opportunity to ask questions of him”
Above – Colin Poole, Town Clerk of Haverhill Town Council
This is part of a very longstanding campaign from residents and civic figures in Haverhill to get the railway line re-opened – and to take a significant amount of commuter traffic off of the roads between the town and city.
Ian Couzens of Rail Future to present further evidence for a rail-based scheme connecting Haverhill and neighbouring villages with Cambridge
You can watch Mr Couzens’ introduction here. You can also meet Rail Future East at their annual meeting in Cambridge on Saturday 28th November 2026 – Cambridge at 14:00
Mill Road Community Centre, 6 Hazell Street, Cambridge CB1 2GN.
Rail Future has previously published reports making the case for reopening the old Cambridge-Haverhill railway line.
Above – opening slide from Rail Future East: A big role for a Haverhill Railway, which is part of a wider set of updates here.
You can:
- Browse through the slides as mentioned above
- Read the Analysis of potential rail passenger demand on the route corridor between Haverhill and Cambridge South by Jonathan Roberts Consulting for Rail Future East
This is part of a very long-running process that has been rumbling on for over a decade
I referred to Rail Future’s issues from back in April 2016 here. Furthermore, there were over 13 pages of public questions to Cambridgeshire County Council when councillors were asked to vote in favour of progressing the planning application for the CSET Busway. (I covered that in this blogpost here).
To be fair to the two Planning Inspectors, Nancy Thomas (one of the two) acknowledged publicly that this was a highly-contested planning application and hence underlined the importance of the proceedings they were responsible for.
Rail Future East confirmed in December 2024 that they would be opposing the CSET Application at the public inquiry
Above – Rail Future East Newsletter Dec 2024 from p16
One set of exchanges to watch for are the cross-examination of the technical experts being called by the counsel for the applicant (Cambridgeshire County Council) by both Rail Future East, and also the Better Ways for Busways campaign
The Better Ways for Busways alliance
Four parish councils along with other charities and campaign organisations have grouped together to form the alliance, and have fund-raised in order to instruct legal representatives to act on their behalf regarding the public inquiry. The parish councils that are involved are:
- Great Shelford Parish Council
- Stapleford Parish Council
- Sawston Parish Council
- Babraham Parish Council
The Better Ways for Busways alliance have instructed Richard Buxton Solicitors to act for them at the Public Inquiry, and they have instructed barrister Jack Parker to represent them in the inquiry proceedings.
The public hearings begin at Homerton College, Cambridge on 08 December 2026.
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