Author Archives: Cambridge Town Owl

A buzzing Cambridge Pride had a community marquee full of local public service and health organisations with outreach stalls – alongside stalls from Labour, Liberal Democrats, and The Greens. How can other free events in our city learn from Pride in getting such a large number of organisations participating? “Was it really over a decadeContinue reading “Cambridge Pride 2023 shows our city how to do community outreach”

Following on from Reimagining Cambridgeshire run by Hilary Cox Condron and friends for the Cambridge Festival 2022, could we take the concept further using local history, maps, and displays to get people learning about how our city functions and how we might improve it for future generations? As I mentioned in an earlier blogpost: “DeadlineContinue reading “Could we redraw Cambridge at Open Cambridge 2023?”

Something for you to try at home! Watch the video of the City Council’s West-Central Area Committee and identify the root problems of all of the issues raised. Then ask whether the public authorities concerned have the necessary funding, powers, structures, systems and processes – and even calibre of staff, to deal with them. YouContinue reading “Are Cambridge’s governance structures working? A case study – the city council, police, and health services”

“The proposals meet the capacity studies with the design of the station proposed to meet the 2043 Central Case Demand Forecast (1.3% p. a.) of 2,364,236 yearly passengers.” says the application. Prediction: It will be ***much more than that*** by 2043. Unless we’ve had a climate catastrophe and society has imploded. Which could happen. “HowContinue reading “So…what’s Cambridge South going to look like then? Detail plans released”

The Director of Cambridge Science Park Ltd, Jane Hutchins, said it was “not right” that for all the wealth being generated by firms on the science park, King’s Hedges ward remains one of the most economically deprived parts of Cambridge and Cambridgeshire – in a city that is the most unequal in the country. AsContinue reading “‘The Cambridge Science Park has a moral duty to respond to the poverty on its doorstep’”

He gave an extended speech during a Westminster Hall debate on 13 June 2023 You can watch the video of the debate here – led by Richard Fuller MP (Cons – North Bedfordshire) “What’s a Westminster Hall debate?” It’s a relatively recent invention (in parliamentary history terms) brought in by the Labour Government as aContinue reading “Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner’s speech to Parliament on East West Rail”

The Greater Cambridge Partnership is consulting (again) on something that really should have been something they should have dealt with years ago. You can read their consultation on Hills Road, Cambridge here – on the northern section between Parker’s Piece junction (next to where I want Florence Ada Keynes’ new concert hall) down to HillsContinue reading “How to solve a problem like Hills Road (the road), Cambridge”

Residents of Abbey and Arbury demonstrated what can be achieved with large neighbourhood-level events that bring along city-wide organisations to hold stalls The Arbury Carnival is something of an institution in itself given how long it has been going for. How the estate came to be is described in the Arbury Blogspot video below AboveContinue reading “‘Carnival d’Arbury’ and ‘Shiny AbbeyPeople’ – neighbourhood summer celebrations”

Or a once in a [insert time period of choice] chance, but the slow, painful implosion of the party in government has delivered some political events that future historians and students of politics may be writing essays about for years to come. And yet under a year ago, one recent broadcast outlet ran with thisContinue reading “A once-in-a-lifetime chance to reset UK politics?”

Well… about 979 of you responded one way or another – which in itself reflects how fragmented and broken our civic consultation systems are You can read the report here, and also browse through the background here. In case you missed it or weren’t aware, Cambridge City Council has its own consultations portal at https://cambridge.citizenlab.co/en-GB/Continue reading “What you told Cambridge City Council about our city in Spring 2023”