Scrap the current City Deal projects! Don't waste hundreds of millions pounds of taxpayers' money on environmentally-destructive projects!
Please re-start the City Deal process with congestion-busting projects that are environmentally friendly, good value-for-money and popular with local residents.
Why is this important?
The City Deal (£500m from the government) was set up to encourage growth and investment in the Greater Cambridge area predominantly through the use of infrastructure projects. However, the proposed projects threaten to ruin the city and its surroundings, are hugely unpopular with locals and they are actually forecast to increase greenhouse gas emissions and therefore contribute to climate change. I have given details of some of the projects at the end of this section.
Most projects have been widely opposed by local residents but this opposition is being ignored despite lengthy consultation periods. The purpose of this petition is to call for the City Deal to be completely re-started before hundreds of millions of pounds are wasted. At present the only people who stand to benefit from the City Deal are developers and a few landowners.
The City Deal board needs to spend £100m before 2019 to secure a further £400m of funding for the 2020-2035 period. The board therefore needs to find quick and suitably expensive projects. The City Deal is not trying to solve congestion in Cambridge with sustainable solutions. It is trying to spend £100m. Two high profile City Deal executives have so far resigned due to the short-sightedness of the current board.
Truly radical sustainable solutions such as trams and light rail are off the table because they are deemed too expensive (which is untrue). Simple, intelligent solutions such as car-share lanes are off the table as they are too cheap. Common sense and much-called for solutions such as upgrading the Girton Interchange to be an all-ways junction (thereby linking two sections of dual carriageway) are off the table as they require the City Deal to liaise with Highways England.
And it’s not like the people of Cambridge are incapable of coming up with innovative solutions. Cambridge Connect and Smarter Cambridge Transport are just two examples of impartial groups evolving intelligent and sustainable transport solutions for Cambridge.
Please cast your vote to re-start the City Deal.
Here are details of some of the proposed projects:
- Milton and Histon Roads are to be widened for bus lanes, removing all the trees and grass verges, despite the fact that there is little evidence for the efficacy of bus lanes in changing transport habits.
- An enormous Park & Ride site will be constructed on Madingley Hill, a prominent position overlooking the entire city.
- A concrete busway will be ploughed through Coton village destroying Green Belt land and the West Fields at a cost of £140m despite the fact there is little demand for this bus route. This project in particular is forecast to increase greenhouse gas emissions compared to doing nothing!
- Roads in the city centre will be closed to cars during peak times, a step likely to increase congestion and air pollution.
- And there are other projects, all committed to driving more buses into Cambridge's tiny city centre which already suffers from illegally high levels of air pollutants.
