Author Archives: Cambridge Town Owl

A social innovation day on Friday 07 Feb 2025 from 10am-5pm You can sign up here It will be interesting to see the demographics of the group that turns up to participate. Not least because anything during the weekday inevitably excludes young people at school/college, and anyone working weekdays during the day. See also theContinue reading “Building a Better Cambridge at The Guildhall”

Over a decade ago I wrote a blogpost asking why Cambridge was systematically excluding young people from decisions that affect them That was in September 2013. It’s now January 2025. It has been a very long journey. Image – The Trials of Democracy is back Cambridge City Council is due to sign off/approve a newContinue reading “Cambridge City Council’s Youth Strategy”

A public question coming to a Combined Authority near me? Probably – if only because Prof Diana Coyle of the Bennett Institute has been writing a lot about it, Andy Haldane of the RSA (formerly of the Bank of England) has been talking a lot about it, and because Rob Fry of the North ofContinue reading “What are your institutions’ policies on growing social capital?”

Ideally it would be the function of local councillors but given the huge variance in calibre and levels of specialist knowledge now needed, should the new model of unitary councils bring in such new roles? Image – from Menagerie Theatre’s Trials of Democracy project – spot them outside Cambridge Guildhall this Sat 25 Jan I’mContinue reading “Is there a role for professional paid public advocates in local government?”

The people and firms behind the proposed redevelopment of The Paddocks employment site in my part of Cambridge have submitted their planning application to the city council I’ve moaned about this application before – noting that when I went to the face-to-face consultation, none of the representatives of the firm providing the funding were actuallyContinue reading “Sci-tech developers propose bland blocks despite being asked not to”

More meeting papers and things coming up for you to get your heads around! I’ve started throwing lots of things onto my L-I page here as an alternative to the imploding Birdsite which I only pop back to every now and then until the big institutions freeze their sites there. What a shame. I wonderContinue reading “Cambridgeshire County Council refreshes its plan as CPCA debates buses and trains”

The RSA (or more precisely, The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) launched its new season of things with the statement: “How do relationships affect our health, wealth and happiness? Discover the power of connection through our exciting event series” In his annual lecture (which you can watch here), Andy Haldane,Continue reading “On declining social capital through the lens of a growing Cambridge”

Cllr Sebastian Kindersley (Lib-Dems, Gamlingay), the Chair of Cambridgeshire County Council submitted a written statement to the County Council’s Highways and Transport Committee, with a host of criticisms of how East-West Rail between Bedford and Cambridge is proceeding. For those of you not familiar with the consultation that ends on 24 Jan 2025, see thisContinue reading “*Everyone is busy making plans for Greater Cambridge – but they appear not to be talking to each other*”

Some of you may have seen the glowing headlines about Cambridge Station’s redevelopment in the headlines today. But behind the headlines is a controversial story that still stirs up strong emotions in some residential communities – and those stories are part of our city’s history just as much as they provide lessons learnt for theContinue reading “As Centre for Cities praises Cambridge Station’s redevelopment, we should remember the full story”

From the personal to the public policy perspective, on how conversational and interactive social media covering both local news and interesting topics seems to have been replaced by zombified AI-driven doom-scrolling Musician Ellie Dixon whose music career I’ve been following for over a decade since one of her first performances at The Junction in CambridgeContinue reading “The implosion of social”