Author Archives: Cambridge Town Owl

Experts recommend Cambridge City Council Planning Committee rejects the proposal from RailPEN and consultants over concerns on over-development of the site, as campaigners call for a ‘Better Beehive’. Back in August 2023 I invited people to scrutinise in detail the proposals to redevelop The Beehive Centre / Graveyard of the Cambridge & District Co-operative SocietyContinue reading “Beehive Centre Redevelopment slammed by Greater Cambridge Design Panel”

The site is much larger than it looks from Cherry Hinton Road I went back to the original planning application (via the planning portal here, ref 20/04705/FUL) to get some screengrabs of the proposals as they were of May 2021 …and they look something like the above Today I dragged my P-E-M-burdened head out ofContinue reading “Old Swiss Laundry ready to open after revamp”

The responsibility for the fate of Shire Hall on Castle Hill resides at the ironically-named Conservative Party – both the county and national parties. See the press release from Cambridgeshire County Council here TL/DR? You can: Some of you may have seen the headline. Unfortunate timing given the interview with city councillor Thornburrow who isContinue reading “How can Cambridge call for the creation of one civic quarter while another civic quarter is sold off?”

…says Prof John Denham to Jess Studdert of New Local – the former being the last Labour Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. You can read their report here Alternatively, you can watch their video discussion here “What is ‘Total Place’?” As I wrote recently: “Essentially Total Place was a concept – oneContinue reading “‘It’s time for Total Place 2.0’”

Turns out the opportunities the pamphlet issued by the Ministry of Education turned out to be far more than just the subjects – something today’s senior politicians might reflect on. You can browse through the pamphlet here – it arrived earlier. The Minister for Education at the time was Ellen Wilkinson – the first womanContinue reading “What Clement Attlee’s Government can teach us about colleges and their civic setting in towns & cities”

Cambridge City Council’s Planning Committee to decide on the new future for the Grafton Centre on 07 Feb 2024 at The Guildhall, Cambridge You can read the papers here I have moaned about this one for years Past posts have included: Now, this part of town has got one of the most interesting of historiesContinue reading “Decision time for the Grafton Centre”

…and why won’t ministers allow such alternatives to be considered by local government? The wider Political context is Labour’s Dr Nik Johnson’s election victory back in May 2021 where to the surprise of many of us, he won the Combined Authority Mayoral Election running on a promise to prioritise improving buses – see this interviewContinue reading “What are the alternative ways of subsidising bus services other than council tax precepts?”

The fragmentation of the public sector combined with an over-complicated planning system that seems to make everyone angry combined with the mystery that is where power resides at the University of Cambridge and its colleges are all reflected in this particular case – a piece of sporting infrastructure for a rapidly-growing city that we areContinue reading “The West Cambridge Swimming Pool case shows how difficult it is for the public to hold decision-makers accountable”

So told the representative of the University of Cambridge to Cambridge City Councillors on 09 Sept 2015 [Updated to add – things get *even more complicated* in the subsequent post here] Image – Cambridge Land Justice Campaign – formed by students who are interested in many of the issues that I discuss below. You canContinue reading ““[The] University wish to work proactively with the City to deliver the swimming pool.””

It’s up to individual constituencies to make their own local contests the opposite of the stage-managed bore-fest that will inevitably be the national campaigns if contemporary electoral history is anything to go by. Anyone who has the misfortune to remember the 2001 General Election will know what I mean by that – surely the dullestContinue reading “How can voters ensure issues rather than personalities are debated at the general election?”