Future of road and motorway network around Cambridge

[roadtester]

Cambridge is a very interesting place, regionally the East is the fastest growing region of the country but it just doesn't have the infrastructure to support it. Water is one thing yes, but also roads. I wonder if they are choosing cambridge partially because of the vulnerability of the east coast to flooding, to better justify money spent on flood defences etc.

This new Cambridge would have about the same population as Sheffield, give or take.

I think it’s basically the Cambridge brand, which is itself the product of having a global top ten university. Businesses that need a lot of brainy people desperately want to be there and not just any old place.

I don’t think there are any insurmountable barriers to growth - look at the way places like Birmingham and Manchester exploded in size with industrialisation. They fixed the water thing with e.g. Welsh reservoirs. This is just the 21st century equivalent.

The East has been high-growth for years but it’s been a bit below the radar so far, rather than a national story. I think the growth is almost inevitable. The secret will be planning to channel that expansion so that the new residential areas are attractive places to live.

[qwertyK]

OK so I dug a little deeper

1) The link takes you NOT to a government policy press release but to a Building company
https://www.building.co.uk/news/new-dev ... 67.article

So I dug a little deeper into the government targets here.
https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov ... sults_.ods

The desired increase in houses was very high BUT the government and Cambridge Council recognised that as things stand there is simply no way they can source enough water in the region to serve that number of houses and there are no plans to make such increases, what we actually have is what the Americans call 'boosterism' where insanely high numbers of properties are suggested which would allow them to get away with building about 10% with little protests. Meanwhile in the real world they have pretty much built out to the existing limits of Cambridgeshire City and South Cambridgeshire would undoubtedly oppose it. So now they are suggesting building in what they call Greater Cambridge along what was previously referred to as the Oxford Cambridge Expressway rehashed from 2019. This is an area bounded as shown.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-c ... e-66292309

It is no coincidence that this has reappeared in an election year but comparisons with Boston Mass are ridiculous.
City of Boston - population 675,647
Cambridge - population 146,200

But if you must compare it I used to work in Boston for a while and the drive from the outer suburb of Danvers (renamed from Salem settlement after the infamous witch trials) where I had an apartment is 25 miles by car but you will be lucky to do it in under 50 minutes each way and there is no viable public transport option.

Aren't they still talking about a East-West rail route between Oxford and Cambridge via Milton Keynes?

To be honest I'm not sure how I buy that, 15,000 is a very conservative number.

The opinion of South Cambs counts for nothing. The government and the report have made it clear they want to set up a Cambridge Development Corporation. Development corporations were set up for canary wharf/docklands and the olympic park, and take planning powers away from the local council. The government will just overrule the local council.

Like you said it's debatable as to whether anything actually happens as it's unlikely they will be in power by the end of the year to actually act upon them.

It's hugely ambitious, but it seems a vast improvement over just building some soul-less periphery towns like Northstowe etc.

[qwertyK]

Cambridge is a very interesting place, regionally the East is the fastest growing region of the country but it just doesn't have the infrastructure to support it. Water is one thing yes, but also roads. I wonder if they are choosing cambridge partially because of the vulnerability of the east coast to flooding, to better justify money spent on flood defences etc.

This new Cambridge would have about the same population as Sheffield, give or take.

I think it’s basically the Cambridge brand, which is itself the product of having a global top ten university. Businesses that need a lot of brainy people desperately want to be there and not just any old place.

I don’t think there are any insurmountable barriers to growth - look at the way places like Birmingham and Manchester exploded in size with industrialisation. They fixed the water thing with e.g. Welsh reservoirs. This is just the 21st century equivalent.

The East has been high-growth for years but it’s been a bit below the radar so far, rather than a national story. I think the growth is almost inevitable. The secret will be planning to channel that expansion so that the new residential areas are attractive places to live.

True but wales has a huge amount of rainfall to tap into, the east is the driest place of the uk and actually one of the driest in northwestern europe believe it or not.

I think it's a good idea in practise, though whether or not anything close to it ends up happening is another question. The only issue I'd see is that because it's still really close to london you'd run the risk of just a huge number of people living there commuting to London.

You could have though an M11 corridor like the M4 corridor. Harlow is supposed to be seeing a lot of investment for labs in as well as a new garden suburb and new hospital being built, there's Stansted airport. a google data centre at North weald airfield.

[wrinkly]

Aren't they still talking about a East-West rail route between Oxford and Cambridge via Milton Keynes?

Not exactly via MK.

Oxford-Bicester has been in place for several years.

Bicester-Bletchley should open next year (tracklaying was completed a few days ago). It has included the substantial reconstruction of the rail-over-rail flyover at Bletchley dating from circa 1959. It will enable services between Oxford and MK, with the Bletchley-MK part being on the existing WCML.

Bletchley-Bedford never closed but is currently rather slow and with (some would say) too many small stations. Some of them may be closed.

Bedford-Cambridge still hasn't had the route finalised and is causing some annoyance in Bedford and around Cambridge.

[B1040]

https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/ ... a-9356341/

Insufficient secondary school places in Cambridge, youngsters being bussed out to St Ives and St Neots (schools with mostly negative recent press coverage). Another consequence of house building without infrastructure.

[Ruperts Trooper]

https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/ ... a-9356341/

Insufficient secondary school places in Cambridge, youngsters being bussed out to St Ives and St Neots (schools with mostly negative recent press coverage). Another consequence of house building without infrastructure.

That's how education works in rural areas! I was born & bred in St.Ives and it was regarded as normal in the '50/60s that we'd be bussed an hour each way to Ramsey despite the Grammar School in Huntingdon being much nearer.

I don't get why parents of secondary age children need to take them to school by car - at that age they're well capable of making their own way to/from school.

[B1040]

I spent a long time teaching in Ramsey Abbey!

[roadtester]

https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/ ... a-9356341/

Insufficient secondary school places in Cambridge, youngsters being bussed out to St Ives and St Neots (schools with mostly negative recent press coverage). Another consequence of house building without infrastructure.

That's how education works in rural areas! I was born & bred in St.Ives and it was regarded as normal in the '50/60s that we'd be bussed an hour each way to Ramsey despite the Grammar School in Huntingdon being much nearer.

I don't get why parents of secondary age children need to take them to school by car - at that age they're well capable of making their own way to/from school.

True but it seems a bit unusual for pupils in a big town/city to be bused out to smaller communities rather than vice versa.

[Ruperts Trooper]

I spent a long time teaching in Ramsey Abbey!

What years were you there? I was there from '58 to '66.

[B1040]

I spent a long time teaching in Ramsey Abbey!

What years were you there? I was there from '58 to '66.

'91-2014

[KeithW]

https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/ ... a-9356341/

Insufficient secondary school places in Cambridge, youngsters being bussed out to St Ives and St Neots (schools with mostly negative recent press coverage). Another consequence of house building without infrastructure.

Just so, the old secondary school in Gamlingay was closed and the students were bussed every day to other South Cambs colleges but there were problems because there simply are not enough places. Cambourne, a new town, has only 290 places at the college and 300 applicants meaning pupils are having to be bussed to schools in St Neots and farther afield. The result is they are now discussing building a new school in Gamlingay. Despite the rash of new housing everyone acts surprised

[KeithW]

That's how education works in rural areas! I was born & bred in St.Ives and it was regarded as normal in the '50/60s that we'd be bussed an hour each way to Ramsey despite the Grammar School in Huntingdon being much nearer.

I don't get why parents of secondary age children need to take them to school by car - at that age they're well capable of making their own way to/from school.

Try catching a bus from Gamlingay to Cambourne, there isn't one. The only public transport option is this

Bus to Biggleswade
Train to St Neots
Bus to Cambourne
2 hours each way

Its a lot worse if you want to use public transport to Cambridge. The only option is
Bus to Sandy
Train to Stevenage
Train to Cambridge
2 hours each way and not cheap

This by the way is much improved, before I moved out in 2016 the only way was to get a taxi to St Neots and get the bus from there. There was a community public transport option with volunteers driving their own cars to take non drivers to major hospitals such as Addenbrookes.

The bus stop is still there on Stocks Lane but the service was withdrawn over 10 years ago.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.15171 ... ?entry=ttu

[KeithW]

Aren't they still talking about a East-West rail route between Oxford and Cambridge via Milton Keynes?

To be honest I'm not sure how I buy that, 15,000 is a very conservative number.

The opinion of South Cambs counts for nothing. The government and the report have made it clear they want to set up a Cambridge Development Corporation. Development corporations were set up for canary wharf/docklands and the olympic park, and take planning powers away from the local council. The government will just overrule the local council.

Like you said it's debatable as to whether anything actually happens as it's unlikely they will be in power by the end of the year to actually act upon them.

It's hugely ambitious, but it seems a vast improvement over just building some soul-less periphery towns like Northstowe etc.

Indeed but its mainly intended to carry freight and its hardly going to happen tomorrow if ever, as of now there are no funded projects to build the track, stations and facilities and no proposed opening dates. Don't hold your breath and remember that the line is NOT planned to be electrified, second hand Sprinters anyone ?

As for what the next government will want it doesn't seem likely that Rishi Sunak will have any say in it and of course his constituency is in North Yorkshire.

[Steven]

I don't get why parents of secondary age children need to take them to school by car - at that age they're well capable of making their own way to/from school.

Unfortunately, a lot of older people don't realise just how much schooling provision has changed over the years.

A lot of schools have closed or merged, which means that secondary school (and primary school) students now have on average a lot further to travel than when I was at school, let alone when people were older did. As a proportion, far less live in a reasonable walking distance, even in large cities. And of course, there's no such thing as "catchment areas" any more - if a school is oversubscribed, places get allocated on straight-line distances, so if you happen to live near the edge of a local authority, chances are quite high that you end up travelling a LOT further as your nearest secondary school is already full of pupils that live nearer.

School bus services have also been cancelled over the years, so that's generally no longer an option - public services or nothing.

If a parent is passing nearby on their way to work, then it makes sense to do the small detour.

In our family, my eldest went to school on the bus. One bus into the city centre from home, one bus out again to the school. Easy. My youngest on the other hand, went to a different school that required orbital public transport around the edge of the urban area - so three buses, all with terrible change times for a school that's just under three miles away. Our nearest former secondary school location was just under a mile away, so easily reachable on foot etc. But that school no longer exists, and has merged with the larger school. So, car was the only reasonable option.

[Ruperts Trooper]

That's how education works in rural areas! I was born & bred in St.Ives and it was regarded as normal in the '50/60s that we'd be bussed an hour each way to Ramsey despite the Grammar School in Huntingdon being much nearer.

I don't get why parents of secondary age children need to take them to school by car - at that age they're well capable of making their own way to/from school.

Try catching a bus from Gamlingay to Cambourne, there isn't one. The only public transport option is this

Bus to Biggleswade
Train to St Neots
Bus to Cambourne
2 hours each way

Its a lot worse if you want to use public transport to Cambridge. The only option is
Bus to Sandy
Train to Stevenage
Train to Cambridge
2 hours each way and not cheap

This by the way is much improved, before I moved out in 2016 the only way was to get a taxi to St Neots and get the bus from there. There was a community public transport option with volunteers driving their own cars to take non drivers to major hospitals such as Addenbrookes.

The bus stop is still there on Stocks Lane but the service was withdrawn over 10 years ago.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.15171 ... ?entry=ttu

Public transport doesn't come into it - when I referred to children being bussed, I was referring to contract buses.

Back in the '50/60s Whippet, now part of Stagecoach, provided 3 buses to get pupils from the St.Ives area to Ramsey Grammar School - the public weren't allowed on these buses - a double decker serving Hilton, Fenstanton, part of St.Ives, Somersham and part of Warboys - another double decker serving the Hemingfords, part of St.Ives, RAF Wyton and part of Warboys with a single decker serving Earith, Needingworth, part of St.Ives, Broughton and the Raveleys - there was also a single decker from a different company serving the outlying areas around Ramsey, this also served Ramsey Secondary Modern. There were other contract buses taking children to St.Ives Secondary Modern. No doubt there was some reduction in bus contracts when the schools changed to Comprehensive.

As an aside, Whippet used to buy it's double deckers from the big city transport departments, so very heavily worn by the time we got them, geared for hilly city use so not ideal on the flat fenland as they couldn't do much more than 30 mph flat out

[Ruperts Trooper]

I don't get why parents of secondary age children need to take them to school by car - at that age they're well capable of making their own way to/from school.

Unfortunately, a lot of older people don't realise just how much schooling provision has changed over the years.

A lot of schools have closed or merged, which means that secondary school (and primary school) students now have on average a lot further to travel than when I was at school, let alone when people were older did. As a proportion, far less live in a reasonable walking distance, even in large cities. And of course, there's no such thing as "catchment areas" any more - if a school is oversubscribed, places get allocated on straight-line distances, so if you happen to live near the edge of a local authority, chances are quite high that you end up travelling a LOT further as your nearest secondary school is already full of pupils that live nearer.

School bus services have also been cancelled over the years, so that's generally no longer an option - public services or nothing.

If a parent is passing nearby on their way to work, then it makes sense to do the small detour.

In our family, my eldest went to school on the bus. One bus into the city centre from home, one bus out again to the school. Easy. My youngest on the other hand, went to a different school that required orbital public transport around the edge of the urban area - so three buses, all with terrible change times for a school that's just under three miles away. Our nearest former secondary school location was just under a mile away, so easily reachable on foot etc. But that school no longer exists, and has merged with the larger school. So, car was the only reasonable option.

I quite understand that effect for Primary/Junior pupils - but Secondary age pupils are surely old enough to travel on their own, whether it's on contract buses, public transport or in the case of shorter distances cycling or walking.

My own view is that pupils should have an automatic right to a place in their local catchment school as well as choices, subject to capacity, at other schools - but that's too much common sense for politicians to grasp.

[Steven]

I quite understand that effect for Primary/Junior pupils - but Secondary age pupils are surely old enough to travel on their own, whether it's on contract buses, public transport or in the case of shorter distances cycling or walking.

My own view is that pupils should have an automatic right to a place in their local catchment school as well as choices, subject to capacity, at other schools - but that's too much common sense for politicians to grasp.

Old enough? Yes.

Practical? No. Not any more.

There are no such things as "contract buses" across most of the country any more. And there is no such thing as "local catchment schools" either.

Things have changed massively since the 1950s. My experiences of travelling to, and the local availability of, secondary education in the 1980s is completely different to that of today.

[KeithW]

From 1962 to 1968 I went to Acklam Hall Grammar School from Suffolk Road in Grove Hill which was in the respectable part of Grove Hill which was really Linthorpe. The distance was 1.8 miles and most of it was along the dual purpose path so I could get there in under 10 miles by bike with hardly any use of normal roads.

However the school was closed and the land sold off apart from the Hall. The new school (Acklam Grange) is not only farther away but cycling to it means crossing several major roads which is why arrangements are rather different.

Acklam Hall as was - the teaching block on the left has been demolished and the sports pitches sold to housing developers


Acklam Hall as is.
https://www.google.com/maps/@54.5449109 ... &entry=ttu

Acklam Grange - note the large car park
https://www.google.com/maps/@54.5433807 ... &entry=ttu

Acklam Hall is the only Grade 1 listed building in the town so demolishing it as well was not an option, it is now a business centre and restaurant with apartments, when I moved back in 2016 I was very impressed with what they had done.

[qwertyK]

I don't get why parents of secondary age children need to take them to school by car - at that age they're well capable of making their own way to/from school.

Unfortunately, a lot of older people don't realise just how much schooling provision has changed over the years.

A lot of schools have closed or merged, which means that secondary school (and primary school) students now have on average a lot further to travel than when I was at school, let alone when people were older did. As a proportion, far less live in a reasonable walking distance, even in large cities. And of course, there's no such thing as "catchment areas" any more - if a school is oversubscribed, places get allocated on straight-line distances, so if you happen to live near the edge of a local authority, chances are quite high that you end up travelling a LOT further as your nearest secondary school is already full of pupils that live nearer.

School bus services have also been cancelled over the years, so that's generally no longer an option - public services or nothing.

If a parent is passing nearby on their way to work, then it makes sense to do the small detour.

In our family, my eldest went to school on the bus. One bus into the city centre from home, one bus out again to the school. Easy. My youngest on the other hand, went to a different school that required orbital public transport around the edge of the urban area - so three buses, all with terrible change times for a school that's just under three miles away. Our nearest former secondary school location was just under a mile away, so easily reachable on foot etc. But that school no longer exists, and has merged with the larger school. So, car was the only reasonable option.

I quite understand that effect for Primary/Junior pupils - but Secondary age pupils are surely old enough to travel on their own, whether it's on contract buses, public transport or in the case of shorter distances cycling or walking.

My own view is that pupils should have an automatic right to a place in their local catchment school as well as choices, subject to capacity, at other schools - but that's too much common sense for politicians to grasp.

I live near a secondary school and noticed that after COVID the amount of people taking their kids to school by car increased massively and this remains so. So much so the council had to put double yellow lines on our road , but now the parents park their SUVs on the verges or pavements instead

[qwertyK]

Aren't they still talking about a East-West rail route between Oxford and Cambridge via Milton Keynes?

To be honest I'm not sure how I buy that, 15,000 is a very conservative number.

The opinion of South Cambs counts for nothing. The government and the report have made it clear they want to set up a Cambridge Development Corporation. Development corporations were set up for canary wharf/docklands and the olympic park, and take planning powers away from the local council. The government will just overrule the local council.

Like you said it's debatable as to whether anything actually happens as it's unlikely they will be in power by the end of the year to actually act upon them.

It's hugely ambitious, but it seems a vast improvement over just building some soul-less periphery towns like Northstowe etc.

Indeed but its mainly intended to carry freight and its hardly going to happen tomorrow if ever, as of now there are no funded projects to build the track, stations and facilities and no proposed opening dates. Don't hold your breath and remember that the line is NOT planned to be electrified, second hand Sprinters anyone ?

As for what the next government will want it doesn't seem likely that Rishi Sunak will have any say in it and of course his constituency is in North Yorkshire.

Why was the expressway killed off? It seems like it should be revived again. I know road building projects aren't fashionable but with 150k new homes there would be a genuine need for at least one new road be it a major a road or motorway.

Peterborough is also growing very rapidly and forecast to have about 240,000 by 2040 I think. But they have a lot of spare road capacity because of the A1(M). The M11 is just d2 past the M11.

If we're talking about development in wider Cambridgeshire there's an argument for maybe improving the A10.

An A428(M) or M428 maybe?