Get involved in the big conversation about the future of Greater Cambridge

Pop up events will be held in the city over the next few weeks so people can have their say.

The Greater Cambridge Partnership has this week launched a ‘big conversation’ to ask what kind of future Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire people want to see.

Throughout October there are community pop-up events springing up all over the city so that people can have their say.

The GCP launched the conversation on Monday at the Cambs Glass Stadium in partnership with Cambridge Utd.

Chair of the GCP, Cllr Francis Burkitt, said it was fitting to launch the month-long event from the heart of the city’s community.

He said: “We desperately want to find out what people want in the area. The danger is that you only hear a subset of people, the articulate people, the particularly concerned people, the people who usually write to a local councillor with a problem. We want to hear from people who haven’t previously contacted.

“People who don’t want something built in their backyards of course are going to talk, but what you also want to hear is from the people who will benefit but who don’t necessarily write in. We also want to learn more about work patterns – where people have problems or blockages and how they can be solved. It’s public money, we must talk to the public. It’s absolutely the right thing to do.

“And so we’re going out to them with all these pop-ups to ask what they want out of better public transport, out of housing, skills and technology and get much more of a discussion and debate going between the decision makers and the guys with the money and people on the ground.

“The second thing is that the need to sort out transport in Cambridgeshire and the fact that we have the money to do so is a relatively new thing and has gone up people’s consciousness, because we’ve had the City Deal and then the combined authority come in.

“Two years ago people in the wider community weren’t talking as much about this. Now is the right time to take a month out and have a conversation. The time is right because everyone is deeply aware of what’s going on now.

“I hope people come up with completely random ideas – there’s a set of traffic lights that they want changed because it would make a great difference to their morning, or they really think tunneling is a great idea and would be happy for council tax to go up £10 if that paid for it, or tunneling is mad, get real. Or maybe people think the traffic isn’t actually too bad.”

The conversation will aim to seek people’s views, online and face-to-face at a series of business and community events across the area, on what improvements in transport, housing, skills and technology would most help them in the future.

It will run until the end of November with people able to find out more and offer their views face-to-face at more than 25 business and community events, via an online survey and through social media chats.

During October, and in association with Travel for Cambridgeshire, a travel survey will be launched seeking information on people’s travel habits, preferences and priorities, to supplement existing data for decision-making.

A full list of events can be found on the GCP website.