Members Update – August 2017

Dear All

 GCP Executive Board Meeting and Joint letter signed by 54 community groups

In July, we submitted the joint letter signed by 54 Greater Cambridge Community groups to the Greater Cambridge City Deal Partnership Assembly and Board together with the work in progress list of suggestions for improving process.

We also sent the letter to Mayor James Palmer and to MPs Daniel Zeichner and Heidi Allen.

Mayor James Palmer offered to address the consortium of groups who had signed the letter. He will speak at the event Does Cambridge Deserve Better: A new vision for the region,

Tuesday 5th September 7- 8.30pm

Cambridge Rugby Club, Grantchester Road

Details of the event are listed on Eventbrite  bit.ly/2vI4FPo

FeCRA has been invited to participate. There should be a good turn out. Come and share your views.

Outcome at the GCP Executive Board meeting on 26^th July

Full video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu_V9yMtkN8 …

For the Board response to our letter and question click approx 4.41.51  It is right at the end of the agenda in the governance section.

Meeting with GCP

Since then FeCRA have met with Rachel Stopard and Chris Tunstall of the GCP.

Matters that were discussed were:

1. Consultation/LLFs 

We heard about on-going work by the GCP to review and improve its approach to consultation and engagement, including external assurance by The Consultation Institute. This work will be published in due course.

http://scambs.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s101490/15-Governance.pdf

See paragraph 11 – the ‘assurance review’ of LLFs by The Consultation Institute.

2. 2. Partnership

The GCP is keen to widen participation and improve the consultation process and there are plans for what is mooted as a ‘big conversation’, starting in the autumn, with representatives of a wide range of organisations as early stage engagement to give strategic input, which will help to shape policies.

Update on RA concerns – West Cambridge

The Cambridge News has covered some of the West Cambridge concerns.

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/peasants-revolt-cards-protesters-take-13450128

The A428 Cambourne to Cambridge busway plan is a heavy engineering scheme likely to cause large-scale loss of green belt land as well as trees, verges and beauty. If Option 3A, the off highway route through the Coton Corridor and the West Fields is chosen, there are concerns it will impact the quality of community life not just in Coton but in West Cambridge neighbourhoods and in South Cambs villages.

If Option 6 bus lane plans are implemented in a way that means road widening all the way down Madingley Road and in the West Cambridge conservation area there are concerns in North Newnham that this will mean ugliness for North Newnham neighbourhoods.

But this is not all that West Cambridge RA’s and South Cambs villages tell us they are worried about.

There are now four major West Fields proposals:

(a) a park and ride cycle park at Barton which is capable of being extended both outwards and in terms of building heights (NB it is called a park and cycle because the orbital goes through it but it is essentially a park and ride)

(b) the mass transit straight transport corridor through Coton and the West Fields

(c) the Western orbital scheme which will not be on the M11

(d) the developers’ proposals for a Clerk Maxwell Rd to Barton Road Ring Road referred to at the recent Local Plan hearings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuOi4kA5bpo

These proposals have implications not just for residents of Gough Way and Clerk Maxwell roads but for other West Cambridge neighbourhoods and Coton because they represent urbanisation for West Cambridge on a much greater scale and a big infrastructure change.Even the Grantchester side of Barton Road is under consideration because officers have stated park and rides are only the starting point. Lights are likely to be visible from Grantchester Meadows while Gough Way residents are concerned they could suffer flood damage as well as possible light pollution.

Cambridge University’s West Cambridge site is to go from from 4,000 to 15,000 and when the University’s Eddington site goes live in September there will be 8,000 residents, 5,000 of them working.

There are major issues of environmental capacity still to be addressed not just about where all the buses are to go when they get to the city centre but all the bikes. How will this impact Cambridge’s historic environment? Cambridge’s historic market town streets and bridges were not laid out for city traffic volumes. The City centre is already at built form capacity. The GCP has not given details as yet on how buses will enter the city or circulate round it.

North Cambridge – The Future of  Milton and Histon Roads

The GCP Executive Board’s vote on 26th July accepted the Officers recommendation of ‘Final Concept’ as presented at Milton Road’s Local Liaison Forum on 17th July. See  http://bit.ly/2tq8Ahv which includes quite a lot of the MR LLF’s  ‘Do Optimum Alternative’.  Detailed plans will now be drawn up in accordance with this concept and developed in the Autumn in conjunction with the Local Liaison Forum to discuss specifics like the location of crossings, bus stops and final design for trees, verges and junctions – and the length of bus lanes. These developed plans will then go to the GCP Executive Board for approval, probably in March 2018, and then out for Public Consultation’.

Histon Road are not so far ahead with concept plans. They await the outcome of the Milton Road plans. Histon plans are to be discussed in November.  

Citywide concerns

The West Cambridge and North Cambridge transport plans are part of a wider transport strategy that is likely to impact many attractive parts of Cambridge: such as the green belt of the Gogs, Shelford and Stapleford, and a number of other loved Cambridge streetscape and conservation zones.

The Omission sites under discussion at the recent Local Plan Hearings were preceded by a reconvened session on transport. In the session on Gogs development,  Commercial Estates Group, the promoters of the Gogs Lime Kiln development rated Gogs views and setting on the basis of whether this had already been degraded by transport development such as the siting of park and ride sites. click approx 23.39 / 5.25

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANeeXVotFWk&t=1412s

The A1307 plans for off highway bus routes impact the green belt of the Gogs and Shelford and Stapleford.

Filming

Two North Newnham RA’s, Storey’s Way and the Madingley Road RA generously contributed £100 each towards the costs of FeCRA filming the Local Plan Hearings. A very big thank to these two North Newnham Residents Associations. You may have seen the fillms on Antony Carpen’s You Tube site. He has now downloaded them on the FeCRA’s You Tube channel.  If your RA or individuals would like to contribute to filming, please contact me.

With best wishes

Wendy

Chair, FeCRA