As we know already, the City Deal Board decided that the route to consider for the A428 Busway is the Option 3/3a that will either go south of Hardwick and Caldecote from Madingley Mulch roundabout (Option 3) or along the old A428 St Neots Road (Option 3a). They also published a letter in the Cambridge News to justify their decision.
My response to that letter, sent to Cllr Burkitt and copied to Cllrs Bates and Herbert and all South Cambs District Councillors is reproduced below.
In subsequent email correspondence, I asked Cllr Burkitt for a guarantee that there will be no need for the fall back Option 3 (because the Officers had not bothered to investigate the environmental impact on Hardwick Woods and the SSSI in Caldecote). Needless to say, he confirmed he could give no such guarantee. Go figure.
Dear Francis,
Thank you for trying to explain away why you kept silent last week Thursday at the Greater Cambridge and City Deal (GCCD) meeting and let the County and City ride roughshod over South Cambridgeshire. You are supposed to protect our interest, and unfortunately, much as it pains me to say it, you failed to do that.
Unfortunately, I had to be away working on that day and could not attend. But on Friday, I sat through and watched the 4 hours of replay. To say I was terribly disappointed with the outcome would be an understatement. That you allowed your Board colleagues to throw out option 4, part of which was from YOUR Cambridge BOLD project and insist on cutting a swathe through Hardwick and Caldecote was gut wrenching to see. That the Board practically threw back at the Assembly all the good work it had done was shameful to see. And to dismiss the call by Heidi Allen MP for a pause and a chance to get it right first time was just unbelievable.
That the outcome had already been determined and typed out makes a mockery of democracy, as we saw Cllr Lewis Herbert read out conclusions from a pre-prepared paper. So you all had made your decisions before you even came to the meeting. At least with a dictatorship, there is no disguise.
What the heck is the point of the Assembly then if you keep rejecting their work?? They might as well not bother. I am surprised Cllr Roger Hickford stayed as long as he did.
Cllr Ian Bates proudly proclaiming why he could not support Option 4 – because for the first time in 40 or so years of living in Cambridgeshire area, he walked along the proposed route and did not want to spoil the view. My, oh my, how noble of him. Not once did I hear you speak out for Option 4, not a word, nothing!! Other than to say you did not have the courage to reduce the options – and even that I could barely hear what you said – probably to do with the recording equipment.
So, you want to preserve the green belt – good for you. You want to preserve the 800 Wood, good for you. What about preserving parts of Hardwick Woods that would be cut through – that is not worth preserving? And the SSSI in Caldecote, that is not worth preserving when you drag your bus route through it?
Sorry Francis, as far as I am concerned, you sold us out on Thursday 13th October 2016. I respect you and the fact that you have always brought to the proceedings in Council a logical view that clarifies issues. On this occasion however, that voice failed, and failed badly. Why could the Assembly not leave Option 4 in and ask for the same topographical assessment to be carried out on that route as is being proposed on Option 3/3a? Why not just ask officers to do more work on all the options and then consult the public on them?
Heidi Allen our MP made a very valid point, very sensible point, but Cllr Herbert was not having any of it – the way in which he dismissed the MP’s offer was pretty shameful and arrogant to say the least. And we know why now, his mind was already made up and nothing anyone said was going to change it.
When after the session on public questions Bob Menzies made the point of saying to the Board that “it is important at this stage to make sure you’ve not ruled anything out or anything in hence the net is cast quite wide“, did you think it was okay to accept to rule out option 4? What you have done is ruled out all but the two options left, which you will then “consult” on. As those are the only two options available, we don’t have to guess what the outcome will be, do we? Some consultation that will be!
Once again, South Cambridgeshire is being sold out in a bid to take the strain off Cambridge City. We had it with the housing numbers, now it is with the transport links.
I know South Cambridgeshire District Council is hell bent on building on Bourn Airfield even though it is obvious, even to the blind, that the only way you are going to get 3,500 houses and all the attendant infrastructure such as schools, public buildings etc, is to build to a density of over 60 houses per hectare. That is not suburbia anymore, that’s what should be happening in the middle of a city. So, this is just another nail in the coffin for this area.
That South Cambridgeshire now finds itself in this 5-year housing land supply fiasco is all down to South Cambridgeshire Administration and the those who did not listen and bought the assurance that the plan was sound and ready to submit. Saying I told you so would not do us any good at this stage.
Whatever deals have been done behind closed doors, will come out eventually.
You have completely dismissed the use of light rail claiming there is nowhere to put it and it is too expensive. You really should have been at the Rebooting the City Deal event organised by Edward Leigh of Smarter Cambridge Transport, that took place on Friday 14th October at Wolfson College. It was well put together and well attended, with some folk having to sit on the floor or stand. There, you would have learnt from Dr Colin Harris that Lausanne, a city the same size as Cambridge has a light rail system that is working fantastically well. You would have heard the proposal for a similar system for Cambridge which if implemented will move people around Cambridge so much more easily, and with spurs to Cambourne, Newmarket, Fulbourn and Haverhill, could provide a comprehensive mass transit system, the result of which will be less cars on the city roads. As to cost of building it, you of all people should know there are ways to find the funds that could help build it.
Why is the GCCD Board so fixated on buses when what we need is a form of mass transportation that does not depend on a company like Stagecoach. You are planning to spend £140m of taxpayers’ money to create a busway with buses to be run by Stagecoach over whom no council has any control. Wow! Andy Campbell has already shown that he will run routes that suit him. You claim the (mis)Guided busway is a success – according to what standards? The traffic on A14 has not reduced, there’s still traffic jams every week. But I guess the success is that it has not got worse and grid locked, right?
You are of course aware that No. 4 bus used to run every 15 minutes, and then when the Cambourne subsidy ran out, Stagecoach reduced the service to one every 20 minutes and hiked up the price from Caldecote/Childerley bus stop to nearly double what it was prior. I remember attending a meeting with two other councillors to explain the pain that our residents were suffering and asking him to reinstate the previous fare – but no. Mr Campbell would not budge. There are people who cycle or walk to Hardwick to catch the bus because it is cheaper from there. The County was powerless to do anything about the price hike. So again, we get thrown to the wolves and no one cares.
And when you put 5000 new houses and thousands of new people along the A428 corridor, how many buses will you need per hour to ferry them all into Cambridge? Has anyone done that calculation yet?? Oh no, I forget, when Cllr Bridget Smith asked for data on how many Cambourne residents work in or commute to Cambridge, Bob Menzies pulled out figures from 2011. Shocking!! I guess Cambourne has stood still and not grown? No one lives in the 950 additional houses built since then? And how are we to have any confidence in any plans that rely on 5-year old data to project to the next 15 years??
And are these not the same people who were in position during the negotiations for the A14 improvement scheme and told the Highways Agency to ignore adding any more links to the Girton Interchange knowing full well the problems of traffic gridlock on the A1303 Madingley Rise in the mornings? It is not a new problem, it is an open secret. That road is the only connection between two major highways, and a local road that is an anomaly. Get the highways traffic off it and that’s half or more of the problem solved.
And just imagine the gasp of disbelief from me when in reply to Edward Leigh who asked why his request for a business case analysis for Girton Interchange to be reconfigured to take traffic off the A1303 was ruled out, Cllr Herbert claimed the Board did not see it as a dependency issue. Furthermore, he went on to say that it did not have a bearing on how the A14 was configured and it has not been on the Government’s radar!!
If it was not on the agenda for the A14 improvement, whose fault was that? It was on the Government’s radar, but our local Leaders chose not to press for it. That interchange started off life being built on the cheap, and it is the local residents who pay in their time and stress.
When our supposed representatives do stuff like this, either not speak out or spout out what is clearly incorrect, it just damages more and more the reputation of politicians – not that we have any good reputation left in the minds of the public. The trust base no doubt just erodes even more rapidly.
You and Cllr Bates should seriously listen to the recordings of the Rebooting the City Deal event, you just may learn something new. I heard afterwards that your Board colleague Cllr Herbert attended – probably with a closed mind anyway. I urge the three of you to think again about what you are doing with our money. We the taxpayers of South Cambridgeshire want value for money and your current choices for the A428 corridor are the worst in terms of effectiveness and value for money.
This is not over yet.
Dr. Tumi Hawkins
District Councillor, Caldecote Ward
South Cambridgeshire
Tumi,
I agree with everything you said, we now have to make sure that democracy and common sense work. If Francis will nott listen t6o common sense then he should go and others with him.