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Greater Cambridge Partnership - Executive Board 01.07.21 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vopKQYMxhwM 
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okay thank you very much members good good morning the first
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task i have is to actually call for nominations for a vice chairperson of the executive
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board um and i call for those nominations but i personally like to uh nominate councillor uh
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do i have a seconder
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are there any further nominations okay could we vote for councillor elisa machini
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that's good well welcome counselor machine if you'd like to join me up here i'd be most grateful thank you
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good morning um just wait for the machine to take a
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roll [Music] excellent um so firstly i'd like to
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formally welcome everyone to this meeting of the greater cambridge partnership executive board
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uh particularly welcome those who are listening on the live stream uh welcome to them
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i'd also like to welcome our new county council representative and our new chair vice chairperson uh councillor elisa
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maschini and i'd also like to welcome city council representative councillor
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louis herbert who's joining us for one last hurrah and will enjoy reading my thanks to him
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for his service in the in the minutes uh which we're just about to review but welcome back uh lewis
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and i'd also really like to extend a very very warm welcome to uh mayor dr nick johnson uh i really
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appreciate you taking the time out for your busy schedule and i know you've rearranged things today to join us
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this is very welcome to to see you at this meeting just to be clear the mayor is attending
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at my discretion in a non-voting capacity but this is obviously a
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recognition of the really important role which the combined authority plays in the work of the gcp as the strategic
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transport authority so a very very warm welcome on behalf of myself and the executive
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board to you um and i think it i'd like to just invite you to make any introductory uh comments um to to the
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executive board
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i'm very delighted to be here for my first meeting of the gcp board um i hope it's one of many in the next
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four years but as i say i must apologize to um early um i do have a long-standing
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family engagement postponed because of covid so i'm going to stay as long as i possibly can
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and then i'll take my first break since my appointment um but being you know seriously feeling
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it for me it was very important to come and join you today as i recognize the importance of the
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relationship of myself and the combined authority with the greater cambridge partnership
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over the next four years now i'm i don't suppose we'll agree on everything but i
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must admit that our initial discussions have been very fruitful and very promising and we definitely
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seem to have a both similar direction of travel i really believe that we need a reboot of
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transport priorities moving forward and importantly with the new county council leadership
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myself as the mayor and the cambridge city council we have more in common than our differences
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we do need to cooperate and collaborate to ensure we come up with a joined up connected transport system not just obviously for the greater
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cambridgeshire partnership but in for my case the whole of the combined authority cambridgeshire and peterborough
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so we can deliver exciting and innovative solutions to our transport needs we need to need to get people out
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of their cars into better more connected public transport and we need to be promoting healthier active travel
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whether it's cycling walking or even equestrian we have to be mindful of the environment
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and we always need to be aware of the green solutions now as you know i said in my election
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campaign that i believe in buses buses buses they are the quick solution to try and start tackling the
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issue of getting people out of their cars to ease congestion but we do need to look at those problems across cambridge
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and develop a viable alternative and that is something i'm focusing on with a revised transport strategy which
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will hopefully be available by the end of july but as as it always is the case it's about our
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relationships and mine with yours and it has to be a two-way street so i'm working i'm very much looking forward to
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working with you forward and i hope you will also be adopting the mantra that i campaigned on of ideas of the three c's the compassion
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the cooperation and the sense of community at all our decisions thank you
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thank you for those uh comments would uh can i just ask any member of the executive board like to
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follow up any questions
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claire ruskin i'd just like to welcome you nick very pleased that you are joining us and the
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cooperation is what we're all about um i guess i'm going to get straight to the point do you support our general
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schemes and the bus ways in particular are they within your vision for the future uh yes the the bus
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ways in themselves are in my vision and i believe the sort of the transport strategy
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going forward i think obviously there are details more finer details which you are um
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doubt you know it's down to your discussions but you know i want to work with the vision of
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busways i've seen the benefit that they brought in terms of the corridor between cambridge and st ives
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and i absolutely recognize there have been some significant challenges in terms of the process of consultation
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um about but ultimately the decision that is made by your group is one that i know that we will have to
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work with and i'm not in the idea of putting further stops of something that should have been
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moving forward over a period of time
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thank you for phil thank thank you um i just wanted to to say
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thank you as well nick and thank you for um those uh words of of support it was more just a general
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welcome to what you've said because over the years the gcp the assembly and
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executive board i think we've been working with a range of different communities and we will
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hear the voice of a number of those today but there is a also a strong silent community out there
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that i also think it is our duty to to uh listen to and uncover their views and their
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support because there are no easy decisions here as you've said and as you know and from the education
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sector it's really important i think that we do move forward and improve public
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transport in the greater cambridge area and i very much look forward
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to working with you on that going forward thank you thank you phil um any other
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questions so i'd like to again thank you mayor for those uh those comments very very helpful um i think i take away from
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from that sort of support for us pressing on and making the decisions we have on our gender today um
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you know it would be clear and i think that that as you say
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we recognize that that the schemes in front of us none of them are are perfect um but we have to make a
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decision at some point and i take away from your comments that you have our support today and pressing on and making those decisions
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as i say i recognize the need for busways i just recognize that we need to be consulting
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everybody around root directions and everything but that will be ultimately your final choice and
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i will be beholden to those but i do need to move on as i at an additional point around compassion
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and cooperation and community the one thing i always have highlighted that for me delivering a healthy
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uh a population improved public health outcomes and improved environment are an absolute priority and however we
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achieve that be it with improved public transport affordable housing or improving the
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life opportunities through skills in the combined authority they are my remain my priorities and always will be
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as a doctor and as the mayor thank you very much indeed okay well
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welcome um uh and uh we look forward to your contributions uh for as long as you can stay today and
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for a future future meetings okay excuse me for interrupting can i just ask
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members to speak directly into their microphones when they're talking um i mean we may have a few sound
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problems in the room it's very echo in here thank you okay excellent um i'd just
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uh now like to ask the democratic services to report any apologies for absence thank you no there are no
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apologies for absence okay are there any declarations of interest from the executive board members
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nope okay i just remind all members that they can declare interests either at the start of the meeting
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or if they forget the start of each relevant and again agenda item and then move on to agenda item 5 which
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is the minutes of the previous meeting i'd like to just take these
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as a block of minutes rather than going through them page by page does any of the executive board have any
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comments on the minutes or are they able to confirm them as an accurate record
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i'll be happy to confirm them there are even fewer typos than usual so that's brilliant
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thank you excellent okay well in that case i will take that as
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a confirmation of their accuracy and i'm happy to sign them as an agreed record
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okay so the the next item and the agenda is item number six
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which is the executive board membership papers are in your pack and i just like
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to invite rachel to the chief executive to invite introduce the item
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thank you chair this report is referring to the standing orders of the gcp
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executive board which sets out the provision for the cambridge and peterborough business board to nominate a representative to
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sit on your board as a non-voting member at the business board meeting in may they made a nomination
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for their chair austin adams uh to take up the seat on the gcp board
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and they also agreed uh their substitute member to be dr andy williams so you are being asked
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to confirm that those appointments today in addition um they also asked uh
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if you would use the chair's discretion and support uh the chair in that endeavor to allow
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andy williams to attend uh and and speak and the rationale for that was just recognizing
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the local knowledge that andy williams has in businesses in this geography to
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complement uh the role of the mayor sorry the role of the chair of the business board
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the final recommendation in front of you is just to uh acknowledge that claire ruskin who has
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been the business representative for a number of years now having stepped into the breach
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when there was a gap when the lep was terminated she came up from the assembly
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and as andy williams has left a gap on the assembly the recommendation in front of you is to
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ask the business board to uh support uh claire returning to the assembly as one of the three business
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representatives there so they are the recommendations in front of future
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excellent thank you very much indeed uh there's any comments from the executive board um well just
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briefly i think this is an opportunity to thank claire ruskin for all you've contributed on the board
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um and to support um the recommendation but thank you claire
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okay lisa please can i just say i'm rick thank you very much i've only been on here for well
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basically about a month but you know my interactions with claire have been fantastic she's taught me so much
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already so i would like to really you know thank her for
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helping me until now very briefly just to record i like
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accuracy as you know i'm a bit of a patent on that um page 21 has three misstatements which i
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have asked the combined authority to correct it's from their record of their board
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which is that i was a member of the lep before which i wasn't that i had recently resigned a ceo of cambridge
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network which i hadn't and i was now stepping down for my role on the gcp executive board which i wasn't
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so just to correct those it's been a delight and a pleasure nobody volunteers for these things but somebody unfortunately has to do it so
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i've been pleased to do that thank you excellent thank you do we have any other comments
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okay excellent um so what i would like to do now is just um proceed to actually vote on the
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recommendations um for the appointment of austin adams
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uh andy williams as the substitute and the discretion which we will extend to
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uh invite the um uh both to attend the board and to consider the appointment of chair
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claire ruskin to uh the joint assembly um so can i please ask for votes on that for approval
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okay excellent okay so that uh is is passed um i would also like to
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extend my sincere thanks to to claire uh for her contribution to
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the executive board uh she's been a stalwart and our loss on the executive board is
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the joint assembly's gain and it's great that you'll be continued to be associated with the work of the great cambridge partnership so thank you
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very much indeed for that so i'd like to just conclude that item um thank you to
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the officers for for that item and we will now move on to item
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number seven which is questions from members of the public
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i'd like to just announce that we've had 32 public questions submitted
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i think that's not quite a record but it is close
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of those questions one relates to agenda item 10 on eastern access
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there are 16 questions relating to campbell and cambridge independent audit item number 12. 14
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questions relating to item number 13 on the southeast transport scheme and we've also received one question
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relating to overall items number 10 12 and 13.
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details of these questions are published on the website and have been sent to all members of the executive board
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those submitted questions were offered the option of attending the meeting or having the question read out by the officer
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the questions will be put at the start of each relevant agenda item as is the normal practice
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um so so we will deal with those questions as we as we've reached them in the agenda um
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but i would like to take the one question from edward lee which relates to a number of the agenda items
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at this point in the agenda so i'd like to welcome edward to our meeting it's very nice to
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see you and thank you for joining us and i would ask you to
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answer your question i i would like to say that during the course of given the number of questions i would
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like to make sure that we get the right balance between the length of time we spent
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listening to the question and that answering the question so i will ask the each of the people answering the
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question to keep their comments as brief as possible edward please go ahead
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yep thank you very much chair i come today to present a petition signed by 1 900
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people as of this morning calling on the grace cambridge partnership to prioritize funding for
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walking cycling improved bus services and bus prioritization on existing roads to fund these projects
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by withdrawing funding from the current busway and car park schemes to reappraise all projects against
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current government climate change targets to follow the elected mayor and county
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council in putting people's health at the heart of all projects to support
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the mayor to give everyone in greater cambridge access to convenient and affordable bus services
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and to support the mayor to work with residents to develop a comprehensive coherent and sustainable transport
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strategy now you say we can't afford more delay i agree
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the busway projects are still at least four years off opening in highway priority measures
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could be delivering benefits within two with much lower risk of delay
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perhaps you think we need the boss rates and the other things we have proposed so how will you fund the other things
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the budget is already 120 million pounds over subscribed and the busway schemes will
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absorb almost all of the gcp's human resources perhaps you think boss was do enough to
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promote low carbon transport well gcp's own sustainable travel program objectives
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and government decarbonization targets both require a large absolute reduction in private
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vehicle mileage that will eliminate congestion rendering boss ways redundant your councils have
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declared climate emergencies the city has endorsed doughnut economics the county has adopted the think
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communities approach emphasizing community participation the labor group's manifesto for the
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county council election stated ensure genuine co-creation of
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initiatives yet the projects you are being asked to progress are at odds with all of that will you
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heed the petition and resolve today to direct the gcp to co-create a vision and a plan to deliver zero
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carbon emissions zero air pollution zero road deaths and zero congestion
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thank you thank you uh edward for that question i'd like to ask uh
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peter blake to respond please thank you jim uh and many of the points
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in the the statement are for the board to consider during today's deliberations
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but just one or two comments from me the gcp would entirely support
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the decarbonisation of transport we would entirely support promoting access to public transport walking and cycling
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reducing toxic air reducing the number of of casualties on our roads and they are urgent priorities alongside
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the need to unlock housing and manage growth in this area the fact remains that we are a hugely
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successful area and that's created tremendous pressure on housing and transport
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to respond to that challenge we need a balanced package of new infrastructure new services
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and refocusing the city centre environment away from the private car on your agenda today are the
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infrastructure elements of of that package what you will be discussing in september and certainly
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what came up during the course of the the joint assembly's deliberations was very much linking to the city access
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and public transport provision agenda which i say i'm sure will feed in today but you will be considering that at your
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meeting in september thank you good thank you uh thank you mr blake and
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thank you edward for your uh your question um and as uh mr blake has said we will uh be
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considering uh those those points during the course of the agenda on the items and i hope mr lee will be able to stay with us and
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listen to those debates i'd also like to add that in addition to the public
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question board members have received a significant amount of additional correspondence on the matters on the
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agenda some of those have come directly some have been circulated
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they've all been read and taken account by the members and will be done so in in in terms of reaching their
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decisions so thank you very much indeed to all members of the public who have taken the time
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uh to write and express their views to uh to the board
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okay i'd like to now move on to item number eight which is feedback from the joint
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assembly and invite councillor tim bick to give us an overview of the meeting which was held
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on the 10th of june thank you thank you chair um
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just at this stage to um report that the george assembly met earlier this month
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on the 10th of june um replete with quite a number of new members following the recent elections
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um we received a petition 23 public questions and one from um a member of a partner authority
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um and the the points that um that arise from our meeting um i suggest
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are dealt with when you come to particular agenda items because they are specific to
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to those but i would at this stage like to raise one um one quite major point
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that arose repeatedly through our discussions um and relates to all of the um
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four substantive transport projects that you've got on the agenda today um and that relates to the
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um the need to have in place um as rapidly as possible
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a well-considered city access strategy it was felt by members of the assembly
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that um that it is at this stage a missing piece in the jigsaw that we're putting
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together for effective transport in the greater cambridge area and that
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that needed to be addressed as quite a priority in the sequence of discussions that um
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that we have inside the partnership we felt that the um that the
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contribution the city access strategy needs to make
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is going to be critical to the effectiveness of all four of the schemes that you've got on the agenda
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today um and in addition the milton road and the histon road projects that
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we've already approved and are in the pipeline for delivery so however effective those different
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schemes have the potential to be it was our view
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that they weren't going to reach their full potential in effectiveness without an effective
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city access strategy which deals with congestion and car use
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inside the urban area of cambridge and that um the there is a
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an important relationship also with the effectiveness of public transport which is the theme for
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all of the items today um an important relationship to
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the whole question of bus franchising which the mayor will be considering
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and also a relationship to the discontinuation of the of the cam project which the
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mayor i understand has already announced will discontinue so all of these factors make it really
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important that we have an effective strategy in place to deal with congestion it deals with the
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the last mile or two of all of the projects that we're talking about um it deals with the the the the crux
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crunch question of um of reducing the growth in car usage in the urban
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area with all of its consequent benefits in terms of climate change and air pollution
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and what um i think members of the assembly would be grateful of from the board
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is an indication that you too see this as a priority to to put in place um without looking
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back on the history and asking why we've arrived in the need to make this a a really high priority now
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um it does need to happen um and it would be very helpful if members of
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the board could indicate that they see this the same way and that they will be doing all they can
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to arrive at an agreed strategy as soon as as soon as possible
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thank you thank you councillor vic for that do any executive board members
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like to comment or ask any questions um well just briefly um i'll
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save um a response to edward lee's comments for the first item but i endorse
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and have endorsed um previously the principle that uh in addition to
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enabling buses to get through into the in and out of the city which i'm i'm not sure i've heard an answer
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from mr leon um there is this critical issue
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and um we we can't get anywhere unless we triple
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the number of people who are able to come in on bus but we also need to enable uh
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them to get through and we haven't got that much road space
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so at the moment it's completely clogged including with with buses stuck behind cars so
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so this is if you like the fifth route which is the city center and we
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do need to give that considerable thought and commitment and i do think it
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builds chair on the decisions that we've got today because i don't see that we were
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in a position to properly address it albeit that
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both i and councillor bick think that we could have done this earlier
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but we do need to address it we we are going to the mayor's points earlier
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it isn't just the city center but people living next to the radial roads suffer damaging air
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pollution and the health is also a factor in this but
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yes we we do need as a board and i hope that we can be clear one way another chair with a
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recommendation today that we recognize the need even if we
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just tag it onto one of the items that we've got for there to be a measure to cut
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car usage not in a penal way but by giving people who currently
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drive because it's the better option a better than better option than they have now which is reliable
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public transport that gets people to where they want to go
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and they know when they're going to arrive and that does require measures right through the city center
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thank you phil thank you um well just to respond
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to tim's call and the assembly's um call on us putting forward an effective
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strategy for whatever reason we haven't been able to do that i'm now very hopeful that we will be able to have an
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effective city access strategy for all the reasons that have been mentioned not least public health and public realm um
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improvements but i do think it's worth noting again the the the executive can only do
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so much and unless and until the city council start to think much more seriously about
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this and in particular multi-story car parks in the city centre which are
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encouraging people to drive into the city then we will only have a half solution so what i would also call for
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is greater cooperation and coordination between the board and those other authorities that have
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some of the levers that are going to be important in providing a solution to city centre access
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thank you claire thank you so thanks tim um the assembly was a very
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good meeting as far as i could tell and the assembly does very good scrutiny i think
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i absolutely endorse it is key to reduce car usage and pollution we've got to
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multiply bus provision for those traveling more than maybe three or four miles i mean it's fine for lycra clad people to be
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cycling 20 miles but most of us don't want to do that lots of people ask about the impact of
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covid and how we return after the pandemic my view is currently people are
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returning to commuting those who've had to work all the way through it's a little bit of a middle age middle
31:04
class ability to work from home that many people multiply up to meaning that there will be a dramatic
31:10
decrease in traffic travel to work for hospitals shop restaurant
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lab staff education etc is still very much ongoing and we're seeing in the centre
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of town traffic returning just on the city access point i think it's really important
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but on the other hand cambridgeshire has a necklace of very important employment sites
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and if we could get those solved and people out of their cars for getting to the necklace of employment sites
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we would be a big big step forward as well that's not ni that city access needs sorting
31:46
thank you any further comments okay excellent yes i'll just say something
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really quickly i think it's not been said in so many words but how crucial air quality is to all of this
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because one of the biggest problems that we have in the city centre is just how very quickly the air quality deteriorates
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as soon as you get an exponential pile up of all these cars and we have we have children whose
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health is being impaired by being in the fumes for the whole time they spend in and out of schools or in you know
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play areas and things like that and we also you know we the city access
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will need to have a bigger quality objective at the core of it because that's how you measure and
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that's how you really really really start improving the nation's health get people moving but get them breathing
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better air when they do so as i'm sure dr nick will agree just just
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how important that is and i hope that we will put it front and center because it's really important
32:49
thank you lisa um i'll just reiterate that from the point of view of the combined authority as i mentioned we have
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to get putting together an improved transport strategy and recognizing the challenge
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particularly around the transporting people across the city area is an absolute priority
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there will be difficult decisions um but um i think together we can solve them okay
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thank you well i i i hear a sort of uh overwhelming support i think councillor
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bick for your request to address the issue i i think we'll
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come back to it on a couple of the items we're going to talk about on the agenda later and i would just like to note that
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we have changed our forward plan as the executive board and it is now on the program uh for review in
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september which will of course mean that your assembly will also uh be uh looking at the same issues uh
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in your next meeting as well so um thank you for your your comments your initial comments and
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we look forward to inviting you uh to make further comments as we reach the appropriate items
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okay thank you um so i'd like to now move on to item nine which is obviously a very
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substantive item with respect to the transport better transport
34:13
scheme between water beach and cambridge i propose to handle this item by first
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inviting peter blake to introduce the the report and then he will take
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uh questions we'll also ask councillor bick to uh feedback from the assembly
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and then have a vote so peter would you like to introduce your report please
34:40
thank you chair so this focuses on the route from water beach newtown into into cambridge city it flows from
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work that we've previously done with the combined authority on the entire a-10 corridor and one of the
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recommendations for that was to progress um sustainable walking and cycling
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options if i can just dwell for a moment on on the figure one on page 31. um now in a sense
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this almost forms the context to all of your your sort of reports today but this is
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in essence the infrastructure elements of the programme um that we're looking to bring forward
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and obviously council of it council herbert and others have then emphasized the city access that you'll discuss at
35:25
your next meeting what we're looking to do with this corridor and the other main corridors is to try and ensure that
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we support the delivery of that sustainable economic growth that we we tackle the challenges of
35:40
homes and and transport in this area and we deliver on the existing local plan
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so for example in this corridor we have 11 000 up to 11 000 homes in water beach that
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we need to cater for in a sustainable manner and the same then applies on the other corridors whether it's born
35:58
in west camborne or or the biomedical campus we need to do that in a manner that
36:03
tackles congestion that tackles air quality and deals with the the climate challenge that we've got
36:09
so this paper is um the first step on the the road of
36:15
exploring a a project and a corridor improvements in this area
36:20
this is the strategic case it sought to establish whether a strategic case
36:25
existed for intervention between the new town and and cambridge city we undertook a
36:32
consultation to that degree which whilst there was support for intervention there was also concern
36:39
around impact on local impacts in water beach the existing water beach village and particularly the allotment sites so
36:46
we have reflected the proposals to take account of that and we can assure residents
36:51
that we will not be impacting on the local area as per the the feedback that we that we've had
36:57
i suppose perhaps unsurprisingly given the scale of development in water beach the strategic case for this route is
37:04
made and what we are saying is the strategic case is there
37:10
the the consultation at the moment uh supports us moving to the next steps
37:15
where we will get far more into the details of root alignments and and all the things that we would
37:20
imagine that goes with that in terms of what environmental issues there are what societal issues are and then really allowing us to undertake
37:27
detailed consultation engagement with local communities to
37:32
to go through that in further detail one one slight addendum to this report chair is
37:38
also the inclusion of the relocation of the the rail station at water beach
37:44
and many of you many board members will be aware that that is currently a planning requirement to deliver the
37:50
first 4 600 houses of part on that on that site at the moment the viability of that site
37:57
is such that the rail station cannot be relocated to accommodate that
38:02
and so one of the recommendations put before you today is that you allow officers to continue
38:09
in negotiations with the developer to see if an agreement can be reached whereby
38:14
there is gcp involvement in relocating the the rail stations to ensure that we
38:20
release those 4 600 houses um not proposing to say any more at this point here but
38:26
clearly happy to answer any questions okay thank you mr um can i invite uh
38:32
councillor bick to make his comments from the joint assembly stage
38:39
uh chair the um the assembly was was supportive of the basic case being
38:45
made in this report there were a number of other points that um
38:53
assembly members were keen to have in front of you the first of which is the the
39:00
consequence of the revision to the central route that is proposed to take forward
39:07
as one of the two options um for the alignment and there is a a sense in which
39:15
the um the revision to the central route is a decent
39:22
response to the input to the to the consultation that we've just had
39:28
but it means that the revision itself being different from what people were
39:33
commenting on before has not had the opportunity to gather
39:39
public input in its own right because [Music] it wasn't on the table at that at that
39:46
point and so assembly members were keen that the board satisfies itself that
39:53
there is going to be an equivalent opportunity for residents to comment on that revision
39:59
in the process as it goes forward it wasn't clear to me from the assembly decision that we
40:05
that we're advocating that we go into sort of a perpetual loop um in the in relation to this but that
40:11
that residents do need um a meaningful opportunity to contribute to that
40:16
revision in addition to the other things that would happen at the next stage we talk to them and
40:22
i think um a response to that point would be very helpful in in
40:28
building confidence um with the local community um on the point um related to
40:36
um the the rail station um we talked about that um there were some
40:44
voices of caution um in how we um present ourselves in that
40:49
negotiation we should not be enabling developers to
40:55
easily get off the hook from what ought to be their responsibilities to provide that type of
41:01
funding but but we saw the point that it does also allow some influence on the part of
41:08
the gcp and the collective body of local councils in the in the um in that provision um but
41:17
also we need to be careful about the implications for other discussions um in relation to rail stations new and
41:25
old um checking that we can afford what we start to do in relation to water beach and
41:34
a third point which i think as a result of the process of public
41:40
questions that we that we heard that it would be
41:45
helpful if we could be more explicit about the potential role of
41:52
this of this public transport alignment not only in joining up the dots
42:00
on the alignment itself in those communities but also as providing at various
42:08
points in its um in its course uh picking up the um the the increment of
42:15
public transport journeys which may have started significantly away from the alignment itself
42:21
such as large-ish communities like cotton which this project was not put in place
42:29
specifically for but obviously can add loading onto the onto any infrastructure we're providing
42:36
and can provide a a great extra facility in speeding up public transport journeys
42:41
from them too and i i think that the the process of public question
42:47
questioning highlighted the fact that we were not actually we were actually underselling
42:52
what what the potential benefits of this um this project were by by not highlighting that that the buses
43:00
starting from cotton can actually benefit from at least part of this alignment
43:08
thank you council big can i just ask peter blake to respond to any of those points which were raised yes thank you
43:14
chad um so we've already been in contact with local representatives following the points that were raised at
43:20
the the joint assembly uh regarding the revised route but as you say i mean the the revisions come from the
43:27
consultation so we you know we we consult to listen and then we change things but we did recognize the point we've already
43:33
met them and that engagement will now continue well in advance of any formal consultation that would take place down
43:38
the line and again i think the wider impact is another point that is well made
43:44
we are looking to update and improve the existed guided bus way
43:50
one of the areas we know it can be improved is around flexibility and making sure
43:56
that it serves the maximum possible area so it is not just services that use that
44:01
that you know our new infrastructure in their entirety it's services that can hop on and hop off
44:07
to gain a real reliability and journey time advantage and cotton was an example that was used
44:14
in the in the joint assembly i think it's a very good example that says actually we think bus services
44:19
that we're looking working with with the combined authority and the mayor to improve them generally um they will be able to to make access
44:27
and use this facility in part um and much to serve a much wider geography
44:32
i hope that's that's helpful chair thank you
44:37
okay i'd just now like to uh open floor any comments questions from the board uh
44:44
phil is that thank you um it's more of a point followed by a
44:50
question to to nick so i'll give you a heads up on on this one so i mean i i'm very supportive what we're
44:57
doing particularly at the strategic um level around water beach
45:02
but a paragraph 4.7 which is on page 35
45:08
um it rightly notes that what we are doing is in parallel with
45:14
and taken account of proposals that the combined authority are looking at for upgrading the a-10
45:19
between eli and cambridge now it's always struck me as being strange if not undermining of what we're
45:26
trying to do as a board to be improving public transport at the same time that the proposals are coming forward to
45:33
make it easier to drive along the a-10 particularly from ely which is one of the few areas
45:39
that actually has a very good rail route into cambridge now i know this emerged
45:45
under the um previous there but i suppose my question is is
45:51
this still part of the agenda of the combined authority or of thinking now moved on
46:02
it is still in the thinking of the combined authority and it's part of the transport plan
46:08
okay thank you okay okay
46:16
i'll move to a slightly different point of um the fact that we were all individually probably horrified by the idea of houses
46:23
being knocked down uh for this route and i think we were all grateful to the cambridge independent for
46:30
bringing forward the concerns of residents as they are rather good at doing
46:37
and i think it was explained to us individually that we needed to put all options on the table
46:43
at any one point for any of the schemes that we're developing so we do have house demolition and purchase of
46:51
gardens and everything else as a very last resort but it does have to be on the table with all the other options so uh just a
46:58
comment on that i'm glad we've moved away from that option and glad it wasn't the last resort we needed
47:06
chair if i if i may i mean that's just that that's a good example of of consultation
47:12
why we consult now the these schemes take a number of years in development
47:18
we follow the process we're obliged to follow and so the likelihood is before we get to the final stages we will have done
47:24
three or four consultations you're absolutely right we have to examine all of the options and
47:30
all of the options need to be in our consideration because that's what department for transport tells us we've got to do
47:36
but consultation on this particular issue we've listened very clearly to those local residents
47:41
and we've refined those proposals in light of that consultation i think as we've done on all of our
47:47
major schemes it's just an example of how the schemes move forward in a in a sort of a natural progression
47:54
as we're required to do by government thank you okay um i'd just like to ask mr blake a
48:02
couple of questions and i would like a chair to say a few things um later or after so just looking at the
48:10
two ends and i do endorse and thank the assembly for the range of
48:16
points that they've made um in terms of the uh issue that they've
48:21
raised of who pays for the relocated water beach station i just
48:28
like a bit more clarity mr blake because uh as i understand it this was
48:36
one of those um make or break conditions in the planning application that the
48:42
developers would actually pay for that and that nothing would fall on the gcp
48:49
or other public bodies and looking at the other end given that we're still flexible about the middle bit um how
48:58
will the route link up with the guided bus busway is it envisaged that it will actually
49:04
join subject to where where that happens and and how will that affect the
49:12
end capacity of the guided bus way between that point and cambridge north
49:18
station so i'm i'm thoroughly in favor of this as i'll explain later but i do want just a couple of
49:25
answers and and also a recognition that in addition to a lot of listening as you
49:31
mentioned mr blake that the points that the assembly have made will also be
49:36
um fully investigated thank you mr blake thank you jim um so in terms of
49:43
your the second point first uh yes it will join the the guided busway exactly the same as cambridge southeast will join
49:48
the gaudi bus way uh off francis creek avenue um so we're working to ensure that
49:54
compatibility exists in in terms of bus ways themselves one of the benefits
50:00
when we've explored this previously with the combined authority was the scalability um so the existing bus way's gone from a
50:06
10 minute to a five minute frequency in in any case the scalability exists to accommodate
50:11
this we may be looking at some enhanced signaling in that particular location but that's well within the engineering
50:18
constraints that we're able to manage so we've got confidence about that and it also then fully utilizes existing
50:25
infrastructure so we're not having to build any more things than we than we necessarily need but again the caveat on that is this is
50:33
all subject to consultation and discussion with with local communities as we go forward in terms of the the rail station the
50:40
relocating the rail station was was attached as a grampian condition by the planning authority when planning consent
50:46
was given to the developer for 4 600 homes the viability of the site
50:52
as assessed by the developer and the planning authority is that the money does not exist to
50:59
relocate that that rail station so we we ordinarily the general gcp's position we would not
51:05
be negotiating with a developer we take our lead from the local plan and the local planning authorities as we
51:11
should so we are being told there's a viability problem by the local planning authority
51:16
but we are sat here now all saying we need 4 600 homes delivered as soon as
51:21
we can reasonably do it so all this paper says is is to allow an opportunity for us to have a
51:27
conversation with the developer to see if we can bridge the the financial gap of
51:33
relocating that to that station and that will then be brought back to to the chair and vice chair for um
51:38
for consideration i hope that's helpful um having been involved in training
51:44
planners yesterday about viability i would certainly want to be assured that um
51:49
that that is a only uh public money if completely unavoidable
51:57
we would entirely agree which is why we are taking our lead from the local planning authority
52:05
excellent any other questions for mr blake before i've got a couple of lewis um well if there
52:12
isn't any other questions i'd just like to make a few comments please do um so
52:18
i mean this is an example of what we need to do and it's an example of why the existing
52:24
road network is completely incapable of allowing a public transport alternative
52:30
if you get on public transport north of cambridge you're wasting your time um
52:36
even if you transition into milton park and ride that's in a location which
52:43
is somewhere you really don't want to go in that you cannot simply get
52:48
through the a10a14 morass which hasn't improved and hasn't been
52:54
addressed because of the value engineering that was undertaken by the government
52:59
in coming up with the cheap version of the a14 a very welcome investment in its way
53:06
but stellarly three-lane for much of its time unless it's subject to the dropping of
53:13
passata by a lorry um but then it comes to this junction
53:18
and i mean i i'm happy to talk uh with mr lee further on this point but
53:24
but why is it that the previous mayor supported dueling a road which we didn't really support
53:31
and i can't really see the need for if we address public transport but the number of
53:38
vehicles that come down or up the a-10 aren't to do with the city center
53:43
a significant of the number of them are to do with hubs on the edge of cambridge
53:48
a significant amount of the blockage is actually nothing to do with cambridge it's simply that that's the only road
53:55
that comes down from the north from the east of the county so this is to me a perfect example why
54:02
we should be supporting off-road bus ways and whilst it's a short stretch it will
54:10
radically transform options provided that we address the city centre and
54:15
provided that we generate greater investment so that the bus services genuinely do
54:21
go much further out the previous mayor also opposed this scheme i never could understand any logic in
54:28
that because ultimately we will have water beach we've got a huge amount of employment at
54:35
the science park which is largely currently car fed and we need this
54:40
scheme i could wax lyrical and make some other points but i do totally support this as an example of
54:48
the fact that we literally cannot get people in and out of cambridge currently reliably on public transport and people
54:56
who might get on public transport don't necessarily get helped fully by train
55:02
from ely because their destinations are not near a station and therefore and that's why i really
55:10
welcome the new mayor's focus on bus services for the next 10 years and
55:15
way beyond that because people have been talking about buses being out of date in my
55:20
understanding for the last three decades and they're still not um we need the routes like this
55:26
and we need uh that along with the wider points that uh councillor bick made we
55:32
need a combined solution of which this route is an essential component thank you thank you very much
55:40
for uh claire later just say i fully support this we've got
55:46
to try and reduce car use as more people move into water beach and the surrounding areas
55:52
so fully supportive of the scheme the recommendations that we've got there are
55:58
a couple that are missing i think one is that we work with cpca in
56:03
discussion of parallel plans to julie a10 because i think we are collaborating but let's just make that explicit because i think it is very
56:09
relevant to this and two that we perhaps agree that plans to
56:14
try to add benefit for other local centres like cotton it's very important that we do funnel in
56:21
as many people as possible to these new
56:28
routes yeah so i'll take that as a
56:34
i sort of recommended to add to the recommendations would any other board member support
56:40
clarinet excellent okay so lewis can we just take a quick vote as to whether we would
56:46
add that to the recommendation yep okay so if we could
56:53
add two points to the recommendations around the treatment of the integration with
57:01
a10 i think this feeds very nicely into the mayor's comments about the fact that while we through the
57:08
process have to progress these items individually these schemes as mr blake explained in
57:15
figure 1 and as the mayor quite rightly talked about is we are trying to actually build a
57:22
network here with linkages and and that obviously raises the issue of the city access too
57:29
as well so i sort of welcome the addition to recognize the
57:34
integration with the other work of the cpca and likewise as well this this point
57:41
which i think is really important about the connectivity
57:46
beyond the immediate corridor i think it's it's really would be advantageous
57:53
for us to sort of look at that optionality and deliberately try to plan it in rather than it become a sort of
58:01
accidental consequence of the scheme uh so that when we are looking at options we
58:06
we in alternative routes we we have a mind to those routes which create maximum
58:12
optionality for linkage to um other location sites
58:18
i'd also just like to while i'm speaking just just point out
58:23
one thing about this this area which i i know reasonably well is that it is of course that it is not simply
58:30
just connecting um homes to jobs at both ends of this route ones has
58:38
fairly significant employment centers as well with the cambridge research park which
58:44
is in in figure 3 but there are also fairly other significant employment centers in
58:49
water beach so this is all about actually creating a corridor where
58:55
where people can move freely up and down it in not unidirectional from the
59:01
the new town into the into the city
59:06
excellent so with those modifications is there any further comments okay so so in summing up
59:14
what i'm basically hearing his support for the recommendations i'm also
59:21
hearing welcoming the the refinement of the route options
59:27
subject to the consultation which is uh in the in the
59:32
recommendations i i also hear uh sort of from the assembly and from uh
59:38
certain comments which are made and i share these as well the the need to proceed with with extreme
59:44
care and caution on the commercial negotiations uh with the
59:49
developers on the relocation of water beach rail station i very much appreciate mr blake your
59:55
confirmation that you you share that that care with which those um
1:00:02
discussions will be entered into so with that in the addition of the two recommendations
1:00:09
respect to the a10 integration working with the combined authority and the consideration
1:00:15
of the broader uh relationship to communities outside of the immediate corridor
1:00:20
i'd just like to now ask the executive board to vote on the recommendation so those in
1:00:26
favor excellent mayor sorry i
1:00:32
i i it's normal practice to invite all non-voting members to express a view
1:00:39
on this recommendation if you would if you'd
1:00:49
thank you very much indeed
1:00:56
okay um let us now uh before i move on just thank you
1:01:03
to the officers as well for all the hard work and on the consultation which has been
1:01:10
undertaken on this corridor so thank you very much indeed okay um i'd now like to move on to
1:01:19
agenda item number 10 which is the cambridge eastern project
1:01:28
we have a public question on this so i'm going to start by inviting
1:01:35
tanya verdong on behalf of the a to b 1102 transport group to
1:01:42
pose her question i'll then invite the peter blake to respond to
1:01:48
that question and then make a presentation and then we will have the opportunity as a board
1:01:53
to ask questions of clarification and then have the debate
1:01:58
chair just to confirm i'm going to be reading the question out on on behalf of the thank you very much okay if you'd
1:02:04
like to go ahead thank you the question reads as follows if the eastern access project is to meet
1:02:11
the needs of all those who travel within greater cambridge what does the project do to meet the
1:02:16
needs of those communities to the north and east of cambridge who work learn
1:02:22
shop and use the services of the city we have many issues including those listed
1:02:27
below which need addressing if the proposed changes take place in cambridge
1:02:34
the two planned greenways to the east do not connect how will this be rectified will the new
1:02:40
park and ride site be delivered before private car access into cambridge is restricted how
1:02:46
will the extra traffic at the kai kwai be monitored and reduced
1:02:52
how will gcp work with all relevant stakeholders to improve public transport
1:02:57
to encourage people out of their cars it is currently inadequate with no buses
1:03:02
in the evening or on sundays to say it is outside our remit is simply not
1:03:08
acceptable what will incentivize the modal shift required to make the proposed changes
1:03:14
anything other than a disaster for the communities who live around work and travel in and around cambridge
1:03:22
thank you mr blake thank you chair without action
1:03:30
transport congestion and air quality in this corridor is going to get worse that's what the evidence is telling us
1:03:36
this scheme is designed to promote walking cycling and the use of public
1:03:42
transport it will build upon the five greenways to the east which will all be connected to
1:03:47
the wider walking and cycling network um to ensure
1:03:52
that it maximizes the opportunity for for local people in the area um i certainly as part of the joint
1:03:59
assembly conversation the link with city access came up and i think in response to the to the questioner um
1:04:05
a lot of these issues will not just be dealt with by this particular infrastructure project
1:04:10
but as part of that wider conversation around city access working with the mayor the combined authority and others
1:04:16
to ensure a general improvement of public transport services across the wider greater cambridge area
1:04:23
thank you thank you okay so uh mr blake would you now like
1:04:30
to present your report on this scheme thank you just just a few comments uh and i'm i'm
1:04:38
presuming that city access will be picked up in the joint assembly um feedback because certainly that was a theme that came through uh
1:04:44
loud and clear this um this project is at the same stage as the waterbeat project so we're examining the strategic
1:04:51
case and and undertaken initial public consultation to gauge local views
1:04:58
as to what uh proposals might uh might be beneficial in terms of coming forward the difference from water beach is that
1:05:05
the strategic case in accordance with the department criteria that we're obliged to meet
1:05:10
on this corridor is not made and it's not made because there is not a significant
1:05:16
growth node identified along this corridor at the moment what i've said previously is we clearly
1:05:23
follow the local plan whilst we recognize there are discussions as part of the emerging
1:05:28
local plan around the growth node on this area we should follow the emerging local plan and thus far
1:05:34
the strategic case is not made but there clearly is a requirement to do something in the shorter term
1:05:40
so the recommendations that are outlined on page 268 are proposing to undertake improvements
1:05:45
around newmarket road exploring relocating the park and ride site further out so to capture traffic
1:05:53
before it comes further into the to the city center and then following the emerging local
1:06:00
plan if there is indeed a further development along this corridor then to review the strategic case akane
1:06:06
and bring forward uh wider scheme proposals finally for mecha following the um the
1:06:12
joint assembly conversation we added in a recommendation e which just relates to
1:06:18
the close alignment particularly between this scheme and the city access discussions that we'll be
1:06:24
having in the autumn i'll leave it there chair and happily take any questions thank you very much uh mr blake um first
1:06:31
of all i'd like to just invite councillor bick to report i know it was a very lively discussion at
1:06:36
the joint assembly i i listened to it so uh i look forward to you trying to summarize
1:06:42
the discussion uh which was had thank you chair um i just wanted to
1:06:47
highlight a couple of the points because you've got the others in writing in front of you but um
1:06:53
i think the um the theme of the contributions of the assembly were
1:07:01
a certain impatience to to get to the larger measures that this
1:07:06
corridor seems to require and a desire to remind the board of that
1:07:14
injunction from the citizens assembly about being bold
1:07:20
um i think that we nevertheless understand the constraints
1:07:25
that exist in relation to the um the the marshall's potential development
1:07:32
which we don't know about yet because it has no status in local planning terms
1:07:39
but i just feel that the assembly would want me to convey to you the impatience to get on with this as
1:07:46
soon as it is clear whether the marshalls airfield is going to be
1:07:53
part of the development plan for the future uh i think this of the four projects
1:08:00
that you're talking about today um has a slight difference from um
1:08:07
the other three in the in in the sense that it is um almost wholly within the urban area
1:08:14
um whereas the others are mainly outside the urban area and connect to it at the near the edge
1:08:21
of it and so the point that i made earlier about city access
1:08:26
is not just a point about what happens at the end of the um at the
1:08:33
end of the alignment we're trying to create it's a complete overlay city access
1:08:40
um in a sense is part of the same approach that we need in this area and
1:08:47
so i think having having made that point through the assembly discussion
1:08:52
we would be pleased to see the addition of um the recommendation e that you've got
1:08:58
you've got now there i think that's appropriate the um
1:09:05
one of the examples that was repeatedly mentioned in our discussion of the need um for city access to come
1:09:12
along with this this um this corridor is the um example of of coldham's lane
1:09:21
um and um i think it is an example i think it's a very important
1:09:26
example it's a very um it's a very sensitive um
1:09:31
route at the moment so far as residents those living around it and those who use it
1:09:37
um for transporting concerned at the moment um there is um a feeling
1:09:44
that um without an effective strategy for for eastern access there is the
1:09:50
potential for condoms lane to be um in a way worse
1:09:55
treated than it feels now by virtue of displacement from other
1:10:02
routes so there is an ongoing discussion about the impact of the
1:10:10
closure of mill road at the bridge and the displacement effect that may have on
1:10:15
coldham's lane but there is also in this report the seeds of a further
1:10:21
concern about what happens on new market road may be further adding to what happens on
1:10:27
coldham's lane and so it underlines the need
1:10:32
for a a broader umbrella of policy which constrains car journeys
1:10:39
in a way which avoids particular streets taking the hit for other routes being
1:10:46
improved and and so um we would want you to
1:10:51
take on board the sensitivity of coldham's lane but i think it's a sort of an example of of the need
1:10:58
perhaps across the urban area to to have a regime which avoids actions taken beneficial in
1:11:05
a few places from making just displacing the problem else elsewhere
1:11:10
um another point that i think members
1:11:17
would want me to highlight is the is the significance of the retail parks in this in this geography
1:11:26
the beehive and the long new market road which as they're currently configured are our
1:11:32
car attractors in quite a major way and generate many car journeys and demonstrated by their
1:11:41
large car parks and that that any plan that we put together
1:11:48
needs to address them as well as um journeys to places of
1:11:56
employment and um where people live and so we wanted to kind of wave that flag that um
1:12:04
as we move from here those retail destinations need to have some role because if we are trying
1:12:10
to deter car journeys then we do need to make sure that those retail
1:12:15
locations are connected up by really good public transport i think the other points that
1:12:22
we raised are covered in what's in front of you on paper but we'd be grateful for your um
1:12:27
comments on those please thank you council beck i know i know
1:12:32
um mr blake we've incorporated uh some of the feedback from the
1:12:38
assembly in terms of uh recommendations but is there any other comments you'd like to make with respect to
1:12:44
i don't think there's anything to add i think the the the complexity of this route and into relationship with the
1:12:50
city access agenda i think has been that's been outlined yeah i i i very much thank the
1:12:56
assembly for making those points as i said i listened to the debate and the complexity and the extreme pressures
1:13:04
in this part of the city came across loud and clear and the the need to address it in a sort
1:13:10
of integrated uh way um i've got one question for mr
1:13:15
blake before i open up to any other questions which is that on the recommendation c um plate where we've we talked about
1:13:22
option one b1 which is i guess the second stage of this with with marshall's
1:13:28
site given the comment from the assembly about the sort of general impatience in this what what
1:13:34
what timing of the work associated with that recommendation be
1:13:42
um so firstly i understand the frustration but we will absolutely maintain a
1:13:47
position following the local plan um so we are ready to go when the local plan is in a position
1:13:54
uh to move forward in terms of any acknowledgement of development in that area okay we're
1:13:59
simply ready to do that but we will follow the local planning authorities we will not we will not go with a load on this
1:14:06
excellent okay thank you i'd just like to um open up now to any other questions or
1:14:11
comments from the board members um uh thanks chad in terms of questions so it may not be um
1:14:19
that you can add a lot mr blake but the the history of new market road is a
1:14:25
pretty sad one particularly for the people who live next to it and
1:14:31
the last effort by the county council and i must be about 15 years ago that's only a rough
1:14:38
estimate but i can remember a long period when it was different
1:14:44
roughly how what sort of time scale is the gcp envisaging in terms of
1:14:50
reviewing the package of measures which are very helpfully summarized in the map on page
1:14:57
270 which would um constitute a significant improvement
1:15:04
for cycle users who are at severe risk
1:15:09
at several places on this route as well as others who just simply want to cross the road
1:15:16
or use a bus just roughly what sort of time scale
1:15:21
is envisaged and at what point will we get of a price tariff on the package that is
1:15:29
needed um that will make a difference so i do support the measures that are listed
1:15:34
there but on people who live in that area um have suffered a lot
1:15:40
and i would like to ensure that coldham's lane is um included as part of our
1:15:48
project going forward so i just like assurances that it will be specifically included
1:15:57
because in addition and i don't think it's specifically to do with mill road
1:16:02
um bridge and the decision that's still to be made by the county council transport
1:16:08
committee but it has suffered before then
1:16:13
and it is it is definitely part of the need for a solution so
1:16:21
really just to get mr blake a bit more flavor and detail and then we can uh
1:16:27
get an idea of when the assembly and the board are likely to see some of the granular
1:16:34
aspect of the different proposals because really the last set of changes were
1:16:41
really a stalemate rather than an improvement
1:16:47
so in terms of headline time scales at the moment the next 12 months we would be having a consultation engagement around the
1:16:54
detailed design options and we'd be pulling together the business case which would include include the cost
1:17:00
so in 12 months time we would expect to be back in front of you talking through the details of this in
1:17:06
theory 12 months after that we could be on site but but i say this in
1:17:12
in with um this depends on the consultation and the
1:17:19
feedback we received i mean counselor herbert you referred to um so the difficulties in terms of
1:17:26
previous deliveries of schemes along this road so we should be under no illusions that
1:17:31
everybody is going to agree with every aspect of this certainly if we're looking for impactful
1:17:37
change for walking cycling and public transport along that route the the consultation and the engagement
1:17:44
will drive this but the time scales of 12 months and 12 months are what we're currently working
1:17:49
to i hope that's helpful thank you claire this is an area i'm very familiar
1:17:58
with i was brought up at the far end of new market road and used to skip to school along new market road and then i think when my parents had a
1:18:04
car we used to stop outside the grocers that is now impossible to do so one fairly
1:18:10
uh strategic thing there is the logistics hub being talked of coming to coldman's lane the cherry hinton road
1:18:17
and this could be an absolute disaster for coldham's lane if it's handled badly
1:18:23
so i just hope that we're taking account of that and the last mile i know we're trying to reduce the uh i
1:18:29
think it was about 18 of our vehicles in town are commercial vans and we maybe just need to persuade
1:18:35
people to change their behavior a little bit and not expect instant delivery of parcels but the
1:18:40
logistics hub is a real worry um there are five bridges over the railway which we're
1:18:45
constrained to if you are travelling by commercial vehicles that the leper chapel i think goes a14 leopard chapel coldhams
1:18:53
lane mill road hills road so we've got one of those shut and the other's completely congested
1:18:59
during the pandemic um coldham's lane has been completely log jammed so it hasn't slowed anything down the
1:19:05
retail park's a big part of that cambridge united playing causes mayhem
1:19:11
let alone pasata and olive oil i mean it just is a very congested area so the logistics hub i plea that we
1:19:19
actually look at that really carefully we may have to distribute that rather differently than just putting it at the
1:19:24
end of coldhams lane and there are a few other little tactical things so
1:19:29
there's a furniture shop that has been sold to become another stag night hotel
1:19:36
right on the corner of new market road in coldham's lane it is an opportunity to maybe make a
1:19:41
little bit wider space there rather than putting up another hotel in that region the other
1:19:48
opportunities there have been left because of commercial reasons i'm sure
1:19:53
and then just a personal support for the subway new market road and east road it's a delightful space to be in
1:19:59
so i know we're trying to reduce it for uh traffic reasons but actually it's great for walking and cycling through there
1:20:06
so that's a tactical thing thank you thank you any other
1:20:14
comments or questions yes um yeah i i mean
1:20:22
when we compare this to the scheme that we just looked at the gcp i think rightly has gone for a
1:20:28
modest what could be called a modest improvement to milton road but but we will need at least that and a bit
1:20:35
more um because this is arguably in quite stiff
1:20:40
competition the most unpleasant road coming into cambridge
1:20:46
and the measures such as the chisholm trail and the value of looking at hard at it
1:20:55
is also severely constrained but but but i do think that um along with city access
1:21:01
which council bit was quite right to link very strongly into the solution to
1:21:06
these problems that we do need to do make an improvement and then subject to planning
1:21:12
decisions if there is an opportunity for off-road it only really works
1:21:17
chair um half of the way because it this area is so dense in terms of
1:21:24
properties and activity that there is no value in in thinking about off-road
1:21:31
um into the city it just isn't going to be practical so i do fully support this and i think
1:21:37
the the residents in that area as well as cyclists walkers and also bus users deserve
1:21:45
an improvement but unfortunately without reducing the overall number of cars
1:21:52
life on new market road and on coldham's lane won't be perfect but i think it's really as important that
1:21:57
we're moving ahead with this package because irrespective of a bigger need in
1:22:03
the future we do need to tackle this my last point chair is we haven't mentioned rail
1:22:10
and i'm glad that it's still figures and i will along with my support for whoever's
1:22:16
representing the city on the gcp board and that is my
1:22:21
colleague dave baijin after this meeting i really do think that this is an unused resource
1:22:29
and we should be looking at the access whether in cherry hinton or in full born
1:22:36
for a potential station and it's a little bit like the titchfield thunderbolt line where you're
1:22:42
actually hitting the brambles when you go out towards um berries and edmonds currently and i do think that
1:22:50
it's a little odd that on one side of cambridge east-west rail is looking at the most
1:22:56
magnificent railway um and yet we aren't at this stage able to do anything on this and i believe that if
1:23:04
we if we could persuade an earlier government intervention and get the support of the mayor
1:23:10
um for the route to new market including the wonderful some station
1:23:15
which was so close to the heart of the previous mayor but particularly the amount of traffic that comes in through
1:23:23
the a14 off the kwai junction um i do believe rail has a major part to play
1:23:29
in the east of the city so i'm grateful that it's still there and i will not relent from being involved in trying
1:23:37
to improve the rail line uh east of cambridge thank you
1:23:42
comments very well mate mayor would you like to just to acknowledge i've heard that from councillor herbert i would i'll draw
1:23:48
that to attention as part of the transport plan that we are pulling together i'm a supporter of
1:23:54
of all forms of transport um in this case and i acknowledge the the idea excellent
1:24:00
thank you and you will note in the recommendations item number d uh which explicitly talks about um
1:24:08
the engagement uh with respect to potential improvements on on the rail so i think that is well well
1:24:14
captured um in in that and again i think it just goes to
1:24:20
reflect a theme which is coming up um a lot of the discussion today about sort of integration
1:24:25
and thinking that while we're pursuing these schemes individually which is the
1:24:31
process we need to think about the sort of wider context as well and in that vein i'd
1:24:37
also like to just pick up on the on the public question which was asked
1:24:43
as well about sort of making sure that when we think about the scheme further on uh in context of
1:24:51
of recommendation c we also maintain that same approach to thinking about sort of optionality and connection to other
1:24:58
neighboring uh communities and making sure that the linkage to the greenways and other forms
1:25:03
of uh active travel are are not just um happening by accident but are
1:25:09
actually planned in okay any other comments i'm i'm hearing
1:25:16
a a general support for this in particular uh welcome
1:25:21
for the edition of recommendation e following the feedback from the assembly um which is most welcome so thank you
1:25:29
for for councillor bick for uh the contribution there excellent um so can
1:25:36
we now proceed to uh vote on those recommendations which are on page 268 of your agenda
1:25:44
um i'm going to take those in favor
1:25:49
okay i think that is carried unanimously thank you very much indeed
1:25:57
excellent okay so that concludes um item number 10 again i'd like to thank
1:26:04
the officers involved for their hard work on that scheme it's clearly something which uh
1:26:13
the assembly and the board uh thoroughly support and the imperative to address what
1:26:20
council lewis said is probably the most congested and most unpleasant i think he said access into cambridge is is really
1:26:26
important okay um so we'll now move on to uh item number 11 on the agenda
1:26:34
it's on page 200 323. um yeah
1:26:42
small logistics question there's an immense cold draft has just suddenly started is everyone else feeling it i
1:26:47
know phil and i are feeling quite chilled over here okay is there anything we can try and do
1:26:52
about that
1:26:58
can i can i just check is that everyone from the board you know we could conceivably take a
1:27:05
10-minute break here if that would be helpful or you happy to carry on this is the last item we're going to take before
1:27:10
we take a flight to carry on chair okay is that um as long as the defrosting can be
1:27:16
arranged okay phil are you okay to carry on
1:27:23
okay people want to sit over this way they can and i'll sit in
1:27:28
the cold so
1:27:34
we'll just pause for two minutes to allow you to take a cup of coffee and warm up
1:28:12
uh
1:29:33
so sorry my apologies
1:29:50
uh
1:30:32
okay excellent thank you so we'll we'll move
1:30:39
on to now agenda item number 11 which is the quarterly progress report
1:30:46
um i'd like to handle this item
1:30:52
as we've done before by uh breaking up the discussion into the various work
1:31:00
streams given they're they're so various so we will deal with
1:31:07
transport skills smart work stream housing economy and environment
1:31:12
separately um and i would therefore like to start by uh inviting
1:31:21
neve matthews who's the assistant director of strategy and program to introduce this report starting if you
1:31:28
would with the transport works uh stream there are various
1:31:34
recommendations um which are associated with
1:31:39
this item which are on page 323 of your agenda so neither as you go to
1:31:47
the relevant item if you could make sure that we are aware of the associated recommendation that would be
1:31:53
very helpful so okay thank you thank you chair
1:31:58
uh so uh i normally kind of run run through the um recommendations and then
1:32:04
pick up any any questions at the end if that's uh that's okay with you um so so just
1:32:10
to do that um item a uh as as you'll see starting on page 323 of
1:32:16
your pack um asks the board to uh to note that the gcp's assurance
1:32:23
framework has recently been updated jointly by officers and officials at mhclg and
1:32:31
really this is a procedural point as the assurance framework is kind of a live document it contains the details
1:32:39
and information around the expectations of government in terms of national guidance uh that public bodies such as ours need
1:32:46
to follow so really for the board to note that it's been updated uh in it to ensure it reflects up-to-date
1:32:54
governance arrangements and recently changed national guidance um
1:32:59
that that comes from that comes from government around project project assessment and so as it says in
1:33:05
the framework and it will continue to be reviewed on an annual basis to ensure it continues to reflect those
1:33:10
kind of updates um and local decision making arrangement arrangements
1:33:15
um in line with national guidance
1:33:21
item b uh where officers are asking the board to a agree the request to extend the center
1:33:28
for business research at work until november 2022 and
1:33:33
at a cost of 60k members will see from sections 8.2 and 8.5
1:33:39
uh of the of the report and that we there's there's an overview there and a kind of summary of the key
1:33:45
findings um just to kind of touch on on on some of those and the work kind of seeks to analyze
1:33:52
the growth of employment in different sectors across cambridge and really the idea is that the work will enable local partners to
1:33:58
have this kind of robust timely data on local sectors and businesses um it's entirely unique and not
1:34:05
available anywhere else um which i know that members have um have have really liked the sound of
1:34:12
from previous uh from previous work on this and it takes the form of a kind of series of updates
1:34:17
uh analyzing um data drawn from company accounts over over time
1:34:22
and so it really specifically focuses in on those uh local sectors uh particularly in the
1:34:28
light of of what covert 19 may or may not um do do to our economy
1:34:34
um so yeah as i said given how unique and kind of useful this this is we're asking the board to um extend it for another another four
1:34:41
data draws and the final recommendation in front of you um item c
1:34:46
asks the board to approve the proposed allocation of 150k from the city access budget for a secure
1:34:53
cycle parking match funding pilot some members will see from section 8.6
1:34:59
the detail um of of this work but just as a quick overview and to remind the board last year the
1:35:06
executive board agreed and that the city access project should support the creation of additional
1:35:11
secure cycle parking proposals have been developed for publicly accessible facilities in the
1:35:16
city centre alongside this work it's proposed that the gcp runs a match funding pilot to support workplaces to
1:35:24
install secure cycle parking facilities and i think people know a lack of secure
1:35:31
cycle parking parking is a real barrier to people cycling in particular to the uptake of e-bikes
1:35:37
and and you know the evidence is saying that new secure cycle facilities will encourage employees um
1:35:43
to to cycle instead of um instead of driving their cars the proposed match funding pilot would
1:35:49
offer grants to workplaces of kind of 25 to 50 of the cost of secure
1:35:54
cycling facilities with a cap of around 10k per scheme um in exceptional financial
1:36:01
circumstances an award of up to 75 could be made the type of facilities that could be installed
1:36:07
uh could include kind of bike blockers bike hangers lockable bike stores cycle cages and hubs with
1:36:15
swipe card entries secure gate uh and fencing as well as kind of lighting and
1:36:20
cctv and so for the proposed pilot the gcp would run at least one
1:36:25
funding round um where workplaces would be invited to submit applications for grants
1:36:31
there'd be a scoring process and following that officers would work with shortlisted workplaces and
1:36:37
to work through the kind of design um uh to refine proposals before a final
1:36:43
application would be made and the proposed budget as i said is 150k
1:36:49
um which should work to support a kind of range of businesses to to install these facilities and actually
1:36:55
test appetite for a wider potential scheme and so subject to executive board of
1:37:02
approval um officers would aim to invite bid for match funding over the summer with successful applicants installing
1:37:08
facilities from kind of autumn time and chair that was a summary of specific items
1:37:15
so very happy to take questions on those um or leave you to run through the
1:37:20
sections as you suggested yeah no well let's uh let's let's pause there thank you very much uh and if i could just now ask uh
1:37:27
councillor bick to sort of maybe give us the joint assembly's overall reaction
1:37:33
uh to those recommendations and then we will go through uh sort of section by section okay
1:37:39
thank you chad i'll just make one contribution um because you don't want to bring me in
1:37:45
and out more than necessary but um we did support the um two specific
1:37:51
recommendations in relation one in relation to the center for business research and the other in relation to
1:37:57
the um the allocation for the pilot project on secure cycle parking there was
1:38:04
a question that i will convey to you about could could charities and
1:38:11
community groups be eligible to participate in the secure cycle parking match funding project
1:38:18
which i'd like to put on the table for you and just to avoid me coming back during
1:38:24
the later discussion we did
1:38:29
want to record our congratulations to the work on skills um the form the future
1:38:37
contract which seems to have delivered a performance which exceeds the kpis
1:38:45
that they had which um in a very difficult employment environment right now
1:38:50
seems to be um an important thing to note and encourage and then finally we wanted to welcome
1:38:57
the fact that the forward plan at the back of this report has been adjusted to reflect um
1:39:06
agreement that we want to bring forward the city access strategy discussion for for focused attention in september
1:39:14
so those were our comments thank you very good thank you very much um before we proceed would need would
1:39:20
you like to just answer that question about the sort of extension of the scheme to charities and community groups yup thank
1:39:27
you chair absolutely possible yes great thank you very much okay um
1:39:35
so as i said what i'd just like to do is sort of go through systematically so we sort of don't jump all over the place
1:39:42
uh in terms of the items so if we could just start with um the transport work stream and any
1:39:48
comments on the secure cycle path the cycle path cycle parking proposal
1:39:54
claire just to say that cycle parking is essential if people are
1:40:00
to move particularly to very expensive electric bikes they're not going to leave their batteries lying around
1:40:05
and they are very heavy to carry stacial the station cycle parking last night was alarmingly
1:40:12
empty from which i concluded either everybody's got in their cars instead of parking their bikes at the station
1:40:19
or they're taking their bikes on trains which isn't very desirable either or all the bikes were stolen yesterday
1:40:25
one or one of those but anything we can do to help security of cycle parking is a very good thing and i
1:40:32
support it thank you lisa can i ask a question it might be a sort of newbie question so i
1:40:38
apologize in advance for that but as part of the pilot is there going to be any conversation with the
1:40:44
businesses large community groups that take part and it seems you know it's quite a lot of money that
1:40:49
were given them and it sounds you know it sounds like it could have quite a lot of really good effects of what kind of other facilities they
1:40:56
might like to include other than because i suppose some of it they will have to fund themselves
1:41:02
if there's any sort of pattern emerging about other facilities
1:41:07
other than cycle parking that are needed by businesses to encourage their employees to cycle in i am thinking you know something my own
1:41:14
workplace has done in terms of providing changing rooms and showers and things
1:41:20
because for anybody cycling more than a couple of miles you start having those problems if you're then expected to look
1:41:25
pristine and in a suit very quickly after you've got off your bike and also you know things like
1:41:32
accessories that you might need for example if you want to have things that you need to use
1:41:38
to repair your bike or add um you know or sort of pump your wheels you know those kinds of things because
1:41:44
those are all things that came up in my own personal experience and i was wondering whether um there might be information to be
1:41:50
gleaned from what businesses tell you about that yes i i believe that the scope of this is quite wide but
1:41:56
neith do you want to just answer that question here yeah i think we'd absolutely take it as an opportunity to to have
1:42:02
that engagement with businesses uh to understand those sorts of issues absolutely right
1:42:07
yep very good okay so any other lewis sorry um i'm hope i'm within the
1:42:14
way you're structuring it um chisholm trail i just want assurance
1:42:20
that in the better management that we now have that we're working to a budget and whilst i'm speaking chair
1:42:30
um the other red rag or red rat rag to a bull um
1:42:36
was the blocking of the work that was underway in residence parking so i just hope that there's a dialogue with
1:42:44
including the chair of the highways and transport committee with the hope that we could restart work
1:42:52
on a range of small but very valuable contributors to
1:42:57
a successful city centre and wider access project and i think quite a lot of residents in
1:43:04
cambridge are waiting for the block to be unblocked on that so first
1:43:09
of all you're absolutely spot on in terms of the structure of the debate thank you thank you very much i realized
1:43:15
that i probably overly complicated the situation so mr blake would you like to respond thank you yes we're working
1:43:21
closely with county colleagues on both of those issues so chisholm trail in accordance with the decision that this board took
1:43:27
in december and in terms of the integrated parking
1:43:32
strategy that we've agreed with the with the county council and exploring residence parking is part of
1:43:38
that and can you commit to working within the budget that we've now got for the
1:43:43
chisholm trail to complete it we are working closely with county colleagues to ensure that happens
1:43:50
you should be a politician mr blake
1:43:55
excellent all right thank you i i just before we move on to the skills i'd just like to also um sort of add my
1:44:02
uh um support for the extension of the proposal on secure cycle parking to
1:44:11
charities and community groups i think that's most welcome
1:44:16
moving on to skills which which interesting i'll just sort of note that
1:44:22
this is another area which is going to be very closely associated with the work of the combined authority
1:44:28
and uh i know we've our officers have uh have worked very very well with
1:44:35
combined authority and it's obviously a huge area of focus for us and we've significantly increased
1:44:43
the amount of resources in this coming cycle of the contract with uh for the
1:44:50
future uh on apprenticeships and so forth which is which is most welcome and they are
1:44:56
they are as the assembly pointed out delivering really well on on this most important
1:45:03
agenda is any other comments from board members on this list um well just to welcome that and i think
1:45:10
also um it's it's not been a gcp that's been
1:45:15
targeted but there's been some really unpleasant and um totally unjustified
1:45:21
attacks in social media about staff for instance in our planning service from people
1:45:28
who believe that they can just use social media to attack um and i just i just think that the
1:45:34
skills agenda is an indication of just the range of work that's done and also
1:45:40
as you've said the importance of the partnership so i i pay tribute to the work
1:45:46
and it's one of the areas i supported the previous mayor on was the work on the skills and business development agenda and it
1:45:54
really is important post covid i some of my fears about the
1:45:59
cambridge economy have been laid but there are there are hundreds of
1:46:05
people who don't have jobs that did have jobs in retail and other
1:46:10
sectors and the hospitality sector will recover but it's struggling and
1:46:16
quite a lot of businesses are also completely dislocated in different ways so
1:46:22
i do think that the work by form the future but also this wider support for business research is
1:46:29
vital because we we are not just high tech in this city and we have to make sure
1:46:35
that the skills and the business research assists the sectors that have been
1:46:40
struggling including quite a large number of small businesses who've just about
1:46:45
kept their themselves afloat thanks thank you
1:46:52
yeah just to sort of follow on from the comments there from councillor herbert um i realize as a mayor i've only been
1:46:58
in post for two months and a lot has been made about decisions
1:47:03
around affordable housing and developments and indeed transport plans but it would be wrong with me to
1:47:10
not acknowledge the success of the combined authority in terms of the skills agenda
1:47:16
and particularly the team who although it's not particularly relevant to this group in terms of the greater cambridge
1:47:22
area you know we now have a new university in conjunction with
1:47:27
anglia ruskin university and i think that demonstrates that there is a real push within the combined authority to
1:47:33
work with all agencies including yourselves to deliver improved opportunities in
1:47:39
terms of skills and education in terms of the adult education budget and i would just draw attention to
1:47:47
the work of marmot in terms of looking at opportunities when people have had over
1:47:54
the course of the last year and a half in terms of the covert pandemic and we can do all we can
1:47:59
to improve the health outcomes for people but it was the people who were the most vulnerable the most uh coming from the
1:48:05
most deprived communities and it's not a case of that just fixing health in terms of improved diabetes control
1:48:12
improved respiratory management of those issues it actually comes down to improved opportunities
1:48:18
for those people who have access to employment who have opportunities to live in improved
1:48:23
housing that's where you see the real public health outcomes so absolutely although i'm absolutely focused on
1:48:29
improvement in public health outcomes it comes by recognizing that many factors affect your health
1:48:35
and one of those is skills and that is an absolute focus of the combined authority working with you going forward
1:48:42
thank you very much phil sorry just a quick i should have um
1:48:48
declared an interest as a center for business research as part of the university of cambridge even though i have no connection with them okay thank you
1:48:55
noted okay excellent um that's a
1:49:02
very very important area and it's it's gratifying and to to see such progress on that um if we
1:49:08
could just go on now to any comments or questions relating to the smart work stream
1:49:16
um just so you've had a lot of fun driving around in the shuttles so you
1:49:23
might see them going past and one important comment i've had quite a few questions about how accessible they are
1:49:30
to um wheelchair users for example and the third shuttle is accessible
1:49:36
it was a question of the motor from italy not coming through the post brexit horror or something the reason the
1:49:42
previous ones weren't okay thank you and uh and well done for
1:49:47
the launch event claire uh on the on the autonomous vehicles as well uh
1:49:54
any comments questions on housing
1:50:00
okay so let's uh turn to the economy and environment workstream
1:50:06
which also includes that that recommendation on the extension of
1:50:11
the work for the center for business research um any comments or questions relating to
1:50:16
that it's the just to remind you it's an additional sixty thousand uh pounds which is our contribution
1:50:24
which will extend the work until november 2022 claire just say i fully support
1:50:29
that it's useful work and if we're aiming mostly at job increase and opportunity increase then
1:50:34
it's really important to be able to measure that so i support that the other very important part of this
1:50:40
report is the energy grid project and i know it's not a topic on the agenda today but just to
1:50:46
hope that that is still going smoothly and we're making progress with ukpn
1:50:54
any officer like to update someone uh i'm happy to come in on that one because i chair the project board and can reassure
1:51:01
members that it is progressing well and we have submitted our application to ukp
1:51:08
excellent any other comments i'd just like to add my support to the center for business
1:51:14
research is it is a really useful report to see such granularity about what is actually
1:51:21
happening in our local economy and as councillor herbert it does
1:51:27
feed into some of the decisions around skills and sort of emphasize uh the the nature of the challenge which
1:51:34
we're facing as a local economy so i welcome that too as well
1:51:39
good um any other comments before we we move on to the actual recommendations
1:51:46
okay excellent so so the recommendations uh you have uh in front of you
1:51:54
are on page let's get this right
1:52:03
yeah sorry appendix one is is shining in my eyes here and we have a
1:52:10
couple of red red um aspects there so campbell to cambridge has been paused we know for quite a long
1:52:17
time the next stage is um more consultation as ever
1:52:23
but it would be great to hear from the mayor i'm sorry to ask you again directly whether pausing
1:52:30
or carrying on to the next stage because we've we've got c2c and we've got cset both likely
1:52:37
to go red if we're not careful and do do we have agreement that we're trying
1:52:42
to progress these onto amber and then green
1:52:49
as i said before i am supportive of the idea of busways i appreciate the final decision sits
1:52:56
with the gcp about routing and everything but with a focus on a franchising bus service and making
1:53:03
sure that we transport people not just around cambridge city but from populations
1:53:08
on the outer ring road of the cambridge city i recognise that busways may well be an option in this
1:53:15
area but i would obviously recognize final routes need to be decided carefully in consultation with the communities
1:53:24
i think that's probably all i have to say to the matter and just on the residential parking i
1:53:30
think we understand that that has been delayed whilst the pandemic happens and everything else but
1:53:35
again are we likely to see progress on that okay i think that was similar to the
1:53:41
point um councillor herbert made earlier on so we're in we're in positive discussions with county colleagues about progressing
1:53:47
that
1:53:52
okay excellent okay so um if we can move to
1:53:59
uh the the recommendations uh which are essentially three to
1:54:05
note the revised assurance framework to the extension for the
1:54:10
center for the business research work at the cost of 60 000 and the approve the allocation of 150
1:54:17
000 for the secure parking cycle parking match funding pilot can we
1:54:24
just all those in favor of that okay phil were you
1:54:32
i am but i didn't want to vote on the you're so so you will abstain so that's the voting member is all
1:54:39
unanimous though so thank you very much indeed so that is uh that is carried um we're five to twelve
1:54:47
um we've reached the end of the first part of the agenda so i think we will stop here and we will
1:54:54
reconvene at one o'clock thank you very much indeed and i know the mayor will
1:54:59
probably have to leave us now i thank you very very much indeed for making the timeout for your schedule to join us much appreciated
1:55:06
and we look forward to seeing you at the next meeting
2:01:00
okay um good afternoon everyone i'd like to start the afternoon
2:01:09
session this executive board of the greater cambridge partnership particularly like to welcome members of
2:01:15
the public to our meeting and those in person and also those who are listening to the
2:01:20
live stream i've been made aware that there are periodic periodic
2:01:26
interruptions to the live stream which we apologize for i'm afraid that's a function of the
2:01:33
setup of the wi-fi in the building it will reconnect but if there is any
2:01:40
loss you can be assured that the recording of the full proceedings will be
2:01:45
made available to you um i just wanted to
2:01:52
also um for those who weren't present this morning just to acknowledge that we
2:01:57
had uh the presidents of dr nick johnson uh this morning
2:02:03
uh at uh at the executive board um he rearranged his uh
2:02:10
timetable his agenda to be here this morning unfortunately he couldn't extend that to
2:02:15
this afternoon for which he sends his apologies but he's he made some general remarks to the
2:02:23
executive board and i think most importantly he expressed his
2:02:29
desire to sort of work with the executive board gcp and express support for our wider
2:02:36
program including busways and looking forward to working with us on progressing them so his presence was
2:02:44
very welcome this morning and we look forward to his continued presence at subsequent
2:02:50
meetings so with that we'll move on to
2:02:56
agenda item number 12 which is on page 357 of the agenda this
2:03:04
is an item relating to the independent audit and first of all i
2:03:10
would like to invite phil swann welcome i mean phil swan and john sutton uh who carried
2:03:18
out the independent audit they are sitting here with us um and the way i propose to take this
2:03:25
item is to essentially um ask the um quite get so there's a few
2:03:34
questions which we've had pertaining to the independent audit from the public i would like to sort of deal with those
2:03:40
first and get those addressed by mr swan and mr sutton
2:03:46
before we move on to the public questions which relate to the broader recommendations
2:03:54
we have a lot of questions on this item i have decided that we will do them in
2:04:02
blocks so that we we deal with five questions four or five questions at a
2:04:08
time and then i will ask mr blake to
2:04:13
deal with those questions before we move on to the next the next block for those questioners who
2:04:20
are here in public i would really ask that you you try and keep your time for your
2:04:27
questions as as as crisp as you can we do have a lot of questions and i would like to
2:04:32
sort of keep the balance appropriate between the time spent asking the questions and
2:04:37
the time spent answering them so um let us start with the
2:04:45
uh the public questions and i would like to ask the officers to read out
2:04:52
three public questions which relate to the independent audit by dr marilyn
2:05:00
tracy alan tracy and terry spencer the last of these questions is basically
2:05:08
three parts of which two relate to general recommendations and one relates
2:05:14
to the audit so uh mr swan and mr sutton will respond
2:05:19
to the question the part of the question relating to the independent audit and
2:05:25
then mr blake will address the other parts of that question in the first response to subsequent
2:05:32
questions so could i ask the officer to officers to please
2:05:37
read out those three questions
2:05:42
this question is from dr marilyn tracy i would like to ask the following question at the exec board first july
2:05:49
under agenda item 12. residents of west cambridge and beyond continue to be concerned about the lack of
2:05:55
justification for the gcp proposed route through the greenbelt over mattingly hill
2:06:01
which will forever damage this valuable landscape and open it up to urbanization
2:06:06
whilst the c2c audits was being carried out cotton parish council employed an independent firm of transport
2:06:12
consultants of national repute to examine the issues their report was submitted to the audit
2:06:18
they concluded that there is insufficient evidence to date to confirm that suitable alternatives
2:06:24
potential alignment via the a428 and guertin interchange and potential on highway options have
2:06:31
been assessed to the to the degree that one can conclude that they do not afford greater protection to
2:06:37
the green belt which is fundamental to the context of the twa process under which c2c will be considered they
2:06:44
added it is strongly recommended that the constraints relating to the consideration of alternatives
2:06:50
are reconsidered on a more equitable and transparent basis they concluded without further work on
2:06:57
the above listed issues the scheme assumptions and constraints are not robust and do not withstand scrutiny and those
2:07:03
shortcomings will undoubtedly be exposed in any twa process
2:07:09
question why are the gcp attempting to progress this scheme again without having examined alternatives in
2:07:15
more depth and why did the independent auditor not pick up on this point
2:07:22
the second question from alan treacy reads as follows the business case for
2:07:28
the c2c preferred route is weak with a bcr of 0.43 to 0.48
2:07:37
this is without any adjustment within the outline business case for cancellation of the cam resulting in
2:07:43
a busway which terminates at grange road without any prospect of further rapid
2:07:49
access through the city the possibility of 30 to fifty percent
2:07:54
of potential passengers choosing to travel via east west rail to cambridge
2:07:59
south and the city center and emerging patterns of working from home for office workers
2:08:06
one to three days a week in the future these factors are bound to adversely
2:08:12
affect the business case for c2c the conclusion of the independent transport consultants
2:08:19
employed by cotton parish council was to recommend that the constraints to this project
2:08:24
should include providing a bcr of at least one to represent an acceptable level of
2:08:30
value for money particularly in the light of the use of government and public funds
2:08:36
how can the gcp justify progressing this scheme with a business case which does not
2:08:42
stack up why did the independent auditor not highlight this issue
2:08:50
this question is from terry spencer the joint assembly failed to mention in
2:08:55
their report that the newly elected mayor for cambridgeshire and peterborough had confirmed that the cam would not
2:09:01
would not proceed one without the cam how exactly does the gcp propose to link buses from the
2:09:08
current terminus of the camborne to cambridge busway at grange road to the three stated destinations the
2:09:15
science park the city centre and the biomedical campus two without details of these connections
2:09:21
the preferred route for the busway scheme will fail to deliver the stated objectives why is the gcp persisting
2:09:28
with this scheme which has received overwhelming opposition by the public the previous mayor for cambridgeshire
2:09:33
and peterborough the local mp and many organizations including the national trust cppf parish councils and the local
2:09:41
liaison forum three how can the independent audit team advise that there is no reason that the
2:09:47
scheme should not proceed when no feasible or sensible routes have been proposed to connect from grange
2:09:53
road to the stated destinations without aggravating congestion in cambridge and without serious environmental city
2:10:00
impacts on pedestrians cyclists and tourists visiting the historic city
2:10:09
okay could i ask is it mr sutton who will respond could i ask mr sutton that you
2:10:16
make it clear which question you're responding to if you as you go through your responses please yes of course yes good afternoon
2:10:22
everybody i'll respond to question 19 which is from
2:10:27
dr marilyn tracy first um she makes a number of
2:10:35
claims in her in her question regarding the audit and the consideration of submissions
2:10:40
that were made the audit considered the input from colton parish council
2:10:46
and the submission made by eye transport including the proposed alternative alignment for
2:10:53
coal-lined route by the a428 and looping south of the curtin interchange
2:11:00
this is reviewed in section 6.6.3 of the independent audit according to
2:11:07
the eye transport report the scheme is a viable option although no evidence is presented
2:11:12
to support this assertion their report recognizes that there would be engineering challenges for the route
2:11:19
they propose with cost implications which are not estimated
2:11:25
alternative route options including those going via gerton interchange have been reviewed at various stages in the
2:11:31
scheme options development process as remarked in audit comment 21 which is in section
2:11:38
6 page 69 of the audit i comment that the c2c scheme
2:11:44
assumptions and constraints are not invalidated by the alternative options
2:11:50
some of which can reasonably claim that they are just as valid it is not the role of the audit to
2:11:55
adjudicate between conflicting options the objectors will have the opportunity to present their alternative route
2:12:01
option to the public inquiry and cross-examine the gcp and its consultants
2:12:06
on the options development and preferred scheme appraisal there is no guarantee for instance that
2:12:13
the co-alignment route scheme proposed by eye transport would perform any better
2:12:18
if subject to a detailed appraisal than the preferred option evaluated in the business case
2:12:26
so that was my answer my response to question 19.
2:12:31
in response to question 26 from alan tracy
2:12:40
he asked why did the independent audience highlight this issue with regard to
2:12:47
objections to the scheme particularly the economic appraisal
2:12:52
the independent audit discussed the economic appraisal including the estimation of the bcr in
2:12:58
section 4.2.1 of the report the the bcr of 0.43
2:13:05
refers to the transport user benefits only which increases to 0.48 when taking
2:13:11
account of agglomeration benefits in the corridor in line with transport appraisal
2:13:17
guidance guidance from the department of transport and hm treasury the business case
2:13:23
estimates the wider economic impact impacts which increases to increases the
2:13:29
bcr to 1.47 which has increased further to 3.48 with
2:13:35
cambridge uh sorry greater cambridge additional benefits
2:13:40
the issues surrounding city center access from grange world are reviewed in section 3.3 of the audit
2:13:47
which identifies this as a weak link in the c2c project and more widely the cambridge
2:13:53
better public transport programme this is acknowledged as a key constraint by the gcp and the combined authority
2:14:00
which is partially addressed in the recent city access policy of soft measures to improve bus
2:14:05
movements further measures will be required if bus accessibility is to max the ambitions
2:14:11
of the better public transport project regarding east-west rail claims are made
2:14:18
in several submissions that east-west rail will replace the need for the busway without any evidence being provided
2:14:25
support to support this assertion it is likely that east west rail will
2:14:30
abstract some travel demand in the corridor which is why the audit recommends in section 5.2
2:14:37
that the east west rail be brought into the appraisal process to evaluate the impact on the c2c scheme
2:14:46
moving on to the third question of question 27 from terry spencer and it's the third part of
2:14:52
that question which i will respond to this is related to the same issue about
2:15:01
city center access from grange road and my answer really
2:15:06
reflects the previous answer that was made in in response to uh the question from alan alan tracy so
2:15:13
i don't really have anything further to add to that um only to say that um
2:15:19
despite the problems with the city centre access
2:15:25
the assumptions of constraints relating to the growth of travel movements in the kanborn
2:15:30
to cambridge corridor remain valid thank you thank you thank you mr sun
2:15:35
maybe it is easier now if uh mr blake you'd answer the residual two
2:15:41
points and uh in mr tracy mr spencer's question thank you chair um so cam bond
2:15:48
to cambridge will be adopting the approach of the existing guided busway so at grange road it will move on road
2:15:54
for movements to the city centre and other employment nodes this will be enhanced by city access
2:16:00
proposals which we've discussed this morning will be coming back to to this board and the joint assembly in in september
2:16:07
in terms of the second point around objections the evidence does not support overwhelming opposition to the scheme
2:16:13
cambodia cambridge is part of a strategy that will ensure the delivery of
2:16:18
sustainable local planned growth across the greater cambridge area thank you chair
2:16:25
thank you mr blake okay so i'd now like to move on from the independent audit to
2:16:32
uh general questions which relate to uh the item and to the recommendations
2:16:39
and i'd like to ask people who are here in present to ask
2:16:45
come forward and answer ask their questions uh if we could start please with mr gabriel fox
2:16:53
welcome thank you for joining us thank you very much um i've been doing
2:17:00
this for at least six years which is kind of uh i think depressing in itself and and i have been asking
2:17:06
i guess the same question the whole of that time why is it necessary to build an off-road section of busway
2:17:12
for the less than two mile stretch between maddingly mulch roundabout and the west cambridge site
2:17:17
at great financial and environmental cost when a simple on-road bus solution for that stretch on the
2:17:24
a1303 would perform just as well at a fraction of the cost initially we
2:17:29
were told that the off-road bus way along that uh two-mile stretch delivered valuable transport
2:17:36
benefits but when they got round to examining it properly gcp's transport officers
2:17:41
conceded that an off-road route across the manningly hill greenbelt landscape would actually have
2:17:46
no significant end-to-end journey time or reliability benefit over a well-designed scheme using the a1303
2:17:54
and they were even kind enough to admit in the outline business case published last year that the most reliable bus
2:18:00
infrastructure in cambridgeshire is not as some had previously claimed the existing cambridgeshire guided busway that mr
2:18:06
blake just referenced north of the city but the intermittent on-road bus lane between ditton walk and napier
2:18:13
street on new market road a busy radial route that is far more challenging in terms of congestion and
2:18:19
junctions than the a1303 on mattingly hill and i emphasize intermittent this is not actually a bus lane that runs con
2:18:25
continuously it is actually broken at places between walk and napier street so once that
2:18:31
excuse was laid to rest we were then told that the off-road stretch was necessary for cam compliance
2:18:38
but now it appears cam is not going to happen so i'm left wondering what is the next
2:18:43
excuse to be used we all across the community want a better bus service between camborne and
2:18:50
cambridge we want a better service that the public can afford to use and we ideally want it to be
2:18:56
evidence-based so my question is when is gcp going to accept that a popular affordable
2:19:03
and highly efficient and quick to implement on-road scheme for that two-mile stretch is the
2:19:09
best way to achieve that i'm afraid i have to kind of dine and dash because i've got another thing so i'm going to be very rude and just
2:19:15
skip that thank you thank you thank you for joining us to answer you ask your question
2:19:20
okay um second question in this block is could i ask councillor marcus gearing please to ask
2:19:27
his question welcome thank you very much
2:19:34
and congratulations chair on your position and your election i'm very concerned my residents are very
2:19:41
concerned about the ctc proposals in particular the public participation
2:19:48
element and i'm afraid to say that we feel that officers intervened and weren't
2:19:56
properly controlled by the politicians on this board
2:20:01
because repeatedly we requested that an lf should be called a local liaison forum
2:20:07
should be convened on the independent assessment instead we were flopped off
2:20:13
by officers saying that there's no material change
2:20:19
coming with the independent assessment and therefore no public participation needs uh
2:20:26
were were necessary however the assessment is now
2:20:32
um used as a precondition to enter the next step of the ctc
2:20:39
planning and under those conditions we can't say it had no significant impact it is clearly a
2:20:46
gateway to the new um to the new phase of the c2c planning and therefore it
2:20:54
would have been right to convene a quick zoom meeting of the llf
2:20:59
my residents my residence associations feel sidelined they didn't feel they had appropriate
2:21:06
interaction with the independent reviewer they were confined to written submissions
2:21:14
while many think that gcp itself had personal interactions
2:21:21
so my question for the board is do you think the right process has been followed
2:21:26
do you think it was right to exclude the possibility of an llf when that llf uh was readily
2:21:34
available via zoom and third do you is the gcp
2:21:42
afraid of public scrutiny thank you
2:21:47
thank you for your question could i now ask miss james littlewood to come
2:21:52
forward and ask his questions
2:21:58
welcome
2:22:04
good afternoon everyone thank you very much for allowing me to speak in person i have two questions and one of them
2:22:10
does relate to the independent audit so i'll ask that first and then i'll ask a separate question about environmental impact assessment so the
2:22:17
the first question is that we submitted a series of questions to yourselves in response to the
2:22:22
independent audit these are too numerous to raise a public question so we would like to just ask one of these publicly
2:22:28
which is will the gcp acknowledge that there are no significant delays westbound along mattingly hill in the evening peak
2:22:36
the audit report page 19 states currently on delay on the a1303
2:22:41
eastbound in the am peak is up to and over 70 slower than average night time speeds this is
2:22:48
mirrored in the westbound pm peak with between 50 to 75 slower speeds than night time average
2:22:54
speeds this appears to be a misquote from the economic case on page 61
2:23:00
which is listed in 3.1 traffic moving at over 75 percent slower traveling into cambridge in the amp
2:23:07
compared to nighttime average speeds between maddening mulch roundabout and the m11 junction part 0.2 traffic exiting the m1 motorway
2:23:16
moving at between 50 and 70 slower compared to night time average in both the am
2:23:21
and pm peak and 0.3 delays occurring in both the am and pm peak with traffic
2:23:27
moving at over 75 percent slower than the night time average speed at the maddingly road park and ride side
2:23:33
neither of the two second points describe the speed of westbound traffic on mattingly hill in the pm peak
2:23:40
our report which we submitted included an analysis of a year's worth of bus travel data published by the gcp itself
2:23:46
on the smart cambridge data hub this demonstrates incontrovertibly that there is no significant delays westbound
2:23:53
along maddingly hill in the evening peak even in the morning peak the pattern of delays is too complex to
2:23:58
be usefully summarized to 75 percent slower and we've provided two graphs with our question
2:24:04
to demonstrate this point my second question relates to the environmental impact assessment
2:24:11
firstly i like to ask how much approximately the environmental impact assessment would cost
2:24:17
and taking into account the independent audit recommendations should the board not have sight of the
2:24:22
updated business case before it considers spending money on the eia and if not could you please explain to
2:24:27
us what the purpose of the business case is when it so far cost eight million pounds if it is not to determine whether the
2:24:33
project is an appropriate way to spend public money thank you
2:24:39
thank you questions okay could i now ask superintendent uh
2:24:46
matthew brown to come forward and ask this question welcome thank you
2:25:05
[Music] thank you so much
2:25:13
so i'll start by reading a short statement and getting to the questions
2:25:18
the mattingly hill landscape is a place of beauty that has been valued by many generations and is worthy of preservation
2:25:26
its stunning view shed extends north towards ely cathedral east towards king college chapel south
2:25:33
over red meadow hill and beyond with the picturesque villages of coten and mattingly nestled on either
2:25:40
side in 1945 u.s army major general lee
2:25:47
requested that mattingly hill become the site of a permanent commemorative cemetery and memorial to honor fallen
2:25:53
u.s service personnel of the second world war specifically because of its natural
2:25:59
beauty and unparalleled view shed the us government asked for
2:26:04
this specific terrain no other terrain in east anglia would do
2:26:10
because this view shed was the key selling point then as it is still today
2:26:18
today the cambridge american military cemetery is a world-renowned monument and a grade one listed landscape by
2:26:24
historic england extending south the unspoiled open countryside located in the greenbelt
2:26:32
is extensively protected by national trust covenants we
2:26:38
are concerned that gcp's proposal to build a tarmac bus route across the south side of the
2:26:45
hill would irreparably damage this unique and precious landscape compromising the
2:26:50
setting of the american military cemetery severing historic community access
2:26:56
routes and paving the way for further urban encroachment in its vicinity
2:27:03
and so my questions to the board include one will the gcp consider
2:27:11
rejecting a scheme that is so manifestly damages damaging to such a sensitive and
2:27:18
internationally recognized landscape my second question is will the gcp
2:27:26
consider properly and impartially assessing the well-characterized alternatives
2:27:32
for improving bus journeys between camborne and cambridge using existing infrastructure and by
2:27:39
that i specifically mean the a428 to the gurton interchange
2:27:45
so thank you chairman i should point out that i am representing both myself as the
2:27:52
superintendent of the american cemetery but also the mattingly parish council the coten
2:27:58
parish council and the cambridge past present and future
2:28:04
thank you gentlemen thank you thank you for your question okay um can i ask mr
2:28:10
blake to respond to all those questions again if you wouldn't mind making it clear
2:28:16
which question you're responding to that would be helpful thank you chair um so
2:28:22
in terms of the question raised by uh gabriel fox the evidence does not support the
2:28:27
assertion that an on-road bus solution performs just as well
2:28:33
we've assessed these route options in accordance with dft requirements all that information is available
2:28:38
online and the best performing route is the route that we are proposing the
2:28:44
idea that an on-road solution could be provided at a fraction of the cost to gain is not supported by the
2:28:51
evidence particularly in the can you hear me particularly in the given the
2:28:58
insufficient space outside of the american cemetery and the triple s i
2:29:03
the independent audit states that alternative route options have been assessed in accordance with department of
2:29:10
transport requirements if i turn to the question from uh
2:29:16
councillor gearing the the outline business case has been discussed at the local liaison forum in january
2:29:22
2020 and then again in june 2020. in the elazion forum on the 8th of
2:29:28
december 2020 we outlined the recommendations for an independent audit of the process
2:29:36
that independent audit audit has been managed by an independent person and phil swann
2:29:41
will will outline his approach in in a minute um that report has been prepared and submitted to the
2:29:48
board as an independent report mr swan met the
2:29:54
chair of the liaison forum twice during the audit process including to to outline the outcomes and
2:30:00
the recommendations in terms of james littlewood's a
2:30:06
question regarding the the eia eia work is yet to be agreed the scope of which is yet to be agreed with
2:30:12
the department for transport and the costs will be identified at that point once we've agreed with them as we are
2:30:17
required to through the prescribed process the independent audit has recommended that the business case
2:30:23
be updated in due course to reflect east west rail covid and other issues
2:30:29
and that will be brought forward at the next stage gate as we're required to do in terms of your
2:30:35
question around um delays westbound uh along along madigan hill at present
2:30:42
the significant westbound delays in the evening peak are mainly to the east of the m11
2:30:48
but traffic is often heavy over mattingly hill and likely to deteriorate given the planned
2:30:54
growth along that corridor particularly along to bourne and to west camborne and then
2:31:01
finally in terms of superintendent brown the gcp has properly assessed the alternatives
2:31:09
both on road and off and these deliberations have included the impact on the american
2:31:16
cemetery and the conclusion is that the southern proposals have less of an impact
2:31:23
than the other options which in part is why they've been discounted
2:31:30
i believe that's meet you thank you very much uh mr blake um i'd just like to ask mr swan whether you
2:31:37
would like to respond to the question about the degree of gcp influence on the independent audit
2:31:44
now or would you like to sort of pick that up when you make your remarks on the process
2:31:49
i'm i'm happy to to comment now
2:31:55
the only content the only contact we have had
2:32:01
with the gcp during this process was to agree the terms of reference with
2:32:07
them which i also discussed with the local liaison forum and the combined authority to obtain
2:32:15
information and evidence from the the um the transport team at the gcp
2:32:21
and i accompanied john sutton to that meeting i also kept you informed of the progress
2:32:30
with the audit but not the content and i briefed you on our conclusions
2:32:36
in a similar time scale to the briefing i provided to the local liaison forum there has been no attempt to influence
2:32:43
the contents of the report whatsoever thank you very much indeed um
2:32:49
i have to uh apologize that i missed um a question from mr pratt uh in my in my list so if i
2:32:56
could invite mr pratten to come forward and first question for the next block my sincere apologies if you'd like to ask
2:33:04
your question is that working actually that works quite well because
2:33:09
my question i very much want to direct at the board and not the officers because i feel that
2:33:16
i want the board to answer the question rather than the officers so it's kind of two parts to my question
2:33:22
the first part has been slightly mentioned in some earlier questions we've been asking for five years
2:33:28
how the buses will get back to grange road from the city's enter destinations all
2:33:34
that time they keep saying city center access study is going to come out it never comes out
2:33:40
the board members must have an opinion of this for themselves they know this is the problem so how do you think the buses are going
2:33:47
to get back from town center to grange road they can't go down lensfield road
2:33:53
unless significant changes are made to the traffic structure there are you the board willing to sign off on
2:33:59
that and persuade your voters that they're willing to accept that or do is there some other option
2:34:05
that you guys know about that we don't know about how are the buses going to get back i don't want to talk to the officers because they're just going to say it's
2:34:11
going to come out of the access study they've been saying that for five years it's time that someone said how the
2:34:17
buses were going to get back the second is my second part of my question concerns the westfield section
2:34:23
of the route are the board members aware that the planning justification in law
2:34:29
given by the uh officers and their consultants is appealing to a speculative piece uh
2:34:36
is making a risky appeal to a uh a loosely replaced related piece of case law
2:34:41
this is highly speculative okay i'd give an analogy if i had it was a farmer who wanted to
2:34:46
develop a piece of greenbelt land i'd be quite happy to take a piece of legal advice where someone said well you've got a 20
2:34:52
chance of getting it through it gets through you win the jackpot if i'm buying a house i want legal
2:34:58
advice that i know is 100 gonna be okay i want my contract to look like all the contracts and everyone else
2:35:04
has signed to sign a house the advice you've been given legally
2:35:09
for the planning for the um section over the west fields is like the former it's not 100
2:35:15
guaranteed to get through therefore there must be a plan b for when that fails
2:35:21
do you guys know what the plan b is okay that's my second question both of
2:35:28
these were mentioned to the auditors and neither were adequately um discussed in the audit um response but
2:35:33
my real question is for the board members on this not the officers okay thank you very much for your question uh
2:35:41
can i now ask um that we go to the next block of four
2:35:47
questions and then we'll deal with all of those questions together um mr
2:35:52
um uh pratt uh your your comments will uh take it on uh
2:35:58
your comments and if you if you hang around uh and listen to the board discussion i i think you'll find those points being
2:36:05
picked up and uh if you were around this morning certainly you would have heard reference to exactly those points uh
2:36:11
as well on city access so if i could just ask for uh the questions to be read out from
2:36:19
mr andrew taylor melanie forbes jane rennick and caroline poscate please
2:36:25
thank you chair this question is from andrew taylor of countryside properties please can you confirm that the gcp
2:36:32
board will approve the decision to move forward with the recommendation regarding the c2c
2:36:37
scheme countryside support the conclusion of the audit that there is no reason not to proceed
2:36:43
to the next stage in the development of the c2c scheme following the publication of the kanban
2:36:49
to cambridge independent audit countryside and its consultant team have reviewed the findings
2:36:55
we support the proposed route for the ctc as recommended through the audit and are
2:37:01
supportive of the gcp reaching a positive decision on this matter
2:37:06
within the bourne airfield new village site the route is consistent with the adopted
2:37:11
spd for the site and the parameters on which scdc resolved to grant permission
2:37:18
earlier this year the delivery of the c2c is important for delivering new community-based transport
2:37:25
options and the two-step stops within the bourne airfield new village will be at the heart of the community
2:37:32
including adjoining the new village centre we look forward to continuing working
2:37:38
with the gcp to support the swift delivery of the scheme which is a key infrastructure project in
2:37:44
the area both of the existing and the new communities which will be developed
2:37:51
this question is from melanie forbes as we emerge from the pandemic we are faced with an ecological disaster
2:37:58
the signs of which are manifest everywhere and every day we know what we have to do and it is a
2:38:04
race against time many organizations are working to create and preserve disappearing
2:38:10
habitats to protect the ecosystem which is to protect the ecosystem which
2:38:15
sustains us the cppf project to create a wetland in cotton provides a local example how then does
2:38:23
the gcp justify destroying protected greenbelt land an important habitats to build an
2:38:29
off-road busway when a faster rail solution is just a few years down the track
2:38:34
and an on-road alternative runs parallel close by in the light of recent changes
2:38:41
and future threats why does the gcp continue to resist a formal comparison
2:38:46
of the off-road and on-road proposals this question is from jane renick
2:38:53
following the conclusions of the independent audit i would like to ask a question concerning the lack of public confidence
2:39:00
in the democratic process that has led to the gcp to progress so unwaveringly with their preferred
2:39:07
route for the cambod cambridge busway i refer to point 3.7 of the joint
2:39:12
assembly feedback it is stated that overall there was a consensus that the scheme should proceed
2:39:19
to the eia stage as some residual areas of concern
2:39:24
such as the impact on hardwick and coton can only be addressed by that means
2:39:30
this infers that the severe environmental impact that the proposed bust way would have on
2:39:37
these two villages is only of residual concern here the use of the word residual suggests
2:39:44
that the e i a stage will yet again merely another sweeping up b another sweeping
2:39:51
up exercise that will in no way lead to any serious reappraisal of the gcp preferred route i would like
2:39:58
to ask how can the residents of hardwick and coten be reassured that this is this is not just another
2:40:05
box ticking exercise that will have no impact on the final decision
2:40:12
this question is from carolyn postgate with reference to feedback from the joint assembly meeting
2:40:18
10th july 2021 agenda page 28 item 5.2 second point
2:40:24
some members welcomed reference to the potential reassessment of the alignment in hardwick
2:40:30
avoiding the need to chop down trees alongside neo's road this was in relation to a statement
2:40:35
from peter blake if this realignment on saint nia's road hardwick is changed to
2:40:40
an on road bus lane instead of a segregated route this leaves the short distance through
2:40:46
the green belt on mattingly hill next to cotton and then through the cambridge westfields
2:40:51
the only fully segregated section in the entire sea to sea route will the board
2:40:57
reconsider the wisdom of wasting huge sums of money on a minimally segregated route that no
2:41:03
longer fulfills its original brief viable alternative routes exist and need
2:41:09
to be examined in greater detail before any final decision is made
2:41:17
okay if i could ask uh mr blake to respond to those questions please thank you thank you i
2:41:22
am going to respond to to mr pratt and recognizing that your comments will be reflected on by the by the board
2:41:28
but in terms of risky and speculative uh the planning advice is not risky nor speculative
2:41:34
if there is no requirement for very special circumstances in the green belt transport
2:41:39
infrastructure is appropriate in the green belt subject to appropriate planning review
2:41:45
and that's the process that we will be following in terms of the existing busway it goes from segregated to on-road and
2:41:52
that is the plan for um for the campbell on the cambridge but again the the conversations we've had
2:41:57
this morning and we will have again in september we'll talk about city access and how the uh traffic levels uh are
2:42:03
better managed for public transport walking and cycling within within the city uh in in terms of um
2:42:10
the andrew taylor uh question that that's a point for the the board to note i think
2:42:16
um in in similar fashion in terms of the question for from melanie forbes so the green
2:42:22
belt point i think is again appropriate um transport infrastructure is appropriate in the green belt subject to
2:42:28
the necessary checks and balances the audit notes that c2c complements east-west rail
2:42:34
particularly with with any further planned growth along that corridor and east-west rail will not serve the communities between canberra
2:42:41
and cambridge um particularly areas like born airfield aka the question we've had
2:42:47
in from from matthew taylor previously and the audit also concludes that alternative
2:42:53
routes have been put forward and considered as we are obliged to do in accordance with department for
2:42:58
transport guidance jane renwick's question the scheme has been developed
2:43:05
with regular input from communities there have been four consultations
2:43:10
over the years along with countless meetings uh and and discussions with stakeholder
2:43:15
groups and and the like the community has contributed and impacted on the on the scheme for
2:43:21
example the location of the park and ride side noise barriers along the
2:43:26
along the 408 changes to the to the detailed design if the decision of the board today is to
2:43:34
restart the scheme and move forward with the with the eia consultation we will be restarting engagement with
2:43:41
uh with the community and the community groups um and again that will also be subject to a statutory eia consultation
2:43:47
that we're obliged to undertake carolyn postgate's question the audit
2:43:52
states that the alternative routes have again have been considered in align with the with guidance
2:43:59
if the sa neons road option is considered and changed as a result of the eia
2:44:04
consultation the majority of the of the proposed cambodia cambridge route will still be off-road
2:44:10
uh reflecting the requirements of the scheme i believe that's
2:44:15
that's the list thank you very much indeed um okay so now we come to
2:44:22
uh the last block of questions which there are three can i ask um not sure who's asking this question
2:44:27
dan dan uh well it's dan strauss and heather ducati anthony carpent and pauline joslin can i ask the
2:44:33
officers to please read those questions out thank you chair this question is from dan strauss and heather duchenne on
2:44:40
behalf of the north newnum residents association over 300 people signed a petition
2:44:48
urging the gcp not to use adams road as the final stage of the c2c busway and
2:44:54
we were pleased to see that these people were listened to can the gcp now consider the safety
2:45:01
of the 6 000 cyclists who use adams road every day and urgently make improvements
2:45:07
to the road which should include traffic calming and removing the parking
2:45:14
this question is from anthony carpen please can the greater cambridge partnership set out what detailed discussions they
2:45:21
have had with stagecoach regarding the cambridge access element of the bus ways program
2:45:27
in particular with regards to one what happens to busway buses from
2:45:32
camborne that reach grains road two what happens to sea set buses when
2:45:38
they reach aden brooks three how are you managing the risk of building stranded pieces of transport
2:45:44
infrastructure that previous generations of transport engineers left cambridge with
2:45:50
during the 1960s and 1970s including elizabeth way bridge and
2:45:55
barnwell road dual carriageways mr carpenter has provided some background information which is
2:46:00
available on the published version of these questions and chair i think there's a further question which you didn't list which is
2:46:07
from pauline joslin can the gcp make it clear and formal
2:46:13
that if this scheme is to go ahead then the gcp will be addressing the environmental
2:46:18
sound and visual barrier issues of the proposed busway and the a428 motorway on neitz road
2:46:26
hardwick i remind the gcp that 764 hardwick
2:46:31
residents signed a petition to save our trees on sydney its road we do not want the tree barrier removed
2:46:40
does the gcp acknowledge that hardwick parish council confirms it does not support the off-road c2c
2:46:47
nor the destruction of the tree line between the a428 and the ancient miats road does the gcp
2:46:55
acknowledge that the verifiable online petition on change.org to save the synthetic road
2:47:03
trees has over and fifty signatures will the gcp please confirm that there
2:47:09
are no changes to the nietzsche road carriageway whether the gcp
2:47:14
off-road busway goes ahead or not would the gcp please confirm that the
2:47:20
sustainable pedestrian and cycle path planned for niatz road will continue
2:47:26
regardless of the gcp going ahead or not and finally where can we see the gcp
2:47:33
plans for upgrading the sydney its road footpath please including the start and finish date that
2:47:39
concludes the questions thank you chair thank you can i again ask mr blake to
2:47:44
address those three questions thank you chair uh in terms of north newnam residents association i answered
2:47:51
this at the joint assembly um so we will be bringing forward proposals as part of the combatant
2:47:56
greenway for adams road and we will be in discussions with local residents in the in the near
2:48:02
future in terms of the question from anthony carpin i've already covered the the grange road um sort of issue
2:48:09
um in terms of cambridge south east that will link up with the existing busway passing the new
2:48:15
rail station when it opens in 2025 and the gcp is oppo is proposing
2:48:21
flexible um option with buses uh which means that there will
2:48:26
no creation of stranded assets so assets will not be uh be used going forward you know the
2:48:31
existing bus way is highly successful has double the number of bus services on than when it opened and we expect that
2:48:37
to be the case with these with these services going forward and then finally in terms of pauline
2:48:42
joslin's question should the scheme advance then we will be in discussion with the parish council and other
2:48:50
residents in hardwick on all of these issues uh regarding uh saint niach road
2:48:57
footway cycleway and the like chair thank you thank you mr blake okay
2:49:04
so that uh concludes the question i'd like to thank all of those members of the public who asked the
2:49:09
questions very grateful for the time you've taken in indeed i'd like also to thank all members of
2:49:15
the of the public who've taken the time to uh write to the board members uh on
2:49:21
on this particular item to convey their thoughts and views
2:49:27
okay so um now if i could ask uh chief executive rachel stopard to make
2:49:33
some introductory remarks on this item i would be very grateful thank you
2:49:38
thanks chair um as has already been referred to a number of times um this scheme has been long in
2:49:44
debate uh and subject to a number of delays and opinions about the appropriate route
2:49:51
as a result of that in december last year the executive board agreed to undertake an independent audit
2:49:57
the purpose was to validate the assumptions and constraints that had led to the conclusions of the outline
2:50:03
business case and consider whether they remained valid at that time you also emphasized the
2:50:09
importance of the audit being independent open and transparent for that reason
2:50:15
we appointed an independent person phil swann to oversee the process and act as the point of contact and intermediary
2:50:22
between all stakeholders including the gcp and the independent auditor
2:50:27
therefore i now would like to hand over to phil swan to introduce the audit and outline the process that he undertook thank you
2:50:36
thank you uh good afternoon um i was commissioned to independently
2:50:43
manage the audit um the first task i undertook was to draft
2:50:50
a set of terms of reference for the audit which i discussed with the board the local
2:50:55
liaison forum and the combined authority those terms of reference were published in february
2:51:02
and circulated to local representative bodies and stakeholders with an initial
2:51:09
invitation for them to submit representations to the audit i then commissioned
2:51:17
john sutton as the transport expert to carry out the audit following a
2:51:23
competitive process the gcp was not involved in that
2:51:29
recruitment process in any way but it did follow cambridgeshire county council
2:51:35
procurement rules um neither john nor amy the um
2:51:41
the company he works for have had any previous engagement with the gcp or the c2c scheme
2:51:49
shortly after john was appointed we published a statement on the constraints and the pinning and
2:51:55
assumptions underpinning the c2c outline business case
2:52:01
with a further invitation which was which we published and circulated with a further invitation to local
2:52:07
representative organizations to make submissions to the audit in total
2:52:13
in response to both of those invitations to submit submissions we received around
2:52:18
50 submissions which are listed in the audit and all of which were taken into account in the work we did
2:52:25
um i should now like to repeat the comment i made a few minutes ago which is that there
2:52:33
has been no attempt by anybody including the gcp to influence the content of the audit or
2:52:41
the conclusions we reached and john will now briefly speak
2:52:47
to the conclusions in the audit
2:52:52
yes thanks phil thank you chair i'll just um briefly summarize the
2:52:59
main conclusions from the audit the audit has concluded that the scheme
2:53:05
is in alignment with national regional and local policies on the economy and transport
2:53:12
stakeholder engagement has been carried out in a robust manner and the business case development
2:53:17
followed the hm treasury green book and the department for transport transport appraisal guidelines
2:53:24
methodology the appraisal has been carried out in a robust manner
2:53:30
and the economic analysis and financial case remain valid
2:53:35
the environmental impact of the scheme is mixed and the validity of some of the assumptions
2:53:40
need to be investigated further as part of the environmental impact assessment which would form part of the next stages
2:53:49
a number of alternative route options have been put forward and have been examined in the audit
2:53:55
it is important to stress however that the business case must balance local concerns with the wider strategic goals
2:54:02
the gcp has followed the national guidance on appraisal such as this overall the audit has
2:54:09
confirmed that the key constraints and assumptions on which to see to see business cases based
2:54:14
remains valid there have however been some significant changes in the wider context
2:54:20
including the impact of corvid 19 the increasing importance of climate change
2:54:26
the government's new bus policy east-west rail and the camp scheme
2:54:31
these factors will have to be taken into account in the next stages of developing the c2c scheme it has been argued that
2:54:39
progress with the c2c scheme should be delayed to consider the cam
2:54:44
and the east-west rail projects this audit has concluded that the case for delay is not strong
2:54:50
and has been significantly weakened as a result of the increasing uncertainty about cam in the light of statements of the
2:54:56
incoming mayor so the overall conclusion of the audit is that there is no reason why the
2:55:02
executive board of the gcp should not proceed to the next stage in the development of the c2c scheme
2:55:09
thank you thank you very much mr sutton okay so um i would like at this point to
2:55:18
uh just now turn to uh discussion amongst the the
2:55:24
the board and clarification of any questions which board members have
2:55:30
or indeed questions which came or comments from the joint assembly on the audit report and then as a
2:55:37
separate part of this item we'll go on and talk about the substantive recommendations so first of all if i'll
2:55:44
just invite mr bick are there any comments from the joint assembly relating to the independent audit which
2:55:49
you would like to pass on um yes i hadn't expected to separate the
2:55:56
two but indeed if you wish if you wish to if you wish to if you wish to amalgamate them that's that's okay
2:56:01
i'll i'll do that i think um uh so chair the um phil swann and john
2:56:07
sutton both attended the assembly a few weeks ago um and there they also
2:56:14
responded to questions from public questioners and from members of the assembly um
2:56:21
the consensus of the assembly was that the the audit had been
2:56:28
conducted along the principles of independence which they had hoped for
2:56:36
and that was questioned and explored with them um and the consensus was also that the
2:56:42
audit report does provide an assurance that it would
2:56:48
be appropriate to proceed with the next stage of this project
2:56:54
the assembly did support the recommendations that um that you were
2:57:01
going to consider today and they did so with varying degrees of enthusiasm and
2:57:09
reluctance as the as is written in my report um but that was um with some considerable
2:57:18
degree of consensus nevertheless and i think the the reason for that was
2:57:25
that there is a recognition of what has been described as the wider strategic
2:57:30
goals that this project is seeking to um to achieve um of providing fast and
2:57:37
efficient sustainable public and active transport to the growing new communities meeting
2:57:44
housing needs on the west side of cambridge the um
2:57:52
the the um we welcomed the fact that um the the audit um
2:57:59
had uh pointed out um that by proceeding
2:58:05
the gcp should and could combine that with further study
2:58:12
of the number of related factors which i think is the main reporter
2:58:18
acknowledged as subject to change um in this corridor um such as the future of the cam the
2:58:26
impact of east west rail um the implications of of covid about
2:58:32
climate change and policy for that about national bus policy and i think that we were
2:58:38
pleased to um we got that advice that um that the shutters did not go
2:58:45
down on considering um those elements um of that contribute to this part uh
2:58:52
project um just because we were going to proceed to the next stage so we
2:58:57
we welcome that and um and i do think in that context that um we
2:59:04
we would be pleased um to see your recommendations c
2:59:09
um extended um to add to the list of factors that are
2:59:15
listed there integration with the emergent
2:59:22
city access strategy it's been the subject of some of the
2:59:27
public questions we're talking here about a list of other factors which
2:59:33
are in motion and can be subject to change whilst we proceed with this project i
2:59:40
think we have to acknowledge that the city access strategy is one of those and i think it
2:59:45
should be i would really request the board to to add that to the list and recognize that um
2:59:54
the the city access strategy needs to integrate with that and it is only an emergent strategy
3:00:00
and so it does need to be added to that list and dealt with in the same way we also felt that um
3:00:07
by moving the next to the next stage it would be welcome that the
3:00:14
environment environmental impact assessment could take place particularly because it does enable
3:00:21
the areas of environmental sensitivity in areas like hardwick and coten to be
3:00:29
properly and importantly practically explored because we feel that a lot has been
3:00:35
asserted a lot has been said in very general terms about those subjects and only when we get to the
3:00:41
environmental impact assessment are we going to be able to evaluate the practical issues there
3:00:49
and how they can be mitigated and accommodated so you've got the whole lot of comments
3:00:56
from the assembly there but the broad consensus was that the recommendations
3:01:04
hopefully if you will agree to amendment then then that would be good um should be should be supported
3:01:09
thank you thank you thank you councillor bick um we will we will just log your uh
3:01:17
suggestion on the recommendation and and return to that uh in a minute um thank you for your comments um so can
3:01:24
i can i now just invite um members of the executive board to uh if they have any questions of
3:01:29
clarification or uh for for uh mr sutton um mr swamp to please do so
3:01:42
okay uh no just to thank mr sutton for his piece of work okay i have a i i'd also like to thank
3:01:50
you but before doing so can i just uh it's your last as your last uh
3:01:56
element just i have a few questions which are really just to make sure that
3:02:03
my understanding of the of the conclusions of the report are clear
3:02:08
this was a report undertaken by the board as a very important part of this of this
3:02:15
process in recognition of the of the time which had elapsed uh since
3:02:20
this piece of work had started and also uh the dynamics of what's actually happening in this
3:02:26
in this corridor so just got a couple of questions which i'd like to uh if you could sort of confirm for me
3:02:33
um what is your your view east west rail has come up in a lot of the correspondence
3:02:39
i've received a lot of the questions a lot of the uh comments we've had is east west rail in
3:02:45
your opinion likely to enhance or detract from c2c in terms of
3:02:51
its strategic objectives in its business case
3:02:56
yes thank you for your questions um there is still an uncertainty on the
3:03:02
east west rail and the station location at camborne and therefore the potential impact of
3:03:08
east west rail on the c2c scheme is still uncertain for this reason the
3:03:15
audit recommended that east west rail should be brought into the appraisal framework
3:03:21
in the final business case given the amount of housing and employment planned in the corridor
3:03:27
potentially boosted further by east west rail station in north carolina the two projects are complementary and
3:03:34
serve different travel markets albeit with some overlapping
3:03:41
hence its inclusion in our recommendations is a sort of parallel off of further work if i may can i just
3:03:49
ask one other question which is also came up in one of the questions directly which is which is the impact on of covid on
3:03:58
long term travel plans and and do you feel that that impact has sort of
3:04:05
you know changed materially the assumptions underlying the business case to the extent that they're no
3:04:11
longer really valid
3:04:18
[Music] without being disrespectful i think this is one of those known unknowns
3:04:24
and there is uncertainty on future travel that may impact all modes the audit reviewed the latest evidence
3:04:30
and concluded that the risk to bus travel is less than rail travel so if anything the fallout from kovite 19
3:04:38
is likely to affect rail more than bus including east-west rail
3:04:43
it is also worth noting that the government regards buses as an important element in recovering
3:04:48
from the pandemic as evident in the bus back better national bus strategy launched in march
3:04:54
the audit recommended that assumptions regarding future travel demands in the corridor should be
3:04:59
subject to more scenario testing but at present the underlying assumptions remain valid in the corridor
3:05:05
and there is no reason to pause its progress in the next stage of planning thank you thank you um the next question
3:05:14
is again regarding questions which were raised about onward travel
3:05:22
do you feel that the strategic case is is sort of missing
3:05:28
i think a missing link was used to describe the sort of absence of clarity on the
3:05:34
onward travel in central cambridge well as has already been
3:05:42
mentioned here this is the wheat link in the c2c scheme and more generally
3:05:47
for the better public transport project the outline business case is focused on
3:05:52
the corridor from grange road to camborne and access to the city centre is subject to ongoing work in the gcp
3:05:59
city access policy the audit remarks that further measures are required to
3:06:04
enhance bus access to the city center and the gcp and the combined authority
3:06:10
should work more closely in developing solutions okay thank you
3:06:15
i just got two two more questions which really go to um also the questions and again some of
3:06:21
the the uh interventions which we've we've had and emails which we've had
3:06:29
relating to sort of alternate routes um firstly we're getting regarding sort of
3:06:37
the a1303 and prioritization do you feel that or do you consider that the gcp
3:06:42
in its work overstated any of the constraints or made any invalid assumptions that caused it to reject
3:06:48
those options as a viable long-term solution for the strategic objectives
3:06:58
are you referring to the northern route the the ata 1303 a1303 the prioritization
3:07:05
schemes oh okay so the bus priority measures along the 8th 1303
3:07:12
are short-term measures that are incapable of coping with the additional traffic generated by the
3:07:18
proposed housing and employment growth in the corridor once these are delivered
3:07:23
the focus of the of the outline business case is on delivering a solution that works for the short and
3:07:29
the long term the rejection of prioritization measures along the a3 or
3:07:34
1303 may have been overstated in order not to divert resources away from planning a longer-term
3:07:41
solution to meet the travel demands in the corridor the audit concludes that the two are not
3:07:47
mutually exclusive and following the government's bus back better strategy
3:07:53
there is funding available to implement some of the short-term bus priority measures to complement the segregated bus way
3:08:01
thank you my last question regards to the sort of 8428 alignment
3:08:07
and again the similar structure of the question is do you consider the gcp overstated any constraints or made any
3:08:13
invalid assumptions that cause it to reject any option of a428 alignment on the
3:08:18
basis that it will not deliver with the overall strategic objectives of the scheme
3:08:24
this option was evaluated as part of the options development process and not taken forward because it did not
3:08:29
perform as well as other options the evaluation was undertaken as part of the auctioneering process
3:08:35
and the assumptions and constraints applied at that stage were not reviewed in the audit
3:08:40
which focused on the continued validity of the assumptions and constraints for the preferred option in the light of
3:08:46
recent developments such as calm and east west rail so the audit is not in a position to
3:08:52
judge whether earlier assumptions and constraints were overstated and relies on evidence presented in the
3:08:57
online business case and supporting documents okay thank you thank you for
3:09:04
those uh answers okay um now i'd like to move to the substantive part of the report and uh
3:09:12
peter if you would like to mr blake jesus thank you chair uh really i would
3:09:17
just refer the the board to the recommendations uh so if you are content with what you've heard regarding
3:09:23
the uh independent audit the recommendations are to proceed to the next steps as outlined in section 2.1
3:09:31
thank you okay i'd like to invite any members of
3:09:37
the board claire thank you for the paper and for the
3:09:43
audit we desperately wanted an independent audit and we haven't spent enough time with you in
3:09:49
my view actually i would like to spend more time getting your feel for this against our overall objectives
3:09:55
um we've been trying to give options to the workers to the students to the people going on to
3:10:01
tertiary education and opportunities um lower paid school people
3:10:08
university people shop workers john lewis people in particular they don't park in the
3:10:14
grand arcade during the day they park in adams road and they park in story's way
3:10:20
they're fairly beaten up cars that are often parked in those zones so from my point of view i know
3:10:27
it's out of process but it's my last meeting so i'm allowed to do that but actually answering mr pratt's
3:10:32
question i think which was do we as board members have views on some of these things yes we do have views i'd be very
3:10:38
interested in your views since you've looked at this scheme so much so from my point of view when we've
3:10:44
beaten the worst part of the radial route the center of cambridge is often much more
3:10:49
peaceful than the radial route coming into town particularly so the inner part of new market road for
3:10:56
example is often completely uncongested whereas the outer part of new market road is very badly congested
3:11:03
same with the university bus that comes from here and i frequently take it to the station
3:11:08
or to the hospital it works pretty freely from grange road and these buses that come from camborne
3:11:15
bringing people in the worst part of the journey can then continue relatively freely down west road queens road silver
3:11:22
street particularly if we can go to some of the six city access solutions that we've got um to reduce
3:11:28
some of the traffic there you can circle around you can have a one-way route there are ways of getting
3:11:33
the big buses through those parts secondly you can move to smaller vehicles to go off in different
3:11:39
directions if you're not going in the same direction as the main bus from camborne you can use smaller
3:11:45
shuttle buses you could even have a fleet of these dreadful scooters dare i say it
3:11:51
at the bus stop in grange road for people to zip off to somewhere that they wanted to different
3:11:57
connections and access can be used in different ways but overall in london in other busy cities like
3:12:04
paris anywhere else you don't expect to be dropped off right outside your favorite shop
3:12:10
you expect to walk the last bit we're trying to get people to be more active our mayor has said
3:12:15
he wants people to be healthier if people are currently walking from adams road from story's way
3:12:21
from warts causeway and abraham road surely they could actually get off the bus one stop earlier and walk in the last
3:12:28
bit so i think there's a lot of practicality in building something that
3:12:34
is a rapid transit as rapid and reliable as we can get it to be from the outskirts of cambridge or a
3:12:41
travel hub into the inner circumference we don't have to go right outside the school or the shop or
3:12:48
the university building but we do need to get people in that first bit and then they can take a more
3:12:53
active route or a smaller route if they want to so outside process because i know no we're
3:12:59
not really meant to have ideas we're meant to ask the officers but actually it's quite quite useful that
3:13:05
we'd always have some thinking going on as well don't we lois
3:13:11
that was a question on your field but i think it was more of a statement but if you have a feel for
3:13:16
whether this is actually going to meet our bigger objectives of getting people in that first major part of the route to
3:13:23
give them the opportunity that they need to to work and be educated etc in town
3:13:28
that would be really useful would you like to
3:13:35
[Music] yes thank you thank you for your comments i'm not quite sure if there was a question in there but
3:13:43
yes i think i think um fundamentally i think what you're referring to is
3:13:49
that the gcp area and the combined authority has accepted
3:13:54
the idea that greater cambridge is going to grow significantly in terms of housing employment
3:14:02
and the challenges is that how do you accommodate that growth i mean here we're just
3:14:08
focusing on travel movements so something has got to give you know i mean you're increasing the population of
3:14:14
this area by one-third by 2035 according to the latest projections and
3:14:21
if you believe the combined authority you could be looking at increasing the population by up to 50 percent
3:14:28
now i mean this is going to have a huge impact as well as the employment that's going to come with it
3:14:34
so i think what your question is is what your comment is is that well we need to find a way of being able to
3:14:41
get those people around the area in the most efficient and effective way without harming the environment
3:14:48
and i think you know this scheme or schemes like it is as part of the better public transport program
3:14:54
is the solution which the greater cambridge partnership has come up with i mean yes there are questions over
3:15:00
specific alignment and impacts and things like that which have to be addressed but if you're
3:15:06
going to have a transport strategy which is aiming to move people out of their cars and onto public
3:15:13
transport and active traffic active travel you're going to have to be
3:15:19
i think quite brave in what you need to do and uh if i can just also refer back to
3:15:25
a comment that was made earlier perhaps i didn't make this as strong as what i could could have done but with all the
3:15:32
projected growth in the corridor along the a48 you don't just need to see
3:15:38
to see busway you're going to need east west well as well especially if you're going to
3:15:44
make sure that people are going to be transferring from cars into public transport so it's not a case of either or you
3:15:51
really need both thank you very much any other
3:15:58
comments or questions um one area i would like to ask mr blake
3:16:06
about is the um the discussion that was raised by a number of people
3:16:13
in responses um and i don't really want to draw in mr sutton but he might comment but uh
3:16:21
the hardwick road end of the scheme um in terms of the what will be the um
3:16:28
opportunity under the eia to test that that particular element
3:16:35
and as it has been raised and as we have also discussed it briefly this morning and
3:16:41
i'm sure we'll say mooring comments um what in the eia will be
3:16:49
the assessment of the grange road end and the need uh if
3:16:55
you like the obligation on the politicians as well as the gcp team to develop
3:17:04
answers to where does the do the buses go i'm not so worried about the lensfield
3:17:10
road circuit i'm more worried about the integration of public transport more generally
3:17:18
and the reduction in the level of congestion in the city centre
3:17:27
so in terms of the eia it's where we get to the detailed design questions so we we will publish a whole
3:17:33
host of detailed designs from from grange road through hardwick to camborne and we're then able to talk in
3:17:40
detail to local communities so they can see exactly what the proposals are
3:17:46
and we can we can then give them the opportunity to influence that hardwick is a good example of something
3:17:52
that may be raised as part of the process so it is clear that the the mayor is moving the position on
3:17:58
cam we're obliged to reflect the mayor and the combined authorities position
3:18:03
because they're the strategic transport authority and in hardwick there is a genuine
3:18:09
choice if the position on cam essentially moves and the genuine choice is do we use
3:18:16
saint niacc road or do we look to continue with with the sort of the the line of vegetation our
3:18:22
line of vegetation was was chosen in large part because cam requires segregation um whereas actually
3:18:30
we think we can deliver the benefits by using a slightly reconfigured uh st neos road so what we need to do
3:18:37
working closely with combined authority is to come forward with that detail and then sit down with the questioners the
3:18:43
parish council and others to say on that particular point what works what works for for the residents of hardwick and we'll
3:18:50
have that opportunity throughout so even people who are rejecting to the scheme will be able to talk through
3:18:57
detailed design around what does the foliage what should that look like what vegetation
3:19:02
what visibility issues can can we address and it gives us that opportunity to get into
3:19:07
that level of detail and that will then come back to you before you decide on the next steps
3:19:13
and i think that's an important step in the process and it's exactly why department of transport requires to do
3:19:19
it and on the city city end of it i appreciate
3:19:24
that in pure environmental terms there isn't um a full assessment but in the breadth
3:19:30
of the assessment how will evidence including if we make
3:19:35
progress um on the interventions in the city centre feed
3:19:41
into this eia well in in the very in the short term it of course it's the junctions
3:19:47
around grange road so what exactly do those junctions look like what capacity are we
3:19:52
giving to public transport what will be the impact on on other areas but obviously as conversations take place around around
3:19:58
city access we have far more flexibility to do things uh if we're taking prevailing traffic
3:20:05
levels down and and that will require conversations with yourselves with the assembly
3:20:10
but particularly with local communities to understand well actually are we content really rebalancing and
3:20:17
refocusing the city environment away from the private car which is what we've said in the papers certainly what
3:20:23
the the joint assembly talk through but as is always with these things the devil will be in the detail
3:20:28
which is why we are suggesting that your entire meeting in september covers city access
3:20:35
in far more detail just just briefly um chair i would support
3:20:40
the point that i think you've already been interested in but was also made by
3:20:46
councillor bick that we do add a recommendation on the wording so that we do
3:20:55
reference if this is going to be approved the need to um uh incorporate
3:21:01
um this scheme with the developing work on the city access strategy
3:21:07
yeah um it's a it's an a side issue but i i i maybe i wasn't concentrating enough
3:21:14
and if so i apologize but i cannot remember a categoric response to mr strauss's
3:21:20
question and i do remember and this contradicts claims from i think
3:21:26
an mp that there's been a lack of continuity because i've been at lots of meetings on this issue since
3:21:32
2015 that we made an earlier commitment that we would progress a scheme on adam's road sorry
3:21:39
this is a side track but as a side track i'd appreciate
3:21:45
not being an empty promise earlier so to be categoric we are pursuing a
3:21:51
scheme on adam's road we're bringing it forward as part of the combat and greenway proposals
3:21:57
and we expect in the near future to have outline designs that we can discuss with local
3:22:03
residents and with the residents association sorry for the side track um i do appreciate the
3:22:09
thoroughness that we've been going through the core issue today okay thank you okay so so can i just um
3:22:17
sort of cancel a herbert's can i just ask the board whether we are in agreement that we will add
3:22:22
city access to uh c as the recommendation in terms of uh
3:22:28
adding that to the list is that accepted okay we will we will make reference to city access can i also
3:22:34
just add ask a question of mr blake in the context of the question which i asked mr sutton about
3:22:42
the prioritization issues the reference to the national bus strategy here would
3:22:47
contain a review of what options there may be on short-term prioritization measures consistent with
3:22:55
the national bus strategy it would all i would add is that the the
3:23:00
response for this area will come from the combined authority uh as their public transport authority
3:23:06
so we would be working in partnership with them okay understood okay thank you okay so with those recommendations can i just
3:23:12
now turn to any uh comments or which the board members want to make on
3:23:18
the recommendations and the item itself um i'll i won't
3:23:25
give the full um comment but i do need i do need to make several comments i i
3:23:32
i've listened at length and understood some of the concerns and i can see
3:23:37
a view from residents in the cotton area that they don't want this but but it does come back to a point
3:23:44
that was made earlier that there is a strategic need and um i don't believe that we've skewed
3:23:51
the evidence and that was one of the claims that was made um i do believe that we've gone through
3:23:58
an elaborate lengthy thorough thoughtful and objective process in reaching the
3:24:05
conclusion that we have that that an off-road route um uh
3:24:12
to the south is is the right option i have been involved in looking at an off-road route to the north and the
3:24:19
gentleman from the american cemetery is no longer here i do not think that this has any material impact
3:24:26
on the american cemetery i appreciate there are wider points here
3:24:34
but if we actually look at the thoroughness that we've looked at different options
3:24:39
and assessing the need there is a real need for a an off-road route
3:24:48
because of simply the as mr sutton has also alluded to we are not dealing with the current we
3:24:55
are dealing with the future and as has been evidenced by
3:25:01
uh the mayor when he mentioned the success of the root trumps and ives through past
3:25:07
the growing north stone this is a transport necessity
3:25:13
and for people to only harbor views about well we can
3:25:19
um we can have a guertin interchange or we can have various things or it's not needed
3:25:25
because of east-west rail i i i just they're entitled to put the
3:25:30
point but fundamentally it is motivated often by a legitimate issue which is we don't
3:25:37
want anything but our job is to answer the question and the question is
3:25:43
how do we improve transport and i heard another comment this week which
3:25:49
was you can't do this in the green belt well we are unavoidably needing to provide
3:25:55
transport solutions through the green belt to answer the point that mr sutton made
3:26:00
that there is a growth in population and there's a growth there's been an
3:26:06
even bigger growth in transport movements i don't ever hear a voice for the bus
3:26:12
users of camborne and i don't ever hear the voice of people moving into the area
3:26:19
needing to be able to get to work or to to the center of cambridge and
3:26:25
i i just i can i can explain my logic in fuller detail if people want it but
3:26:31
this route off-road is needed for the future and is essential
3:26:38
and i have listened to evidence all the way through and there's been a thorough assessment
3:26:45
and i i'm glad that we're moving to the eia stage chair thank you lisa
3:26:53
thank you um i want i wanted to follow on briefly from what
3:26:58
claire said and i think we find ourselves in a similar situation paradoxically because she's on her way
3:27:03
out and i'm on her way on my way in and perhaps we have similar at this point levels of uncertainty on how you
3:27:09
deal with public interaction in these meetings and i'm very sorry that a couple of people whose comments i wanted to address are
3:27:15
no longer here um sometimes the democratic process requires long discussion times
3:27:23
it is regrettable but it's how it is and you know and i think what i've heard
3:27:30
in terms of the relationship between this and city access and by the way absolutely we should have that
3:27:35
recommendation and i think it's a great idea um everybody else has said it but i was going to say it um
3:27:41
and you know what one of the things i'm hearing is that people there seems to be a desire to say until
3:27:47
that is sorted don't do this and until this is sorted don't do that which is a problem in the sense that
3:27:54
quite clearly you end up not doing anything because neither of those things can proceed until the other thing has proceeded
3:28:00
and i have a feeling that this is potentially where we've been until now and also given my new status on here
3:28:07
perhaps it is possible and maybe some of the officers or some of the people that were
3:28:12
here before me can confirm that sometimes a lack of alignment among the people making these decisions can
3:28:18
cause delays and that seems to have happened over the past four or five years which which is a pity
3:28:25
and i i feel that we have a greater alignment now to actually be able to be on the same
3:28:30
page on some of these decisions which will be enormously beneficial i think and in
3:28:35
terms of city access you do actually have to have the full picture you know you have to get people
3:28:41
from the commuter built into cambridge move them around and then get them back out and i would be
3:28:49
grateful for a confirmation that my feeling is right that these things are all very urgent and they all need to
3:28:56
be developed together with a fuller vision and
3:29:01
they don't get sold without one another in that sense and you know it is they are
3:29:08
elephants in each other's room and they're very big elephants because they've grown over the last four years and hopefully we can stop them growing
3:29:14
now and i am very hopeful about that thank you thank you phil
3:29:21
thank you i'll i'll try and be brief um because lewis has said a lot of and what i wanted to say um as well i
3:29:27
want to thank the auditors for the work and analysis which i think was um really welcome
3:29:33
and excellent um just to address a couple of points that were made from the floor first
3:29:39
about city access being used as a way in which we have or something we've fallen back
3:29:44
on as a um something that will will solve a lot of the issues that we
3:29:50
weren't prepared to address um i think it has been used in that way sometimes and i don't want to raise expectations any more than they have
3:29:56
been raised about our next meeting when we'll be looking at it but we have been trying to do this with
3:30:02
not one but both hands tied behind our backs over the last few years i think now we have a real opportunity
3:30:08
not to rule things out for the city access debate but to start rule things back in again and that's what i'm very much hoping we
3:30:14
will be doing when we meet and to talk about it greenbelt has been raised a few times
3:30:21
and it's going to be raised i suspect in the discussion on cset which is to follow this and i think there's some misunderstanding
3:30:28
about green belts which are not a call on satur and one of the exceptions that two green
3:30:35
belts and i'm looking at it right now is the local transport infrastructure
3:30:41
and to me this is absolutely the kind of thing that we should be thinking about unless
3:30:47
unfortunately but nevertheless green belts are not there to stop
3:30:52
all kinds of development they are there to stop certain kinds of development
3:30:57
and then finally just on the recommendation i mean i think the audit um really supports the process
3:31:04
and the analysis and the direction that we've been taking to date so i
3:31:11
would support the recommendations i would support the move to the eia and the ea and some of the issues which come down to
3:31:17
different views on development will rightly be considered by an inspector as part of
3:31:24
the public inquiry but we need to be able to get to that point and therefore i support the recommendations
3:31:30
okay thank you do i have any more comments before i make
3:31:35
a summarize okay okay well um
3:31:41
i think you know this is a we've had lots of questions we've had lots of discussion i really thank the
3:31:49
mr sutton mr swan for the independent audit i think it's been a very useful process for my
3:31:56
sense and that you know when i reflect back on what the role of the gcp
3:32:03
is our role is to deliver the objectives of the combined
3:32:10
authority's local transport plan and the local plans and i think we've heard amongst the board members
3:32:17
today and in the independent audit confirmation that that this scheme does deliver
3:32:26
those those important objectives associated with managing the the growth and the
3:32:33
sustainable transport which is required to go along with the
3:32:38
employment growth and the housing development in our local plans so that has been a useful part of the
3:32:45
process and i feel that the strategic objectives sort of tick and the delivery tech box
3:32:52
has been has been actually satisfied um i also feel in a
3:32:59
number of board members have made this that the impedant audit went through the actual process which was undertaken
3:33:07
by the gcp and i have heard basic confirmation
3:33:12
of the the robustness and the thoroughness of that process which has led to the preferred
3:33:20
option i also think that you've correctly pointed out which we've
3:33:27
reflected in the recommendations that there are as you say weak links relating to
3:33:34
city access there are other areas where we need to
3:33:40
keep working on making sure that the impact of covert 19
3:33:47
east-west rail bus strategy the short-term options are actually reflected uh you know in our work but but
3:33:54
essentially the important conclusion and the most important conclusion out of your report report is that none of those
3:34:01
are grounds for delay in moving forward in the in the project um
3:34:07
and lastly on the the environmental there are clearly lots of concerns residual concerns
3:34:14
around uh the impact of this scheme no scheme is perfect and this one
3:34:20
clearly has some points which have raised a lot of concern um
3:34:28
i feel that you've also made a a good case that those those are are are
3:34:34
to be addressed in the environmental impact assessment
3:34:40
and that we will hopefully uh through that process uh focus on
3:34:46
those points particularly around cotton particularly around hardwick and uh ensure that those
3:34:54
impacts are uh understood and to the uh best possible extent uh mitigated
3:35:02
um so i'm in a sort of position where i feel that [Music] that we are uh know
3:35:10
able to move forward uh on this on this scheme as per the recommendations so
3:35:16
at that point if there's no other comments from the board members i'd like to sort of move this to a to a vote is
3:35:23
there any other comments to make claire
3:35:28
a quick one i think the strategic decision that we're about to make is right
3:35:33
i think it's then down to all of us to make it the best possible implementation
3:35:40
that we can so the strategic decision is is the right one i support it
3:35:47
okay so we're dealing with the recommendations on page 358 through recommendations with c
3:35:55
with the addition of the city access can i take a vote anyone
3:36:00
everyone in a favor please indicate okay that is unanimous so thank you very
3:36:06
much indeed i'd like to thank the officer's concern i'd like in particular to thank again uh mr sutton and mr swan thank you
3:36:14
thank you mr small mr sutton yeah um i think we may take a short five minute break i'm consciously
3:36:21
you've got a significant item ahead of us but let's reconvene at quarter to four according to three
3:46:56
agenda item 13 i just like to make an announcement i understand we the
3:47:02
problems with the live stream continue and uh there was an interruption just at
3:47:07
the moment when uh the board took a vote on uh the last item on cambodne to cambridge
3:47:15
so i would just like to confirm for those who are listening on the live stream that the
3:47:21
recommendations were approved um with the addition of a reference to
3:47:27
city access in part three of the recommendations as to future work which needed to be conducted
3:47:34
in parallel with the work on the environmental impact assessment apologies again
3:47:43
for that so um moving on to agenda item number 13
3:47:51
on the cambridge southeast transport scheme i would in the first instance like to
3:47:57
invite tony orgy who's chair of the local liaison forum to feedback on their
3:48:03
meeting which they had on the 7th of june welcome
3:48:10
thank you very much um the local liaison forum had a public meeting on the um 7th of june which was between
3:48:19
the publication of the papers for the joint assembly and the joint assembly meeting itself
3:48:26
at this meeting um presentations were given by gpcp consultants and staff and the
3:48:33
consultation presentation is on the gcp website and i'd like to
3:48:39
discuss the following issues which are raised at the meeting
3:48:44
first of all i'd like to say something about root and root variants two root variants were each separately
3:48:52
considered but some of the discussion concerns and challenges were of a general nature and applied to
3:48:59
either route variant and indeed to the gcp's preferred brown
3:49:04
route there was complete surprise that there would only be one thousand
3:49:10
two hundred and fifty car parking spaces at the proposed new travel hub near the fall went ways roundabout
3:49:18
it was thought that this out of the blue reduction in car parking spaces at the new travel hub was of critical
3:49:25
importance particular concern was expressed about the reduction in proposed spaces
3:49:32
in the light of recent job creation and what is already known about future jobs to be created
3:49:38
at the cambridge biomedical campus given the number of jobs already in the
3:49:43
cbc area and that they will increase by many thousands in the coming years
3:49:48
it was felt to be counter intuitive to reduce the number of parking spaces at the new
3:49:54
travel hub reference was made to the present uh west suffolk local plan up to 2031
3:50:03
and the fact that work was already underway on the next plan up to 2041. it was questioned whether
3:50:11
any account had been taken by haverhill's needs since many people living in their commute along the 1307 towards cambridge
3:50:18
and about future growth in haverhill in response it was stated that the
3:50:24
reduction in the number of car parking spaces was the result of further traffic modelling
3:50:31
the combined authority's response to the eia consultation had stated that 2000 spaces was too high
3:50:39
the figure of 1250 was the proposed capacity in the opening year
3:50:48
staff and consultants were asked at the meeting how could gcp progress such an uneconomic
3:50:55
scheme a scheme with a cost of 132 million pounds that had a benefit cost ratio of 0.71
3:51:05
a figure given on page 676 of today's agenda papers surely it was
3:51:11
argued this was way under what can get approval and such a low bcr makes it all the more
3:51:18
important to see a revised economic model
3:51:24
there was then a somewhat fractious exchange of views about the bcr focusing on the question how is the bcr
3:51:32
affected by the planned reduction in car parking spaces at the travel hub participants found it
3:51:38
difficult if not impossible to believe that such a large reduction in number of car parking spaces from
3:51:44
figures quoted previously could have no impact on the value of the bcr
3:51:50
at the end of some time spent on this issue my very clear impression with those attending the meeting
3:51:56
still remained intensely skeptical and thought that removing so many car
3:52:01
parking spaces could only lower what was already an exceedingly low
3:52:06
bcr and by way of context i should add that a gcp presentation at
3:52:13
the local liaison forum meeting held on the 1st of june 2020 gave figures of 2 000 to 2
3:52:20
500 car parking spaces and a bcr of 0.71
3:52:27
attendees also raised the issue of cam compliance and queried wire scheme was going ahead
3:52:32
when the new mayor had stated that he would not be taking the cam scheme forward
3:52:37
if the previous mayor's metro scheme did not go ahead there was no need for this scheme some
3:52:43
people argued and alternatives were suggested in addition the point was made that the
3:52:50
gcp need to think strategically about cambridge's problems rather than in silos and that her light
3:52:57
rail solution for example would give scalability and it was pleasing to note the new
3:53:04
mayor was talking holistically
3:53:09
we then talked a little bit about the pink root variant and gcp had commissioned a report to assess this
3:53:15
and you see that report in appendix 6 of your agenda papers today
3:53:21
very short gcp presentation of the meeting on this variant focused on the assessment report
3:53:26
findings in relation to environment costs benefits and benefit cost ratio
3:53:33
overall gcp argued that the brown route performed better than the pink route variant
3:53:38
and the brown route therefore remained the gcp's preferred route local residents
3:53:45
responded by quoting the final paragraph of the gcp commissioned report which reads as follows and this was read
3:53:51
out in the meeting the technical assessment results for the pink route variant
3:53:58
are sufficiently close the gcp could also take into account public and stakeholder opinions in
3:54:04
reaching a decision on whether to consider the pink route variant for adoption as the preferred route instead of the
3:54:11
current brown route alignment local residents felt the report made
3:54:16
clear the differences between the brown root and the pink root variant were marginal and they felt very strongly that their
3:54:22
views had not been given sufficient weight in the process of determining the preferred route
3:54:28
the question can you confirm that you will take into account public opinion was asked in a variety of
3:54:34
different ways and it was stated that the parish of abram wants the pink root variant
3:54:39
and the other the brown root uh cuts the field and goes through ancient water meadows
3:54:46
the route the brown route does bisect the farm and i understand that members of the
3:54:52
gcp's executive board did receive an email yesterday from chiefly park farms
3:55:00
regarding the strategic shelford's rail uh alignment again there was a short
3:55:06
presentation at the meeting um by the consultants uh focused on the
3:55:11
findings of the atkins independent review which is set out in appendix five
3:55:18
of today's agenda papers in support of the shelford rail alignment it was argued that the
3:55:24
atkins independent review stated that the route was feasible the point was made
3:55:30
that whereas the gcp has considerable financial resources the eye transport report was crowdfunded
3:55:37
locally and with support from parish councils if there had been more time and greater
3:55:44
finance available then further research could well have addressed impacts and constraints identified in the review and so offset
3:55:52
risks identified further work was needed
3:55:59
regarding the impact environmental impact assessment there was a comment that environmental impacts
3:56:05
affect not only residents but also the wider community and then there was a question about the
3:56:11
type of transport to be used in response it was stated that no
3:56:17
specific vehicle had been selected but that vehicles would be electric powered when in the city
3:56:24
but not outside the city on the expected opening date it was
3:56:29
likely that a hybrid bus would be used there was widespread i would say almost unanimous support at
3:56:36
the meeting for the public transport on the cset route to be all electric from the start of operations
3:56:44
and the final section i just want to say a little bit about is the eia consultation concerns were raised about
3:56:52
a number of issues for example bus stops on france's creek avenue
3:56:57
for example where there would be hold-ups to the movement of emergency vehicles and whether the roadway would be wide
3:57:03
enough for use by non-sea set buses a number of comments and concerns were
3:57:09
made about the nine wells area what planting is proposed near nine wells and what would be the impact of
3:57:15
construction work on the nine wells nature reserve where would the construction compound
3:57:22
be positioned some concern was expressed about pedestrian and cycle access to
3:57:28
nine wells had there been an environmental impact assessment for this small
3:57:33
fragile area current access was by an informal path but changing the surface to compacted
3:57:40
hardcore was felt to be unsympathetic and completely unacceptable
3:57:46
in response it was stated that the intention was not to make access to nine wells easier but to maintain current levels of access
3:57:55
however it was something this view was unrealistic since improving access was likely to bring
3:58:00
more people to the area and finally concern was expressed about details
3:58:06
of the active route travel bridge over the a11
3:58:15
gp gcp's commitment to inclusivity and to local transport note ltn 120 was
3:58:22
questioned and the questionnaire went on to make further comments in response it was said that the further
3:58:29
comments included new information that would be considered and it was agreed that this issue would
3:58:35
be discussed at the next non-motorized users meeting
3:58:40
the final point it was felt that cycle parking at the travel hub needed locker spaces in addition to
3:58:46
cycle parking spaces and that lighting was needed both at the hub itself and along the active travel route
3:58:54
so in conclusion the llf questioned whether the scheme was fit for purpose given the significant
3:59:00
reduction in car parking spaces at the travel hub and whether the scheme represented value for money
3:59:08
if it was decided to progress the scheme then there should be further work on the shelford railway alignment
3:59:14
and the pink route variant the mode of transport on the public route needs to be fully electric from day one
3:59:21
and issues such as those related to france's creek avenue the nine wells area and the active
3:59:27
travel bridge over the a11 need to be very seriously considered and resolved so thank you very much
3:59:36
thank you and thank you for joining us this afternoon and uh your your feedback um you raise a a a lot of
3:59:44
issues there which i think if you uh stay around mr blake will
3:59:49
answer in the first instance on his report and we'll be part of our discussion so thank you very much indeed for
3:59:55
your contribution okay um again we have a a large number
4:00:02
of public questions which i'm going to break into
4:00:07
two blocks uh three blocks actually uh and i would like in the first instance to
4:00:13
ask the officers to read out questions from uh carol barnes councillor howard cattell
4:00:19
gavin flynn jenny coe john hall and colin greenell
4:00:26
the first question is from carol barnes why is gcp proposing to use greenbelt
4:00:32
land for the busway when there are two greener and more environmentally friendly alternative
4:00:37
routes i'm writing regarding the planned gcp busway route currently set to slice
4:00:42
through the attractive undulating greenbelt land near magog down a cherished area of cambridge
4:00:49
countryside too much better alternative routes have been put forward both of which would have far less impact
4:00:56
on the environment route one a bus way running alongside the a1307 to babraham
4:01:03
this less intrusive route would be cheaper than the gcp's proposed route as it would run alongside current
4:01:08
infrastructure route 2 using the former haverhill railway route via shelford
4:01:15
as described in the itransports report commissioned by by shelford and stapleford councils
4:01:22
additionally this route would directly benefit the transport needs of local villagers along the route which wouldn't be the case with the gcp
4:01:29
plan need to review this decision the criteria for choosing a busway route
4:01:35
needs to be looked at again has the reduced need for public transport now that home working is
4:01:40
becoming the norm been taken into consideration for example additionally lockdown has made us all
4:01:47
think carefully about our local environment and our need for green spaces
4:01:52
the unnecessary loss of greenbelt countryside to the busway would not only make the surrounding area
4:01:58
susceptible to development but also be a great loss to the mental well-being of those people who currently
4:02:03
enjoy this beautiful area it would certainly have a disastrous effect on the environment
4:02:08
when there are much greener and cheaper alternatives this project urgently needs to be reconsidered particularly in the light
4:02:16
of changes to our needs and lifestyle the next question is from councillor
4:02:22
howard cattell chair of stapleton parish council with the sea set busway operating at
4:02:29
capacity on opening brackets ice transport report commissioned by great shelford and
4:02:35
stapleford parish councils closed brackets how will the vision for growth at cambridge biomedical campus be
4:02:42
accommodated simply adding more buses as the gcp has
4:02:47
proposed cannot be the answer because the limited road capacity in central cambridge prevents this
4:02:54
central cambridge currently has 125 buses per hour at peak independent consultants
4:03:01
separately calculate that on present plans that will need to grow to between 200 to
4:03:06
300 buses per hour will the gcp consider a more scalable and future-proofed
4:03:13
infrastructure such as light rail that already successfully operates in several european cities of a similar
4:03:20
size to cambridge please justify your answer
4:03:26
the next question is from gavin flynn qualitative analysis in the gcp's
4:03:32
economic appraisal concludes that the preferred c set route will have adverse
4:03:37
impacts on landscape if these impacts were quantified and hence properly incorporated into the
4:03:42
economic model brackets as per government's transport appraisal guidance brackets tag on monetizing environmental
4:03:50
social heritage and other non-market features of projects they would negatively affect the already poor
4:03:57
bcr of 0.81 of cset why have you not done this
4:04:03
and what effect do you think that monetizing them would have on c-sets bcr brackets or in its wider economic case
4:04:09
if you no longer support bcr in answering please explain which other legitimate government guidance you are
4:04:15
following brackets because at the joint assembly meeting on 10th june this was the indication given by peter
4:04:22
blake and why is it more relevant than tag
4:04:27
the next question is from jenny coe irrevocable damage to the cambridgeshire landscape
4:04:33
rising awareness of and action to mitigate the climate emergency the absence of a city transport strategy
4:04:40
to link up the bus ways other major infrastructure projects which with busway projects have zero
4:04:47
planned compatibility a vast lack of public support for busways
4:04:52
and mistrust of the gcp and the impact of covid on public opinion
4:04:58
values and working habits in the face of all these changes and pressures the gcp
4:05:05
has not notably altered its plans will not the elected members think of
4:05:11
our children and grandchildren and plan a transport structure that cambridge people deserve
4:05:17
rather than a naive congestion-busting short-term policy
4:05:24
the next question is from john hall the cset scheme has relied on an estimate
4:05:29
that 29 percent of usage will come from the local villages this is believed to be an
4:05:34
overestimate by many villages in stapleford given the sites of the stations
4:05:39
there is now further uncertainty as partially reflected in an updated c-sets business report
4:05:45
about the impacts of dilution by the ewr route other major uncertainties leading to
4:05:51
possible further dilution of numbers include changes to flexible working practices around cambridge
4:05:57
and new post-pandemic national bus strategies an updated genetic path could further
4:06:03
dilute numbers of cyclists and walkers using the proposed active travel path
4:06:09
would the gcp not think it sensible to one defer their decision for their preferred
4:06:14
route through the green belt using buses down the a-1307 for now until a more stable picture of demand
4:06:21
emerges and two given public disquiets and claims of not being heard
4:06:26
to publish revised estimates of usage and take these out to public meetings in the villages both to update villages
4:06:32
on all changes and deliberations but also to hear those concerns that villagers now
4:06:38
that villages believe are not being heard nor addressed
4:06:43
the next question is from colin greenhouse greater cambridge partnerships proposals
4:06:49
for the cambridge south east bustway failed to integrate in any meaningful way with cambridge
4:06:56
city access scheme it is like building the london underground without zone one
4:07:01
the route starts in a remote car park bypasses enroute centers of population
4:07:08
and fails to demonstrate strategic integration with existing rail lines
4:07:14
east-west rail greenways pedestrian routes and haverhill from where many car
4:07:19
journeys to adam brooks biomedical campus and cambridge originate in addition the
4:07:25
lack of both a peak period congestion charge and restrictions on car occupancy numbers give no
4:07:32
incentive for the majority of people to prefer public transport to private cars
4:07:38
meanwhile smarter cambridge transport has calculated that gcp's busway proposals
4:07:44
will cost almost half a billion pounds with every resident in south cambridgeshire obliged to contribute 1
4:07:51
370 pounds and every additional busway passenger costing residents 180 000 pounds
4:08:01
no wonder the business case ratio for the cambridge southeast busway is only 0.81 compared with a gcp
4:08:09
target of 1.5 to 2 a figure that becomes even worse than
4:08:15
the 0.81 if the cost of the huge environmental
4:08:20
damage to the greenbelt to villages such as great shelford and stapleford
4:08:25
and to the mental and physical health of residents of cambridge and south cambridgeshire is included in the calculation can the
4:08:33
gcp explain what evidence in support of cset weighs more heavily than
4:08:39
all these important and negative environmental cultural and financial factors a
4:08:45
question which so far gcp has refused to address
4:08:51
okay thank you could i ask mr blake to respond to those block of questions please thank you
4:08:58
chairman um in terms of carol barnes's question it's notable at the outset that both of
4:09:03
our alternatives also go through the uh the green belt the suggested route running alongside
4:09:10
the a1307 was considered previously has its own environmental disbenefits
4:09:15
and was not supported in public consultation it's also notable that that route also
4:09:20
doesn't serve the villages at all and was one of the reasons that we received the feedback that we did on the road
4:09:26
the alternative route using the former uh railway line through staples and sheltered uh details are appended to
4:09:33
the the document uh that you've got in front of you um the appraisal concludes that the railway
4:09:39
alignment is considerably more expensive requires the demolition of local properties and creates
4:09:44
impacts with the local railway line particularly at the level crossings that are already a particular pinch
4:09:49
point carol barnes also raises the issue of covid as do a number of the questioners
4:09:54
so i'm just going to answer it here in greater cambridge
4:10:00
cut the car is coming back far more strongly than than all of the other transport modes which is a cause of concern
4:10:06
but it also reflects the national situation i'm afraid it is still though too early to draw
4:10:11
final conclusions from the impact of of covid and the business case for this scheme
4:10:17
and our schemes and indeed every single scheme up and down the country will be updated
4:10:22
when the department of transport releases that information as we go to the next steps it is though in the context of csets
4:10:29
notable that many of the nhs medical and support staff staff working in hospitals and
4:10:35
laboratory environments cannot work from home they will have to continue to go into
4:10:40
their office as such in terms of the question from councillor kettle it is incorrect to suggest that
4:10:49
c-sets will operate at capacity on opening and it's one of the shortcomings of the eye transport report
4:10:55
if demand is higher more vehicles can be provided and the case study for that is the
4:11:00
existing guided busway that has twice as many vehicles today as it did when it opens services today as it did when it when it
4:11:07
opens the city access program we've discussed previously um light rail
4:11:12
the the grady cambridge partnership members may well recall along with the combined authority
4:11:17
reviewed the options for mass transit back in 2017 light rail was not supported on grounds
4:11:23
of cost and flexibility and indeed the light rail would not offer the scalability benefits that the
4:11:29
questioner suggests in the urban environment it turned into gavin flynn's
4:11:34
questioning we are absolutely following the government's transport appraisal guidance
4:11:39
that is what our business case is based on that is what applications to government will will be based on um we are monetizing
4:11:47
the environmental issues in the way that we are required to do so
4:11:52
we are also looking at the national capital assessment issues around
4:11:59
monetizing environment and we are looking to pull that together as part of the application
4:12:05
uh for the transport and works out and submitted to to uh to the secretary of state which will
4:12:10
also form part of the public scrutiny opportunity that um that that communities will have at that
4:12:16
juncture turning to the question from from from jenny co um we do have a strategy it is new
4:12:23
infrastructure new services and refocus the city center um and i think it is unfair to suggest
4:12:29
that we've not noticeably changed plans again for those members of the board that have been around long enough they
4:12:34
will recall that this started off as the three business park uh scheme that did not serve in any way
4:12:40
shape and form the local the local villages and those plans have been changed significantly since the
4:12:45
start of the process the question from john hall regarding patronage estimates
4:12:50
again they've been produced in accordance with government guidance east-west rail does not serve shelter
4:12:56
station and the expectation is it will not have a significant impact in the in the area and i think we asked the the
4:13:03
question from from colin greenhalge uh regarding interactions city access we've talked about
4:13:09
but csets also will integrate with the existing guided bus way it will serve the plan cambridge south
4:13:15
station and we're working closely with network rail and partners on doing that it's been developed in conjunction
4:13:20
with the linkedin and the sourced and greenways and the the travel hub is being
4:13:25
developed for onward journeys out to to haverhill so that services bus
4:13:30
services coming in from from haverhill can join the segregated solution at the travel hub side and then enjoy
4:13:37
the benefits in terms of tackling and avoiding congestion at that point
4:13:42
and again to reaffirm this is all being assessed in accordance with the requirements that the department of
4:13:47
transport lay down thank you chair thank you mr mike
4:13:53
um okay if we can now go to the next batch of questions which are asked by uh dr john coppendale
4:14:00
christopher beau barbara kettle annabelle sykes roger french and peter gray
4:14:07
thank you the first question is from don doctor don coppendale
4:14:12
please quantify and explain the reduction in the size of the proposed new car park at babraham from 2000
4:14:18
spaces to 1250 on the bcr of cset
4:14:23
with reference to both your old and new economic models please recalculate the bcr of
4:14:29
alternative routes put forward for public consultation in 2018 with reference to both the new
4:14:36
and old economic models so comparisons with the preferred greenbelt route can be made
4:14:42
and can you set out your conclusions with on all routes including amplification of
4:14:48
your previous response that the bcr is only one aspect to consider
4:14:55
this question is from roger roger french how can the gcp board make a decision on
4:15:01
whether to progress the cset scheme further in the absence of a completed environmental impact assessment
4:15:08
on both the preferred route and viable on and off-road alternatives as required under greenbelt policy why
4:15:16
has this not been done as a first priority and made available for public scrutiny
4:15:22
this question is from christopher bowe given that the current poor business
4:15:27
case for cset with a bcr of 0.18
4:15:32
why is the new economic model not being made available for public scrutiny
4:15:37
and does this not undermine the credibility of the methodology and the resulting projections in the
4:15:44
light of previous responses that the bcr is only one aspect to consider
4:15:50
will you apply the same criteria to alternative routes in answering this question please let us
4:15:56
know what the bcr of cset is using the new economic model
4:16:04
this question is from barbara cattell the independent eye transport report found that the shelford railway
4:16:10
alignment brackets sra is a viable route option and that
4:16:16
mcdonald had substantially overestimated the extent of demolition required
4:16:21
in contrast to the public statements subsequently made by a gcp officer
4:16:26
the gcp's independent consultant atkins brackets actually the gcp's retained
4:16:31
consultant for cambridge to water beach scheme found that design compromise was not considered a show stopper
4:16:37
to rule out the feasibility of the sra at this stage but identified land acquisition and
4:16:43
construction as risks which would require further work to properly understand
4:16:48
given the requirement to appraise accurately the alternatives before developing in the greenbelt
4:16:53
will the gcp undertake the work atkins outlines and compare all route options on the
4:16:59
same criteria please justify your answer the next question is from annabelle
4:17:05
sykes it is widely recognised that green spaces and nature have become more
4:17:10
important than ever to people during the pandemic it was noted on radio 4 yesterday morning that uk biodiversity has
4:17:18
experienced centuries of hurt and that we are in the bottom 10 percent of countries due to the large amount of
4:17:24
the country's biodiversity that has been lost in addition the national planning framework framework
4:17:30
requires avoidance of environmental impact first ahead of any mitigation measures
4:17:37
several transport projects are proposed that will significantly impact on the stretch of the greenbelt
4:17:42
to the south of cambridge between the city and its necklace villages this stretch includes nine wells and
4:17:49
hobson's park and the related green corridor into cambridge it also includes a precious chalk stream
4:17:57
along which otters and the nationally threatened waterville are found the projects are the new
4:18:04
cambridge south station east-west rail and the sea set busway
4:18:09
the environmental impact of any one of these projects including its construction on this area
4:18:16
will be considerable the incremental environmental impact of all three including the visual
4:18:23
impact of the flyover junction ewr may need has the potential to be
4:18:29
overwhelming who is carrying out a comprehensive environmental assessment on this
4:18:34
to decide which if any of these projects are justified
4:18:40
the next question is from peter ray one given the known and yet unknown impacts on travel habits working
4:18:47
habits and public finances post pandemic is the gcp going to pause decisions on
4:18:52
the southeast mass transit mass transport project to allow time for a thorough and meaningful review of the
4:18:59
intended and previously discarded roots budgets and other brackets may be unthought of
4:19:05
ideas as is being called for by ourselves and others including our local mp
4:19:10
if not why not and how can gcp ignore how can gcp justify ignoring these calls in the
4:19:16
current national situation two has the gcp considered other solutions
4:19:22
for example one involving the purchase of electric p s fees for leasing at minimal costs to
4:19:28
the large companies slash organizations as a way of providing a transport alternative to the
4:19:34
motor car on existing routes and that would have a minimal impact on the area's environment
4:19:41
140 million plus pounds could be invested in rather a lot of in
4:19:48
rather a lot of vehicles at minimal cost to users plus the necessary separated and secure pedestrian and
4:19:54
cyclist infrastructure if not why not three as we do not recall
4:20:00
the time when the gcp was established was there a requirement to consult the public and was this and subsequent
4:20:06
decision-making done in accordance with requirements in a meticulous and transparent manner
4:20:17
okay thank you um mr blake would you like to respond to those please thank you chair
4:20:23
um in terms of dr john coppendale's question 1250
4:20:28
car parking spaces are required for the scheme the site can be expanded over time to
4:20:34
2000 spaces but we are cognizant of warnings within the green belt
4:20:39
and secondly the requirement from the combined authority in the response to the eia that said 1250 should be sufficient and
4:20:46
so we are reflecting that the new economic model and there's a number of people who ask this question
4:20:52
when it is completed it will support the full business case and we will publish it as we've done with the existing um
4:20:59
the existing model the terms of the question from from roger french under dft requirements we
4:21:07
are required to produce an eia in an environmental statement for the preferred route only which is
4:21:12
what we are doing environmental assessments taking place throughout the design process
4:21:18
both to assess and to mitigate environmental effects as much as possible that includes the
4:21:24
outcome of this meeting and the design changes proposed in the report
4:21:29
the eia including the environmental statement is the culmination of that process and
4:21:35
will be submitted as part of the twao application as a standard practice
4:21:40
alongside a non-technical summary both the full environmental statement and non-technical summary will be
4:21:47
available for public scrutiny following submission and prior to the public inquiry
4:21:54
apology terms of the question from christopher
4:21:59
bo the bcr has been produced alongside a whole series of benefit cost
4:22:04
ratios for the different route options to help inform decision making um
4:22:09
gcp is committed to publishing the as i've said the uh an updated model when it is when it's complete
4:22:15
and we'll make sure that it's in the public domain and it will feed into the work on the on the final business case the question
4:22:22
from barbara cattell con is regarding the i transport report and both the gcp and the atkins report
4:22:29
agree on property demolition is required significant additional cost and the the complex rail interface
4:22:35
requirements and they're outlined in the in the report and we'll cover them in greater detail later
4:22:42
the question from annabelle sykes each project is required to undertake
4:22:48
its own environmental assessment we are required to consider
4:22:54
committed schemes so cambridge south is a cambridge south station is a committed scheme so we have assessed
4:23:00
the cumulative environmental impacts of that as part of our as part of our case east west rail is
4:23:06
not a committed scheme and so we have not done so and nor have network rail on on cambridge
4:23:13
we south continue to to work closely with network rail east west rail and other partners as we
4:23:18
go forward both to the public inquiry and beyond to make sure we we capture these issues
4:23:24
in in full peter ray asked the question again around around covid
4:23:29
uh which i've answered previously about cars returning and and the particular impact on uh on the
4:23:35
biomedical campus with um office based and hospital based
4:23:40
staff he puts forward a proposition around uh electric vehicles i think there are a number of concerns with that one is
4:23:46
potential state aid of giving 140 million pounds to commercial bus companies
4:23:51
but actually probably more fundamentally is all of our evidence and all of our work suggests that
4:23:57
people want regular reliable bus services and we know that regular
4:24:03
reliable bus services cannot take place on existing congested roads so one of the reasons we are going for a
4:24:10
segregated solution is to ensure that um that that regular reliable services those regular reliable services are
4:24:16
are provided he raises the question on on consultation and our obligations we do
4:24:21
have obligations under dft requirements we've consulted extensively on cambridge south east including four
4:24:28
public consultations in the last five years i believe that was the last of the
4:24:34
questions chair excellent thank you thank you very much
4:24:40
um okay we've now got um two questions from uh mr james littlewood so could i invite
4:24:48
him to come forward again and uh his questions thank you
4:24:58
hi thank you again for allowing me to ask these questions we've got two questions about the environmental impact assessment and the first is that
4:25:05
the eia known as the environment statement is not not complete for this project
4:25:11
and it's not provided with this pack of papers um what has been provided is a progress
4:25:16
update on the eai process which is described on page 25 528 of your pack as a non-technical
4:25:24
summary of the environmental statement which it can't be because the environmental statement's not completed
4:25:29
and the lack of an environmental statement also means that the local community cannot comment or raise questions about
4:25:35
the findings the board is being asked to approve this scheme to go forwards for submission for a transport and works
4:25:42
order act without having seen the environmental statement given public comments from all voting
4:25:48
parties on the gcp board regarding the importance of the environment we believe that the board
4:25:53
would want to see the environmental statement and give the community the opportunity to scrutinize it
4:25:59
before it's submitted for the transport and works orders act rather than as an application to the transport and work
4:26:04
orders act when we would be faced with a public inquiry as the application is not due to be made
4:26:10
until late autumn the board would have the opportunity to review the environmental impact
4:26:16
assessment when it meets at its next meeting on the 30th of september
4:26:21
you've already agreed earlier in principle to look at the eia for the c2c scheme before progressing so i don't understand why you can't do the same for
4:26:27
this one here so cambridge past present and future is asking the board to request to review the environmental
4:26:34
statement at its next meeting before deciding whether to proceed with the transport and works orders act
4:26:40
a second question relates to the environmental impact scoping opinion that was submitted by the gcp
4:26:46
and has been approved by the secretary of state this was unusual and it asked to assess the impact of two design
4:26:52
options this is because the gcp has not decided whether the bus way would be constructed
4:26:58
using a kerb guided system similar to the existing guided bus or
4:27:03
using a regular road with line markings for an optically guided system and this is sat on page 17 of the eia scoping report
4:27:10
which states that the exercise concluded that both the curb guidance and the optical guidance
4:27:15
achieve most or all of the guidance requirements for the cset scheme and should both be developed and
4:27:20
investigated further to robustly account for either scenario the environmental statement will assess
4:27:27
both curb and optical guidance systems the impacts of the two options would be different officers seem to be asking the
4:27:34
board to approve to submit an application for a transport and works act without indicating which of these two
4:27:40
schemes they will be applying for police can the board ask for clarification on this matter
4:27:46
thank you very much thank you mr littlewood for your question thank
4:27:51
you chair so in terms of the environmental assessment and environmental statement i i answered that previously from
4:27:57
mr turnbull's question um that is part of a process that process continues today with decisions that you are going to make
4:28:04
outlined in the report the full assess environmental assess assessment statement and a
4:28:10
non-technical summary will be made available um at that point of application for public scrutiny and then will be
4:28:16
scrutinized i'm sure through any through any public inquiry in terms of the um the guidance system
4:28:23
to be clear we are pursuing an optically guided system the the approach that we are pursuing
4:28:29
with government is not unusual it follows a standard rochdale envelope approach that has been approved by the department
4:28:35
for transport this approach may be employed when the nature of the proposed development means that some of the
4:28:40
details are yet to be finalized those details are gcp cpca and dft
4:28:46
working on the regulations for optically guided system and those regulations are
4:28:52
currently being updated by the department for transport thank you chair thank you mr blake
4:28:59
okay um so now can i invite you to um introduce the
4:29:05
report um thank you chair so i mean just just
4:29:12
starting with figure two on on 527 where we are the the position is we've
4:29:17
gone through the various early stages we've produced an outline business case we've got a
4:29:22
preferred route we've gone through an environmental impact assessment consultation
4:29:28
and the issues around the consultation are enclosed in the appendix but particularly in paragraph 4.2 whereby we're making
4:29:36
some suggested changes to our designs in light of feedback from that from that consultation um if you're
4:29:42
content with them they will be fed into that detail work that will that will move forward to the application
4:29:47
we did also here on two particular route variants
4:29:53
that are outlined in paragraphs 4.6 and 410 and if i deal with them once we've
4:29:59
considered the route previously because we heard on both of these route variants
4:30:05
we've included them in the in the body of the report so 4.6 outlines the railway alternative
4:30:12
route that has been put forward by a couple of the local parish councils and there are two appendices on this um
4:30:19
that outline our assessment of it and an independent assessment uh undertaken that register some
4:30:26
concerns with that route vis-a-vis the preferred solution that we've that we've come forward with and i
4:30:31
think i've answered them in them in questioning in terms of for paragraph
4:30:36
410 the pink root variant the pink root variant is far more marginal decision
4:30:42
but in terms of the requirements that we are required to access by department for
4:30:48
transport cost benefit environmental implications then all of those are marginally better
4:30:55
on the brown route than they are on the pink route variant that said as we continue to work
4:31:01
on this scheme and we go forward to a public inquiry we should continue to to inform ourselves of any
4:31:08
potential issues that arise with the pingwoo variant the rest of the report chair outlines
4:31:13
the nature of and response to the consultation that we've received and then the implications on the next steps of
4:31:20
the transport and works act order whereby we are pulling together the transport assessment
4:31:25
the environmental information that is required and the detailed planning application that we will put
4:31:31
forward to the secretary of state the secretary of state is then extremely
4:31:36
likely to request a public inquiry whereby the planning inspector will call for all
4:31:43
interested parties and those with a view locally and indeed further afield to have the opportunity
4:31:49
to raise concerns or raise support for the earth proposals that we are putting
4:31:55
forward with and we will await the outcome of that inquiry maybe i'll stop there chair and happily try and take any questions you
4:32:00
may have great thank you thank you mr blake so um you know listening to those uh the
4:32:07
the questions and your introduction i i'm sorry i should have thanked those who um submitted questions
4:32:13
and asked questions in per person um your contributions are much appreciated as are those who
4:32:20
have written to the board members um on this particular topic
4:32:27
we thank them for their for their views which have been expressed in the time they've taken um
4:32:32
to do so and particularly i would like to sort of acknowledge the work which had been
4:32:40
commissioned by the parish councils on the shelford rail alignment and their report which
4:32:46
i hope they will see has been reflected both in the report we're considering
4:32:53
today but also by the board members themselves uh actually engaging in that and
4:33:02
on several occasions actually visiting the location to understand uh the implications of
4:33:08
that alternate so we've we've heard a number of um sort of issues raised i think
4:33:16
clearly there's a lot of discussion around alternative uh route alignments which
4:33:22
we've we've heard um also around the impact on the greenbelt landscape
4:33:30
and implications coming from covid for business case and so forth so um i would like to uh start the
4:33:38
debate and discussion by inviting uh councillor bick to give us uh feedback from the joint
4:33:44
assembly on this particular item please
4:33:49
thank you chair we discussed this substance of this report
4:33:57
mr orgy um from the local liaison forum um gave um his report to us
4:34:04
as well and we had 14 public questions apart from apart from one of our 15
4:34:12
members um the joint assembly was generally supportive of the progress that is recommended
4:34:20
on this project and a lot of the discussion um revolved
4:34:27
around the issues raised in relation to the railway
4:34:34
alignment and the green belt driven by um some of the public
4:34:41
contributions that we had um and information that we've been provided with
4:34:48
i think the um the the bottom line from the assembly was that um
4:34:55
that we would have liked um like i suspect many people would have liked
4:35:00
um an arrangement whereby the um the new transport alignment did did
4:35:06
go through the middle of the settlements that we're we're talking about um that that would be more accessible
4:35:13
to more people and probably um less environmental mentally impactful
4:35:20
but um we we had we felt we had to recognize um
4:35:27
the the evidence that we were being given about what was actually feasible to achieve
4:35:32
um in relation to the to the um the green belt um
4:35:39
i think um phil armanding made a similar point in relation to the previous item um it is not our understanding that um
4:35:48
the the concept of the green belt is a prohibitive concept um it is our understanding that it
4:35:54
exists as a discipline to to force us to try and avoid
4:36:01
development in it but if it can't be avoided then um it is under the right conditions
4:36:07
um something that there is no alternative to and and i think we felt that that's the
4:36:13
place we were um because we did want to see the further away didn't seem to us
4:36:21
to be a satisfactory approach and we did feel that we were dealing with some important
4:36:31
strategic had to do this to do this well um there were two um
4:36:38
two requests that we agreed to to bring to the board in
4:36:45
relation to this whole project one was
4:36:51
about the biodiversity net gain that that should be sought
4:36:58
through through the development of this alignment we would um we we believed that
4:37:04
it ought to be a project in which we could commit to attain a 20
4:37:11
biodiversity net gain instead of the 10 that stands as our standard policy
4:37:19
and i think national policy this is an alignment that
4:37:24
is almost entirely in the urban area and a higher target like that
4:37:31
ought to be something that should be attained
4:37:37
and in some way that is a recognition of the of the many people that are concerned
4:37:42
about the um the use of the green belt for the alignment at all um the second the second request
4:37:51
that we wanted to make of the board was that um the board did take on um
4:37:57
the whole question of connectivity of these uh three settlements each which has
4:38:03
stops on the um on the alignment on the edge of the settlements that we
4:38:09
should take on that you should take on um the challenge of how people
4:38:15
could regard those stops in those settlements as for them um they are for many people
4:38:22
those settlements some way from where they live um the settlements in particular saucedon is a
4:38:28
very large one and um we were we were interested in the
4:38:34
board's approach to consider ways in which access could be extended within the
4:38:42
settlements and for example the questions arise
4:38:48
so could a circular could a circular bus um through those set through through
4:38:54
each of those settlements exit the um the busway itself
4:38:59
and then rejoin it do does the do the stops at the edge of the settlements enable
4:39:06
exit from the busway for the vehicles as well as re-entry if a loop was created
4:39:13
around the settlements it seems that's an important issue because there is no as i
4:39:19
understand it there's no provision for sort of people to drive to those to
4:39:24
those stops um and the distance for some residents is quite large it's just an example but it seems
4:39:32
a pity that we are that if we aren't willing to to load the vehicles um
4:39:40
making use of this bus way to the maximum extent recognizing we've taken the alignment so close
4:39:46
to to um to the settlements but still not not very close to some people in them
4:39:51
so those were the two questions we'd be um very pleased if you would address um in your debate
4:39:59
and we think that positive responses on those points would um would help to further improve this
4:40:06
project thank you thank you and the first is could i just ask mr blake to
4:40:11
respond to those two points the extent to which it can be incorporated
4:40:18
i mean i i think both both can i think one on one already is in large part we're just not making enough of it
4:40:24
um so in terms of the connectivity and accessibility piece um one of the real issues in on this
4:40:29
route are the additional walkways and cycleways we're putting in um and so i think expanding that is
4:40:36
relatively easily done um and i think in terms of by biodiversity in that game actually i
4:40:42
think the way the calculation works we we kind of have to do 20 on um on on the route such as this to
4:40:48
meet our uh because we've said 20 across our wider program so i think the maths requires us to do it anyway
4:40:53
but in which case i'm happy to sit here and confirm that we will take that away
4:41:01
if i just could come back on that so i welcome the point about diver biodiversity it'd be great if that could
4:41:06
be recorded then um but i didn't didn't quite feel that the whole
4:41:12
point about um access and egress from the busway um allowing loops within
4:41:19
the settlements i didn't quite hear that that was something that was envisaged
4:41:25
sorry if i wasn't clear so what is envisaged is this the bus way can be accessed and egressed at various
4:41:32
points um and and that will support the suggestion that you've made whether that actually takes place at stops
4:41:39
or other slightly different locations that will depend on the final detailed design but
4:41:44
in terms of what you're trying to achieve about having local bus services accessing the bus way that will
4:41:49
absolutely be delivered and we'll get that recorded
4:41:54
okay claire just to address tim's point i think you
4:42:00
may be talking at cross purposes i may be wrong tim my view is a rapid bust way that
4:42:06
goes from one point to another point fire some stops are you suggesting that we
4:42:11
take a rapid route and actually do loops around everywhere because i don't think that particularly works for me unless
4:42:18
you have every third bus and the buses are going every two minutes one bus goes through shelford one bus goes
4:42:24
through staplefoot one bus goes through source and otherwise you might be better with a pack of scooters and minibuses
4:42:31
scooping up around the villages but i don't know whether you are talking about because i think peter's talking about getting bus and walk sorry cycle
4:42:38
and walkways better lit from the center of staplefoot to the bus stop for example
4:42:44
yeah that's right but i do recognize the boss point um and so we'll we will take that away
4:42:51
i don't have a question but i do have some comments so if anybody has questions and i'll stop okay can we just
4:42:57
take any questions first lewis just following up the discussion about
4:43:03
biodiversity and also um the context of the route i'm
4:43:09
um when i get emails telling me it's going across the gold my gold downs i'm
4:43:14
somewhat dubious but nevertheless if i'm standing on um the smaller down that's set apart
4:43:22
from the god magogs and i look out what
4:43:28
opportunities are there near the entrance points into shelford and stapleford to
4:43:35
um to plant in that area because that both assists
4:43:42
those two settlements and um and that's not maybe the best word but
4:43:48
it provides a baffle in terms of the um the view
4:43:53
i'm not saying that any view is sacrosanct but those happen to be about the two
4:44:00
most visible locations because there will at those points be um a bus stop
4:44:08
an enclosed covered area at both and whilst
4:44:16
at the moment they can see some houses it will be an intrusive view
4:44:23
and and we are in continued discussions with the local community as as to exactly what uh landscaping uh foliage uh
4:44:31
issues need to be addressed at those points um and and we are we you know i think this
4:44:37
is something where we can largely be led by the local communities in terms of how they see the the
4:44:43
management of the area immediately around the shelters because you're right the most visible part of this will be the shelters
4:44:49
uh in terms of accessing the route i'll save some comments for like uh claire will for for
4:44:56
a statement but but picking up the interesting point that councillor bick spoke of
4:45:03
um it would seem that if every third or fifth bus did a u down into stapleford
4:45:10
and out via shelford i do would i would like that investigated um
4:45:17
because i it is in the nature of this
4:45:23
area which we as councillors added back in 2015 as a effectively a
4:45:30
first five years priority given the volume of jobs and the volume of traffic in terms of
4:45:37
bus users coming through it is just by geography um the fact that stapleford and shelford
4:45:45
are just slightly in the bottom end of this zone and so
4:45:50
personally i think that support benefit there is some so i yeah are you able
4:45:57
to perhaps come back um in a few weeks just with some response to
4:46:03
that point and then copying the board members so so there is there is some benefit to
4:46:11
the local community uh in terms of the current proposals and and i believe i've already agreed to do it so i we will pull something together
4:46:18
uh and we will happily uh then consult with i mean i think there is some benefit personally if i lived in those villages
4:46:24
anyway but i do think uh of of this edition but i do think that um we're talking about a
4:46:33
demographic with quite a lot of older people um who have broadly got the choice of using
4:46:38
their car or a bit of a walk and um anyway
4:46:44
so i just i'd like i appreciate your response mr blake but i i think it's a point worth the
4:46:50
board and the assembly pursuing and i'm happy to concede the point and i will take the action to go away and come
4:46:57
back with proposals yeah if i could just add my
4:47:02
comments to this i think i think this sort of reflects in some ways the discussion we had this morning about sort of maximizing
4:47:09
the sort of optionality and the connectivity around these these schemes so
4:47:16
without actually trying to uh get into the business of sort of
4:47:23
guessing or defining what the solutions are i think that the general question
4:47:28
spike is if if you could uh sort of consider how to sort of maximize the
4:47:33
accessibility of the uh the stops for the the local
4:47:38
villages by whatever whatever means and sort of report back to us and and actually i think it's also
4:47:45
um as you get into the sort of detailed design the same point really extends to and we
4:47:52
heard it and one of the the questions about the sort of travel hubs as well and and sort of covering off when we get
4:47:59
into the details now as to sort of what what are the attributes of those and how do we make sure that they
4:48:04
function as as best as they possibly could so
4:48:12
again so i would uh agree with that i'll take the action and obviously the board has previously uh the
4:48:17
assembly's previously considered uh travel hubs and really moving the hubs away from a simple park and ride
4:48:24
to a you know we need cycle parking but not just any old cycle parking it needs to be secure cycle parking because
4:48:31
you know particularly we're looking at a sort of e-bikes the price point is significantly higher we need to be looking at toilets
4:48:37
we need to be looking at wi-fi we need to be looking at uh charging capabilities for for
4:48:42
vehicles um so that that that has been outlined and that will be the the sort of the direction of travel
4:48:48
we will continue to develop i'm sure the functionality of of travel hubs but i will certainly take
4:48:53
the action away around the accessibility point and yeah okay and just one last comment on that i think your your sort of comment that the
4:49:00
best way to do that is with engagement the local community is right because there are clearly going to be
4:49:05
trade-offs between the provision and and what may be the impact uh in in
4:49:12
terms of the uh the sort of visuals at least anyway okay any other questions claire
4:49:21
just to continue the discussion of this point we are in danger of becoming unfocused
4:49:28
if we start trying to be all things to all people uh shelford and saustan are reasonably well
4:49:35
served for shopping occasional trips i think my focus for this expressway to for one of
4:49:42
a better word is to try and get the commuters who are doing this daily so in from the haverhill region into the
4:49:49
hospital as workers at strange times of day lab workers going out to babraham
4:49:55
trying to get this rapid transit route if we start going around every single
4:50:01
opportunity to take somebody on a different route we will become unfocused it will
4:50:07
cost a lot more we will spend a lot more time going around the the minutiae of
4:50:15
picking up everybody so just my plea would be try to keep focused on what the real need is
4:50:21
and where the where the greatest benefit will come because with from shelford there is
4:50:27
quite a good route to have active travel into cambridge for example but there isn't from abraham so
4:50:34
i'll end there but just if if we want absolutely every opportunity taken up we will play can i can i just ask you
4:50:42
one of the questions which were one of the comments which came up in the questions was around
4:50:48
um light came out in 2017 uh concluded that light rail wouldn't be
4:50:54
appropriate it may well be desirable but it wouldn't be affordable and actually wouldn't offer the flexibility that
4:51:00
that we need um in terms of delivering some of some of these schemes um so for that reason um we took a view
4:51:08
in terms of of sort of bus ways and actually that's where the combined authority took of you in terms of
4:51:13
rubber tired cam at the time uh because they followed the advice from uh from that report so so at that point
4:51:19
uh consideration of light rail was was no longer taken forward okay thank you okay
4:51:27
so let me just uh if there are no other questions just me to open it up for more general debate
4:51:33
sorry at least i i you you're in my sort of peripheral version so so please if you do wish to you have to
4:51:38
wave a bit more vigorously
4:51:47
kick off if nobody else wants to um my feeling is very strong we need a solution to enable the
4:51:54
rapid growth that's already happening at both ends of this route growth that is essential to
4:51:59
the area and also to the uk it is quite exceptional we have very strong support from the hospitals
4:52:05
from the biomedical campus and the babraham research center on behalf of their workers and we
4:52:12
shouldn't forget that in the many many comments that we obviously get against some of the details
4:52:18
that we're looking at they're completely agnostic on the details of the route to be fair so they will take any
4:52:25
solution that we can come up with they need something because the a1307 is already congested it's polluting
4:52:32
and they want people out of their cars they can't get people out of their cars who are not willing to cycle the five miles that it is out of town of
4:52:39
abraham for example and coming into the hospital it's too long a journey to walk or cycle
4:52:45
daily so people drive in and park on all the roads around there um hospital and lab workers on the
4:52:51
biomedical campus can't afford to drive and park the parking is is rare and expensive and they have been
4:52:57
working all the way throughout the pandemic so these are not the workers who can work from home conveniently as some of
4:53:04
us can if we don't find a solution there are companies out at babraham grant park who
4:53:10
will continue to leave cambridgeshire and the uk they don't go to another part of the uk they go
4:53:15
somewhere abroad we've got a real issue in my view i appreciate
4:53:21
politicians want to be popular please shut your ears those of you who are sensitive to this one
4:53:27
but i am really unimpressed by politicians who get photographed with every placard they
4:53:32
write letters to us claiming that everyone is against this scheme or other schemes
4:53:38
there's little backup to these stated facts and it just comes across as anti-business which
4:53:44
i obviously find quite offensive businesses are basically groups of people normal people like you and i working to
4:53:51
pay for their food their homes and their taxes which pays in turn for the schools the hospitals and indeed the
4:53:58
politicians so i think we really need a solution we need it sooner rather than later
4:54:04
and if we can move on with the roots that is the preferred route
4:54:09
i am neutral on brown versus pink variant um brown is shorter and looks quicker
4:54:16
the pink variant might go along the hedge row and the edge of the field so it might have some benefits
4:54:22
that are in the detail that we will find uh later but i support
4:54:29
the route to the edge of shelford and stapleford simply because having assessed in quite some depth the
4:54:34
practicality of going through the center of shelford holding up the level crossing for 35
4:54:42
minutes in every hour instead of 24 minutes in every hour whatever the exact numbers are there's quite a substantial
4:54:47
knock-on effect with all the contingencies of waiting for trains and buses let alone knocking down the station
4:54:54
building which network rail is not going to rebuild anytime soon and even
4:55:00
more emotionally is knocking down houses and taking up people's gardens which i think we've all declared
4:55:06
we do not like demolition as part of our schemes so i'm in favor of the scheme we need a solution
4:55:13
we can't rely on the a3 1307 and i think the um our objections are absolutely
4:55:20
valid but we need to look for the greater good thank you phil thank you
4:55:28
um again i think claire has said everything that i want to say in a far more
4:55:34
compelling way than i'd be able to say this is similar in many ways to the discussion we had
4:55:41
on um c2c earlier there's obviously a lot of local
4:55:46
concerns about this but i think it's strategically necessary for all the kind of reasons
4:55:53
we've talked about um and we know that growth is happening and growth more
4:55:59
growth is coming and we need to do something to address that so i'm confident
4:56:05
that it's necessary it's justified and i think the next step in this
4:56:11
process is the right one to resolve some of the arguments and disagreements
4:56:17
that come down to what i would say are differences of view how do you weigh the green belt against
4:56:24
a strategically important transport infrastructure the right way to do that is through a plan application and
4:56:30
a public inquiry and that's why i think we should be moving to support the recommendation thank you
4:56:38
um i read one article this week where another politician said that we should
4:56:44
avoid putting transport routes through the greenbelt it's unavoidable um and
4:56:51
we have gone through a sequence and i appreciate the comments and the issues that have
4:56:57
been raised by people in staplefoot and shelford and others about this
4:57:02
particular countryside it is valuable countryside and a wonderful recreational area
4:57:10
the route on road has been assessed and is not deliverable nor is
4:57:17
practical terms the route through shelford simply because there isn't enough space and people have built on what space
4:57:24
there was so this is the best route and
4:57:29
going back to the need the need is slightly different to the need in the other scheme that we've
4:57:35
looked at this afternoon but the reason why it got greater attention and it has been looked at as
4:57:42
people have said since 2015 is just that really rapid
4:57:47
jobs growth and if you look at sites i think i saw the data for granted park
4:57:52
where way over 90 percent of people who go to granta park arrive by car and it's not much
4:58:00
different at abraham and just in the nature of
4:58:05
the fact that there isn't really enough space at the biomedical campus for all of the
4:58:13
links businesses and employment and research so it is in the nature of this area plus
4:58:20
people the hundreds of people who travel every day and from haverhill and and many resort to cars
4:58:27
because that's the only practical option that they're sometimes left with plus the fact that the whole area of
4:58:35
not just the biomedical campus but adam brooks is just a disaster zone in terms of
4:58:41
transport because people don't have an option at the moment on how to get in and out easily
4:58:46
so so i do think this scheme is necessary and if i came back 10 years after it's
4:58:53
built assuming it does get planning permission i do think it will be universally welcome and valued and heavily used
4:59:03
thank you lisa just very very quickly again i think a lot of the things have
4:59:09
been said politicians will confuse you i am completely aware of that
4:59:14
the same politicians will hold out placards do not run a narrow strip of bus bearing thing
4:59:21
across the green belt the same politicians will go on to campaign for wide and
4:59:27
extremely quick development on the green belt in another place
4:59:32
which is not very far from where we are discussing development on the green belt is not an
4:59:38
absolute oh my god we should never do that it's something that you do according to the
4:59:43
proper planning processes there are those that you follow for housing and professional accommodation
4:59:51
and there are the things that you follow for transport and i do believe that we are following the latter quite well um i do look
4:59:59
forward to seeing how the next stage develops and i also want to you know in terms of
5:00:06
i've read about i've read all the things that were given to me about the pink slightly less pink slightly more pink uh
5:00:13
brown um i'm also quite neutral to be honest with whatever works and i believe we will get
5:00:19
further input about that i note that
5:00:24
some of the most intrusive work that would be required to go through shelford
5:00:30
cuts across estates of people that don't have a clue that people are talking about that that
5:00:35
is dangerous we have a whole sheltered accommodation estate access to which would be
5:00:41
curtailed you do not want to do that and i do actually think
5:00:49
we want to look at making this a little bit more integrated because there is probably space to accommodate
5:00:55
something that works very well both as a very straightforward thorough route and something that perhaps those people
5:01:01
whose houses we're trying to save can use um and i think we can do that and i
5:01:07
i very much look forward to the to see what happens next
5:01:12
thank you lisa thank you um let me just sort of uh see if i can summarize this and
5:01:20
make my own comments as in doing so um so so again rather like see to see
5:01:29
the discussion we had there i think first of all we need to go back to you know what our role is here and our
5:01:35
role is to deliver a local transport plan and underpin the the local plans
5:01:40
and um i think i'm hearing from the board members is a sort of consensus
5:01:46
that this scheme does that uh and it it delivers on the strategic goals of uh underpinning
5:01:54
economic growth and opportunity and and i think the the additional element
5:02:00
of this scheme is well not the additional it's contained in all our schemes but the one which is
5:02:06
particularly pertinent is that um given the importance of the
5:02:11
of the employment center it is expanding transportation opportunities which
5:02:18
increase is the ability of of workers to access high quality jobs
5:02:24
and and expands the scope of participation uh for people in the economic success
5:02:32
of cambridge and that is one of the other elements of what we are trying to do
5:02:38
as a board no scheme is is perfect
5:02:46
and this scheme does involve the development of the of the
5:02:53
green belt i i think that's well recognized that that is what would be ideal if we could avoid
5:03:01
it it also involves stops for
5:03:06
the buses which are on the edges of the of the villages uh which also has certain um issues
5:03:13
associated with it on the latter issue i think we've we've covered that i think council vic raised
5:03:18
that um mr blake's assured us that that he will be working on that and report
5:03:24
back to us on what the mechanisms are to sort of try and ameliorate uh that disadvantage
5:03:33
but in terms of the other element in terms of the the green belt it turns on
5:03:39
then the issues of alternatives and here i think there are
5:03:46
uh alternatives which have been put forward put forward very well i would have to say by
5:03:53
the parishes involved and if we deal with the sheltered rail alignment first
5:03:59
uh i personally went there four times i know a number of other board members when went there numerous times that was a
5:04:07
reflection i think of how seriously the officers and the board members
5:04:12
reviewed that i am confident in the assessment which has been presented to
5:04:18
us in the report pack but that's um that that scheme is really flawed in a
5:04:27
number of significant areas we've talked about the demolition of houses i know there's
5:04:35
an argument about to what extent that demolition is required
5:04:40
um but i point out two things one of which is that in in the water beach schemes which we
5:04:46
uh reviewed this morning uh demolition was uh such a significant issue there
5:04:52
when consulted upon that it caused us in large part to drop one of the options and secondly
5:05:00
if properties are not demolished they may still be impacted uh by the uh the existence of
5:05:06
the tree screens and the shelford rail alignment would result in
5:05:12
exactly that too as well so i think that those issues are certainly relevant and
5:05:20
as uh clara said which is in front of us
5:05:25
as um phil alderman said as well the ultimate decision
5:05:32
on whether this scheme uh will get planning permission to
5:05:39
be developed in the greenbelt is for the planning inspector but on the basis of the papers in front
5:05:47
of us and as a board i think we should consider whether we feel the scheme is capable of
5:05:53
satisfying that requirement and from my personal perspective i i am in that we
5:06:01
we've got a scheme for which it delivers on our strategic objectives
5:06:08
and the alternatives are inferior to the scheme which we have in
5:06:14
front of us so that concludes my
5:06:19
comments as i said i would ask the board when we look at these recommendations to bear in
5:06:26
mind in particular the the issue of whether you feel that this
5:06:33
scheme does deliver on our strategic objectives in the delivery of the
5:06:39
local transport plan and local plan and also this issue of which i think we've
5:06:44
debated and understand quite well of um the potential
5:06:49
impact of the scheme on the on the green belt and the landscape so we've got three recommendations in
5:06:56
front of us on page 528
5:07:03
which i will for sort of 2.1 a b and c
5:07:08
uh and i would just at this stage ask the board whether i can take those in favor of
5:07:14
those recommendations thank you very much so that is uh
5:07:20
unanimous consensus and those recommendations will go forward so thank you very much indeed so that
5:07:28
um concludes item 12 on our agenda
5:07:36
i think all that now leaves me to do
5:07:44
i think is to just uh highlight the dates of the future
5:07:50
meetings uh which are in your agenda pack on page 2 of 1 678
5:07:58
with the next meeting scheduled for thursday the september the 30th so
5:08:05
thank you very much to the officers for their support today and thank you very much to the executive
5:08:10
board members aurevoir to lewis and to claire i'm sure we'll see you
5:08:17
again and thank you very much indeed and thanks very much to those members of the public who've participated
5:08:22
and listened thank you i'm pleased can i thank you chair for sharing and sharing so well this has gone
5:08:28
really really well in my opinion so thank you so much thank you
5:10:03
you
