Campaigners raise £100,000 to help fight Cambourne to Cambridge busway plans

Campaigners who argue an on-road option should be pursued instead of the £200million Cambourne to Cambridge busway have raised more than £100,000 to make their case at a public inquiry.

The group is hoping to raise £130,000 ahead of the inquiry, which is expected to take place this summer.

The funds, which have so far reached £114,000, will be used to employ a legal team and professional expert to represent them.

James Littlewood, CEO of Cambridge Past, Present & Future (CPPF), which owns some of the land affected and is leading the campaign, told the Cambridge Independent: “In order to make the best case possible at the public inquiry, we need to employ a legal team and professional experts. Unfortunately, that’s very expensive and we don’t have enough funds.

“We launched a crowd-funding appeal, and the response so far has been amazing.

“Our legal team and experts have helped us to submit a strong objection, and we are working on our Statement of Case.

“However, we need more funds to pay for the inquiry costs and we are targeting £130,000.”

The coalition of villages, farmers, charities and conservationists argue that an alternative on-road solution to the busway “would achieve the project’s objectives without causing environmental degradation”.

The Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) plans to build the busway to improve journeys between the town and city, with up to eight buses expected to run per hour and direct services to the West Cambridge site, the city centre and the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.

It would also serve the new development at Bourn Airfield, as well as Hardwick and Coton.

A Transport and Works Act Order (TWAO) application was submitted to the Secretary of State by Cambridgeshire County Council, as the transport authority for Cambridgeshire, in November. It will give the council powers to

compulsorily purchase land owned by those who oppose the scheme.

A public inquiry will take place in the summer to hear the arguments for and against the busway scheme,

before the government decides whether to grant permission for its construction.

Mark Abbott, chair of Coton Parish Council, said: “There were over 300 formal objections to the Department of Transport against the plans to destroy the countryside to the west of Cambridge.

“The tragedy of the GCP’s approach is that if they had listened to local communities from 2014, by now a bus lane along Madingley Road would have been built, Cambourne would have the better bus services they rightly want, and Coton Orchard and Madingley Hill, which have been protected by CPPF and the National Trust for over a hundred years, would be saved.

“We are entirely funded by the community. I am so proud of the village of Coton and its friends that we have raised this much so far.”