Author Archives: Cambridge Town Owl

One of Cambridge’s most influential employers’ groups says Cambridge’s new unitary council should ‘align…with the functional economic area of Cambridge’. Image – the proposals for a Greater Cambridge Unitary from the Redcliffe-Maud Report of 1969 You can see what the proposals meant for Cambridge in my Lost Cambridge blogpost. “Proposals should align as much asContinue reading “Cambridge Ahead says new unitary council should not be restricted by existing boundaries”

Former councillor Sam Davies pointed me to some of the threads on the Reddit Cambridge boards to get some more extended takes on what’s happening in and with our city In particular the threads on: One reason for raising these is because so many of the civic society meetings or events I go to theseContinue reading “Why is Cambridge unable to ease its housing and cost of living crises?”

Two reports published earlier in 2025 cover community venues in South Cambridgeshire villages, and industrial/warehouse supply/demand in and around the city You can read the reports from the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service here. The most recent reports are: “Which reminds me – we are still awaiting an indoor leisure facilities strategy for Cambridge, aren’tContinue reading “New reports getting to the specifics on What a growing Cambridge needs”

In October next year it will be a decade since Cambridge Past, Present, and Future convened their Keeping Cambridge Special event. How have we done in the years since the 2016 event? Above – The Cambridge Room. See their events calendar and discussions covering the future of our city. “Keeping Cambridge Special is an initiative startedContinue reading “Keeping Cambridge Special – a decade on (2016-25)”

You can watch/listen to the preliminary exchanges in front of the two planning inspectors (Richard Clegg, and Geoff Underwood) who will make a recommendation to the Transport Secretary on whether to grant planning permission for the controversial busway The substantial hearings will take place from 16 Sept 2025 for eight weeks. The website hosting theContinue reading “Cambourne-Cambridge Busway Public Inquiry – first hearing”

Dr David Skinner Anglia Ruskin University and Dr Will Brown of the University of Cambridge are challenging the almost-entirely positive narrative being spun about Cambridge’s sci-tech bubble – and through it providing much-needed scrutiny on the wider structural inequalities which are driven [institutionally] by the University and its colleges It’s quite a controversial – evenContinue reading “Taking on inequalities on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus”

The Planning Inspectorate opens its public hearing into the called-in planning application for the massive Beehive redevelopment that proposes turning a car-based shopping centre into a new sci-tech park with no railway station despite a railway line running past it TL/DR? You can read the brief summary by BBC Cambridgeshire here, or (if/when they areContinue reading “Day 1 in the Big Beehive House.”

Turns out that it is – as this new research paper by Dr Cleo Valentine and colleagues in the ground-breaking field of neuroarchitecture demonstrates Image: Town and Country Planning in Britain (1968) – noting that there still is not a guide for children on town and country planning that can enable them to help shapeContinue reading “Is it possible to measure the discomfort that some architectural façades inflict on us?”

The Cambridge Forum for the Construction Industry had their annual debate where in the format of a British Parliamentary-style debate (i.e. what you often see at the Oxford Union and the Cambridge Union) on how Cambridge should grow. The motion was: “This House believes that Cambridge should grow up (not out)” Therefore the various thingsContinue reading “CFCI’s Cambridge Union debate on *how* Cambridge should grow: upwards or outwards?”

…One which involves enabling the institution which Parliament established getting extra funding from somewhere (tax the punting operators and colleges?) to pay for much-needed maintenance to the lock gates & barriers that hold the water back…because if nothing happens and everything collapses… Nothing like a headline to make politicians go ***Eeek!*** It’s made all theContinue reading “River Cam could turn into muddy stream unless Parliament passes new law”