Author Archives: Cambridge Town Owl

Jane Hutchins, the director of Cambridge Science Park was filmed for an interview with BBC Look East on 07 Jan 2026 …and quoted in this piece for BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. “[Jane] Hutchins accepts that growth can cause conflict with local communities adding “we as a sector need to be better at telling people about theContinue reading “Growth can cause conflict with local communities, says Cambridge Science Park director”

The Oxford-Cambridge Supercluster Board published a report called The Economic Power of the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor. The report calls an overhauled, simplified governance structure The top-three recommendations are: Above – Report preamble page I wrote about the lack of governance structures and institutions a month ago I wrote this following the recent skills conference atContinue reading “It’s like the Oxford-Cambridge Supercluster read my blog!”

A superb piece by the founder of the Ninety-Three Percent Club who has put into a single blogpost what I spent over 15 years failing to do in hundreds of my own Image: The Tackling Loneliness Hub The title Life on a piece of paper comes from something I wrote during my final year ofContinue reading “Sophie Pender’s riposte to Life on a Piece of Paper”

EF applies for Change of Use for historic house that previously it used for corporate language courses. In the meantime, will there be a new proposal for the Romsey Labour Club? “The applicant added that it would “help meet the growing demand for resident facilities” for the school’s growing student numbers. It would also provideContinue reading “Romsey House opposite Romsey Labour Club to become student accommodation”

The Local Government Information Unit published a report on the future of local government in England – looking into the longer term over the next quarter of a century. See: Ministers cannot have a meaningful conversation about local government without having a comprehensive overhaul of the taxation and spending powers of local councils and anyContinue reading “The governance of England in 2050”

In a nutshell there isn’t enough of it, and there are some easy wins that Cambridge City Council and the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service are missing out on. At the foot of the poster I state who I am (“With local historian Antony Carpen”) because I don’t want anyone to get the impression I’mContinue reading “Offline publicity for Future of Cambridge proposals”

Live to work, or work to live? Continuing on the theme of Loneliness in 2026 In my further reading on Loneliness in Society and the multiple articles now coming out regularly on our individual struggles to find community and belonging (I found another one in The Guardian here for 2025, along with Malala’s take forContinue reading “When your day job becomes your identity – Loneliness in society”

A short post on a recently-formed support group in Cambridge that meets at The Alex Pub on Gwydir Street The group was formed by Angela Brown who you can contact via the above-two links. The significant underfunding of neurodiverse health services – in particular ADHD in Cambridgeshire is grim – have a look at theContinue reading “Cambridge ADHD Group”

The proposals were rejected in 2013 by Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council in the creation of what became the current local plan of 2018 – but with Peter Freeman’s Cambridge Growth Company instructed to grow Cambridge beyond what the emerging local plan accounts for, will we need to revisit this? See theContinue reading “Revisiting the abandoned Cambridge Sporting Village 2013”

This was in 1994 and were the feelings of former Perse School headmaster Martin Stephen in an interview with the Cambridge Evening News shortly before his departure for Manchester. “I think there is more loneliness in Cambridge than any other city I have ever known” Martin Stephens in the Cambridge Evening News 21 July 1994,Continue reading “Former headteacher described Cambridge as having ‘more loneliness than any city he had ever known’”