Author Archives: Cambridge Town Owl

On what two books from the late 1980s/early 1990s tell us about the central-government-imposed decline of local government – and how it was compounded by the central-government-imposed decline in adult education and the removal of civic education in schools. Image – Adult Education for Democracy (1944) Harold C. Shearman Sir Harold above, wrote at theContinue reading “From citizen to consumer and back again”

…because I have no shelf control as per this wonderful NewsThump t-shirt design – see their other t-shirts here Books, books, and more books on democracy I dropped off another bag of books – ones I hoped I’d get round to reading but never did – at the RSPCA Bookshop on Mill Road because they’veContinue reading “Cambs Unitaries meets, and more books arrive and depart”

Cambridgeshire Conservatives’ decision to move the county council to a bespoke building that isn’t large enough to accommodate all of the county councillors was as farcical as the time taken to do something with the existing site Image – the old Cambridgeshire County Council coat of arms from 1889-1965 when we covered a much smallerContinue reading “Should ministers intervene to end the farce of Cambridge’s old Shire Hall?”

Cambridge City Council publishes papers including a draft response on behalf of all but one of the council leaders in the Combined Authority area The meeting papers for 17th March 2025 are at item 5 here Interestingly, the earlier items on city council governance restructuring contain no mention of area committees – something that councillorsContinue reading “Cambridgeshire council leaders respond to Minister for Local Government on unitaries”

The centrist Reform think tank (i.e. NOT TeamNigel’s outfit) made a series of recommendations on strategic or combined authorities – and I concur with many of the conclusions. Browse through their report here – and note the 13 recommendations on page 6 The Cambridgeshire & Peterborough influence Both the Chief Executive of the Cambridgeshire &Continue reading “Regional tier of Government’s devolution plans need strengthening”

Is the Land Registry on the road towards providing free open access to anyone on who owns what? If so, it’s a huge breakthrough for transparency campaigners Image – Cambridge Land Justice – part of Cambridge Resilience Web Remember that thing I said about controversial announcements being made on a Thursday afternoon just as MPsContinue reading “Who owns England? The Housing Minister has intervened on ownership data access”

Cambridge opens its brand new ‘one-stop-shop’ for community consultation / A ‘shared space’ for various activities / A ‘collective memory‘ for Cambridge Have a look at https://www.cambridgeroom.org/ and scroll down and sign up for updates. See also the photographs from Ze’ev Feigis of Borough Architects here Cambridge Urban Room – nearly two years in theContinue reading “The Cambridge Room opens”

Or is it a revamped Levelling Up Towns Fund? Either way, ministers and senior civil servants must prevent excessive payments to consultants which might otherwise undermine the confidence that local residents have in the projects Image – one of the evaluation reports from the NDC Programme 2000-2010 £1.5 billion to restore pride in Britain’s neighbourhoodsContinue reading “New Deal for Communities returns for the mid-2020s”

…ask Prof Julia Steinberger, and Grace Blakeley Image – The Struggle for Democracy published during WWII, which you can browse through here along with some other old publications from times when democracy was in even more trouble than today You can browse through: This stems from an extended thread by Prof Steinberger that ends here,Continue reading “What are we up against, and what can we do?”

The highly-choreographed events around the Lancaster House meeting earlier today showed that the visual signals sent out to the wider world were just as important as the content of discussions by the mainly European heads of government [Updated to add: And as if to make that point, Downing Street released this video a few hoursContinue reading “24 hours is a long time in international politics”