Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Planning Inspectorate opens its public hearing into the called-in planning application for the massive Beehive redevelopment that proposes turning a car-based shopping centre into a new sci-tech park with no railway station despite a railway line running past it TL/DR? You can read the brief summary by BBC Cambridgeshire here, or (if/when they areContinue reading “Day 1 in the Big Beehive House.”

Turns out that it is – as this new research paper by Dr Cleo Valentine and colleagues in the ground-breaking field of neuroarchitecture demonstrates Image: Town and Country Planning in Britain (1968) – noting that there still is not a guide for children on town and country planning that can enable them to help shapeContinue reading “Is it possible to measure the discomfort that some architectural façades inflict on us?”

The Cambridge Forum for the Construction Industry had their annual debate where in the format of a British Parliamentary-style debate (i.e. what you often see at the Oxford Union and the Cambridge Union) on how Cambridge should grow. The motion was: “This House believes that Cambridge should grow up (not out)” Therefore the various thingsContinue reading “CFCI’s Cambridge Union debate on *how* Cambridge should grow: upwards or outwards?”

…One which involves enabling the institution which Parliament established getting extra funding from somewhere (tax the punting operators and colleges?) to pay for much-needed maintenance to the lock gates & barriers that hold the water back…because if nothing happens and everything collapses… Nothing like a headline to make politicians go ***Eeek!*** It’s made all theContinue reading “River Cam could turn into muddy stream unless Parliament passes new law”

I wanted to write something about the latest lot but ***there are too many*** And that’s not including the consultations – like this latest one on the local government restructure for Cambridgeshire! The ones in my open tabs list for today include: Also I wanted to read through this from the mid-1980s: “Professionalism and policyContinue reading “Is anyone else struggling to keep up with all of the public policy reports published recently?”

On a hot evening in mid-June in 2025, there were people around in town, but hardly any of them were going into the pubs and bars TL/DR? What are the social impacts on Cambridge of the pro-sci-tech economic policies pushed by Government and supported by a host of influential institutions? Image – Bar open –Continue reading “Cambridge needs to be honest about the state of its non-sci/tech economy”

At the Sustainable Region event I went to earlier this week (see here) I noted that ARU is delivering one of the six National Civic Impact Accelerator projects – one of which is working in one of our city’s most economically-deprived wards: Abbey. There is also an opportunity to build a new urban centre forContinue reading “Can Anglia Ruskin University restore its old module catalogue as part of its civic university agenda?”

Please don’t ask me to do anything sensible for the next few days as the Post-Exertional Malaise (due to CFS/ME) following Sustainable Futures: Delivering a Regional Sustainability Vision at ARU in Cambridge today will be brutal. Yet the learning and influencing was invaluable to more than a few of us. Image – CamCycle’s latest diagramContinue reading “Can Anglia Ruskin hold more of these events for wider audiences please?”

A small band of us rocked up to the latest Cambridge Biomedical Campus (CBC) forum to cross-examine representatives from both the Biomedical Campus partnership, and also from Cambridge University Hospitals. (You can get involved too – see here) The most recent vision document from the CBC is here. Since then, I’ve written four blogposts aboutContinue reading “Cambridge Biomedical Campus tells housing developers to build affordable homes”

Probably not, but you never know what funding could come from where to overhaul an appallingly-designed site owned by LandSec with some of the worst examples of early 21st Century corporate civic architecture and urban design. Last month I was at The Junction to see ageing folk-rockers Oysterband in their farewell tour after over 40Continue reading “Could Peter Freeman do something with the Cambridge Leisure Park site?”