Update 27th March 2025
Peter Freeman talk: Making Cambridge a Happy City?
15th May Great St Mary’s 7-9pm, doors open at 6.30pm
Here is the poster advertising the event for sharing with networks and friends.
The FeCRA committee are aware of the concerns some of you have about giving people platforms but there are few opportunities for residents to hear what the government plans for our city and ask Peter Freeman questions.
Remember “your voice matters”.
Financial Times Big Read “The Cambridge plan to turbocharge the economy” (March 24)
An ambitious plan aims to double the size of the city and make it a hub for growth and innovation. But will its infrastructure cope?
Peter Foster the FT’s Public Policy Editor says the link below should open for the first 300 or so to view. But in case it doesn’t here are some extracts below.
Cambridge University reported on Peter Foster the FT’s Public Policy Editor’s article , ‘Vice-Chancellor Professor Deborah Prentice and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Innovation Diarmuid O’Brien described how the University is working with government and partners across the city on plans for Cambridge to turbocharge the UK economy. The article mentions the plans for an Innovation Hub, yards from the train station, that will bring together company founders and investors to create companies that can spill out into the city’s many science parks. The Hub will be part of a significant expansion of Cambridge over the next 25 years. The University is working with the government and the Cambridge Growth Company to address these issues and ensure inclusive growth.
Peter Freeman, the Chair of the Cambridge Growth Company told the FT “If Cambridge does double in size, and it is done intelligently and sensibly then my message is very clear, it could be an even better place to live.”
Others on social media tweeted “ ‘If’ and ‘could’ being key”.
The FT report includes a map and added :
‘As well as the Cambridge West development his {Mr Freeman’s] targets include other science parks to the south and north of the city, including the expansion of the BioMedical Campus and the long awaited redevelopment of the 450-acre site that houses Cambridge airport – a site slated for up to 12,000 homes and 5mn sq ft of commerciql space. There are also schemes to expand the original Cambridge Science park, earmarked for a 5,600 home development.
Wendy Blythe, FeCRA, ‘fears the cost of developing Cambridge for the national good will fall to local people in the form of higher water bills, increased pollution, traffic disruption and a decade of unsightly construction. “If I care about my river, the River Cam, does that make me a Nimby? Cambridgeshire is not just some blank canvas for the government. These plans amount to just selling off the family silver for the national interest.”
James Littlewood CEO of CPPF agrees. He said ‘the vision of doubling the size of Cambridge “was delusional” … the system of water credits “an absolute farce that I believe will eventually become a scandal”…Littlewood points out the boxy buildings of the Biomedical Campus which stand out starkly against the skyline , “These giant ‘tech boxes’ are going up everywhere… The citizens of Cambridge will have to look at this crap for the rest of their lives.”
Letter in the FT in response to the article
Cambridge growth plan doesn’t endear locals – Terry Macalister, Co-founder, Friends of the Cam (river campaign group) Cambridge, UK
https://www.ft.com/content/3669c50d-045c-4bda-be96-b16c62b58cd9
‘Peter Foster’s Big Read on “The Cambridge plan to turbocharge the economy” (March 24th) concludes that Cambridge Growth Company chair Peter Freeman is “alive to the risks of losing public goodwill” but for many living in this city that goodwill has gone already. The Cambridge Growth Company is seen by many for what it is: a vehicle set up by government to bypass the public and the city’s elected councillors to drive through a supersizing agenda regardless of the many well-founded arguments against it.
There has already been over a decade of major economic growth in and around this city which has brought lucrative land sales and development gains for some colleges and made millionaires of some tech entrepreneurs. Many jobs have certainly been created in the private sector, which is great, but there is virtually no unemployment here so all these new science parks have had to attract people from outside the area. This has a huge impact on scarce accommodation. Meanwhile little extra public money has been spent on transport, medical services or environmental improvement. The result is soaring house prices, terrible traffic congestion, exhausted water systems, overwhelmed hospital services and some of the highest inequality in the UK. This should all be fixed before Freeman’s Cambridge Growth Company tries to bulldoze through its plans to double the size of the city and worsen the country’s north-south divide’.
In 2024 the FT’s Public Policy Editor Peter Foster reported (March 30th) that
‘Cambridge Ahead, a lobby group that includes chipmaker ARM, the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the University of Cambridge, told the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt that a lack of housing, water and transport was holding back the city after a decade of strong economic growth. “There are serious and urgent warning signs that this growth could stall. The infrastructure gap faced by Cambridge limits the city region’s economic potential, it also threatens the quality of life of its residents’.
Those lobbying for growth are keen to demonstrate that they are concerned about quality of life and residents’ inclusion in growth plans. What a shame that despite Alex Plant, the regulation director of Anglian Water ( and former director of economy and transport at Cambridgeshire County Council) being on the board of Cambridge Ahead and policy chair, the lobby group didn’t include Cambridge’s water scarcity or sewage issues in growth modelling.
The Guardian reports today (27th March)
“Some companies were responsible for huge rises in raw sewage dumping. Anglian Water was behind the biggest increase, discharging 448,938 hours of raw sewage, a 64% increase on 2023″.
Best wishes,
Wendy
Wendy Blythe
Chair, FeCRA
www.fecra.org.uk
www.facebook.com/CambridgeRAs
www.twitter.com/fecra2
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