Author Archives: Cambridge Town Owl

Which is a bit rubbish given the interim report of the NHS taskforce back in June 2025 Furthermore, the high use of locum GPs in Cambridge inevitably means things don’t always get followed up, increasing the delays unnecessarily – but something that is a symptom of the wider housing and cost of living crisis combinedContinue reading “A 2 year local NHS waiting list for ADHD assessments”

Cambridge City Council debated the contents of a report on improved forms of local engagement. But what real impact can they have in the face of gamed algorithms hotwiring social media users towards inflammatory content? I blogged about this in the second half of this earlier blogpost, and earlier this evening city councillors had aContinue reading “The challenge of council engagement vs gamed algorithms and inflammatory content”

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority – AKA IPSA established a Citizens’ Forum of randomly-selected members of the public to examine the work and pay of MPs You can: 23 people randomly selected, undertaking 18 hours worth of activity Imagine this as nine evening classes at two hours each – so a term’s worth. Hence theContinue reading “The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority’s experience of democracy education”

Should the Green Party of England and Wales go onto even greater things politically, the party conference speeches by their leadership team will be milestones in their story Have a listen to the end of Rachel Millward’s speech from 20mins50secs here And whatever you do next… ***Don’t let anyone use this as an exam textContinue reading “Rachel Millward’s *finest hour*”

Local political coverage catches up on what happened at the party conferences You can catch up with: Fast food outlets to flood Parker’s Piece at student Freshers’ Fair You can see the details here – it looks like they are being very tight on who can get in compared with previous years. Which will probablyContinue reading “Party conferences – was anybody listening?”

Welcome as the new Cambridge Homelessness Charter is, the roots of the problem are embedded in how our city, county, and economic sub-region are governed. Changing this requires a change in the law. And for that to happen, it needs conversations with ministers You can read the charter at https://cambridgehomelessnesscharter.org.uk/ – something that reminded meContinue reading “Cambridge cannot solve its homelessness crisis without addressing how councils are funded”

The final two party conferences are coming up over the next five days – for the Greens and finally the Conservatives respectively. How will politics look when Parliament returns for the run up to the Budget? I guess going by the traditional political press, the likes of Chris Mason might be competing with GBeebies toContinue reading “On Labour and Conservatives facing new pressures from smaller parties”

As with the Cambridge water works relocation, rising costs have proved to be an insurmountable barrier. How quickly will the firm be able to find an alternative location? In the meantime the Cambridge East website is frozen in time You can read the article at BBC Cambridgeshire here. If the firm does not vacate theContinue reading “Marshall Aerospace’s proposed move to Cranfield is dropped”

On top of the three originally proposed, Huntingdonshire district has made a pitch to go it alone, while the MPs for Peterborough and North West Cambridgeshire (messrs Pakes and Carling respectively) have made a pitch to split Huntingdonshire into two. Which is a bold move for all concerned. In particular the proposal to split theContinue reading “Cambridgeshire restructure has more options”

Paul Bristow was also cross-examined by the representatives supporting the application You can watch the footage here. You can see the inquiry’s homepage here “I campaigned on a promise to oppose the C2C Busway and to push for the abolition of the Greater Cambridge Partnership” Paul Bristow, Mayor of Cambridgeshire & Peterborough to the PlanningContinue reading “Combined Authority Mayor gives evidence to C2C Busway Inquiry”