Author Archives: Cambridge Town Owl

More for the benefit of those who don’t want to sit through a 3 hour meeting but who also want more detail than you get in a newspaper article, this may interest several of you The minutes are here and also include my public question and the responses from Cllrs Holloway and Thornburrow. (If thatContinue reading “Detailed minutes of Peter Freeman at Cambridge City Council meeting published”

After a long break, the annual gathering that is set up on student freshers’ fair lines is back More details here But before I start… WORKSHOP CANCELLED – on a new concert hall for Cambridge The few people who signed up have been refunded – my apologies for the inconvenience. I couldn’t take the riskContinue reading “Cambridge Volunteer Fair returns”

You can table your public questions to the council for their meeting on 03 Feb 2026 See the meeting papers here. I’ve been trying to find things to distract me from the catastrophic decision to recommend approval for the Kett House Carbuncle (See item 6 of the Planning Committee meeting on 04 Feb 2026) whichContinue reading “Public responses to Cambridge City Council’s climate change strategy”

It will mean substantially fewer constabularies and a new ‘National Police Service’ …amongst many other things. Note that these proposals do not apply to Scotland and Northern Ireland as policing is a devolved competency. Image: The Cambridge Police Band from the old Cambridge Graphic Newspaper, 1901, Cambs Collection The Policing White Paper (a formal statementContinue reading “Government proposes major overhaul of police forces in England & Wales”

Something worth suggesting to the Combined Authority at their Transport Committee Meeting in March 2026? For those of you interested in bus campaigns more widely, see the Cambridge Area Bus Users here. This idea emerged from the Cambridge community page on Reddit here Above – click on the image above or in the original postContinue reading “A Cambridge Bus Orbital for the edge of the city”

If you asked most children who go to school in Cambridge to draw a crown, it wouldn’t look like what this part of the construction industry is proposing for 4000 Discovery Drive The design is ***so awful*** that even the BBC refrained from including the CGI visualisations – presumably because it might give people nightmares.Continue reading “Cambridge Biomedical Campus developer unveils ‘crown’ design that would please a cartoon villain”

The problem is that there’s nowhere for the wastewater to be pumped to – the proposed destination of the relocated Honey Hill Wastewater Plant having been pulled by HM Treasury (And that’s on top of Anglian Water’s reservoir issues) The planning documents for this are in the GCSP Planning Portal here, and the reference toContinue reading “Anglian Water propose new Waterbeach wastewater pumping station”

Ministers want your views on their new draft guidance. How many of our recent developments meet their standards? (Actually, don’t answer that!!!) Because back in 2021 Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner launched a scathing attack on the poor build quality of too many homes built in Cambridge at the time How do some of the recentContinue reading “NEW CONSULTATION: Design and place-making.”

Bringing in such processes would probably require a change in the law – and a huge culture change in the architecture profession and the construction industry more generally. But they could result in a significant improvement in our built environment so far as human and environmental health are concerned This post by Dr Amalia VerzolaContinue reading “Emotional Mapping, Participatory Architecture, and the Future of Cambridge”

TL/DR? We’re doomed – give up now. Or is there hope we can turn things around? Nature security assessment on global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security It’s also worth seeing these in the context of the wider UK National Risk Register produced by the Government which indicates what the state has made preparationsContinue reading “Global biodiversity loss and the collapse of critical ecosystems – UK Government assessment”