Author Archives: Cambridge Town Owl

Cambridge City Council publishes its report on local democratic engagement – including recommendations on what will replace the old area committees This will be discussed on Wed 10 July 2024 – see Item 7 App B for the report here. For me, the consultant’s report (which I was one of the interviewees for) highlighted howContinue reading “Cambridge city council to overhaul community engagement”

Better late than never, you might say – but how will the other political parties respond given the county council and mayoral combined authority elections take place in ten months time? You can see the short video clip from Conservative MP-candidate for Cambridge, Shane Manning here. Long-term readers of this blog and my previous blogContinue reading “Cambridge Tories call for a light rail network across the city”

Co-organised by an alliance of Cambridge-based charities, the candidates were put under pressure on what their manifestos contained in response to the call from the Trussell Trust The event was held at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Arbury. To donate to the organising charities which included: I’m saving the videos to the playlistContinue reading “The Cambridge Food Bank Hustings on poverty in Cambridge & the UK”

As the city grows, so we will find more city wards ending up in redrawn constituencies – with the city likely to be split into two (as other cities have in the past) within the next couple of decades Inevitably the transport issues came up – hence my previous blogpost was a timeline of theContinue reading “South Cambridgeshire hustings in…Cambridge?”

Both Conservative candidates for Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire have raised the issue of the Haverhill-Cambridge railway. It’s an issue I have spent the past decade campaigning on. I’ve put the video links to the recent hustings in my previous blogpost here. There are two more hustings for South Cambridgeshire Constituency coming up this week andContinue reading “General election – transport issues in and around Cambridge”

It’s ever so important to provide as many constituencies with a video recording of at least one public hustings in the run up to the general election So I went to the Great Shelford Parish Council-organised hustings for South Cambridgeshire Constituency to do just that. (See the candidates’ details here). I should also thank MirandaContinue reading “South Cambridgeshire hustings at Great Shelford – 21 June 2024”

You can see the playlist of videos I’ve edited and produced here at the hustings organised by the Friends of the River Cam, and the Federation of Cambridge Residents’ Associations on 19 June 2024. I was commissioned by the latter to film and produce the videos. For those of you who want to watch theContinue reading “More growth vs the limits of growth as Cambridge candidates face the future of our city”

The Fenland Reservoir and the Cambridge Retail Park have moved to the next stages In one sense there’s nothing to stop private companies going ahead with such things – after all, it helps concentrate the minds of people on issues likely to affect them and also force the issues onto the candidates. Talking of which,Continue reading “More consultations in the middle of a general election campaign?”

Beth Rigby of Sky News put the question to the Labour Party Leader at the party’s manifesto launch. (You can read the manifesto here) The website Politics Joe picked out some highlights here. Perhaps it makes the media’s job that little bit harder if a manifesto launch only highlights things that have already been announced.Continue reading “Why no big surprises in Sir Keir Starmer’s manifesto?”

Which disappoints me muchly. Before I get into my pet policies…. I’m still in the process of uploading videos from the Cambridge Climate Hustings last night – they will be at the playlist here that already has the opening speeches from the six candidates participating (including Labour’s Daniel Zeichner). I will also be filming theContinue reading “Few people are talking about light rail, or democracy education in this general election”