Green light for £162m off-road Cambridge South East Transport busway

A £162million off-road busway has been given the green light by councillors despite fears it will “leave parcels of countryside exposed to future development”.

Cambridgeshire County Council agreed to submit a Transport and Works Act Order to the government for phase two of the Cambridge South East Transport (CSET) project on Tuesday (22 October).

The news is a major blow to campaigners, including local parish councils, who argue there is a far more cost-effective and less destructive alternative to CSET.

However, others have highlighted the benefits of the scheme for people trying to reach hospitals, research institutes and businesses on Cambridge Biomedical Campus.

Cllr Elisa Meschini, Labour chair of the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) executive board, said: “It’s great that this well-overdue project is progressing. The Cambridge South East Transport project will be vital for the delivery and success of the new children’s and cancer hospitals.

“Sustainable transport solutions are needed to enable access to the crucial,

life-saving work being carried out in our great city and giving people greater travel choices to enable them to get to work, school or to meet friends.”

The GCP’s busway will run from the A11 via Sawston, Stapleford and Shelford to the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, with a new active travel route alongside it for walkers, cyclists and horse riders, similar to the one along existing guided busways. It will also take people from Cambridge out to Granta Park and Babraham Research Campus.

A petition signed by more than 6,900 names was presented to the meeting of the county council yesterday (Tuesday), asking them to spare the countryside and instead build traffic-free bus roads next to the A1307.

The petition was organised by local charity Cambridge Past, Present & Future, Stapleford Parish Council, Great Shelford Parish Council, Babraham Parish Council, Gog Magog Trust, Hobson’s Conduit Trust, CPRE and Railfuture East Anglia.

Presenting the petition, Cambridge PPF chief executive James Littlewood told the meeting: “The recommendation before you will result in building five miles of road through open countryside, including two large bridges over the River Granta and putting a chalk stream in a culvert.

“It would cut across the lower slopes of the Gog Magog Hills and through a new country park. It will leave parcels of countryside exposed to future development.

“I’m presenting a petition signed by over 6,900 people, asking you to listen to public opinion, save the countryside, protect the Gog Magog Hills and choose a better scheme.”

Progress on the scheme was ‘paused’ last September by the GCP amid spiralling construction costs.

However, the government announced in March that it would provide £7.2million to start progressing the project again.

Speaking at Tuesday’s meeting, Miranda Harper said: “If you approve the CSET off-road busway it will carve a 14-metre wide swathe through the green belt at a cost of more than £160million of public funds.”

She called for the council to reconsider an old scheme to see the route go along an existing road, which she said would not “wreck the countryside”.

Stephen Partridge-Hicks, the chairman of the campaign group Better Ways for Busways, said the “real problem” the CSET project “should be trying to solve” was creating a long-term transport solution from the south east of Cambridge to the Cambridge Biomedical Campus (CBC) via Granta Park from Linton and Haverhill where “many of CBC’s key workers live”.

“However, the modelling makes it clear that buses don’t have the capacity required to provide transport on the scale required to service the entire corridor to Haverhill,” he said, arguing building the busway would make reopening the railway “much more difficult”.

Dr Mike Moore, chair of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, highlighted the benefits for people trying to reach the hospitals at the biomedical campus.

He said: “CUH has 13,000 staff and sees over one million patients every year, many of whom rely on public transport to get to our hospitals.

“Over a third of our staff travel to work from the eastern side of Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and North Essex.

“CUH therefore has a strong interest in the effective and timely delivery of improved public transport, which also supports access to more affordable housing within a reasonable, reliable and affordable commute.”

Dan Thorp, CEO of business and academic member organisation Cambridge Ahead, said segregated public transport was more reliable for passengers and more viable for operators.

Cllr Meschini (Lab, King’s Hedges) stressed the new busway was needed to support the plans to build new hospitals at the Biomedical Campus. She said the hospitals would not be viable without a form of mass transport to get people there.

“This is about getting people from place A to place B, which is where they want to go and at the moment they are not getting there.

“There are nurses, lab technicians, doctors, scientists, cleaners, caterers, and there are patients, they need to be able to access this place of work or of treatment.

“They need good public transport alternatives to be able to do that and they need to be able to avoid the queues on the roads currently accessing the campus.

“Those able to do active travel should have real walking and cycling infrastructure that they can use.

“People do and will use public transport when it is fast and reliable – the evidence of the existing busway is overwhelming, with millions and millions of users.

“If we do not build on what is shown to be a successful platform we won’t be able to meet the challenges of the future.”

However, Conservative opposition group leader Cllr Steve Count (Con, March North and Waldersey) said the council should be looking at the alternative option some people in the area were calling for instead. He proposed an amendment and asked for support for the authority to review the mostly on-road option.

Cllr Count claimed this option had not been assessed against the CSET busway proposals.

He highlighted that it was suggested the alternative option could cost a lot less and argued there was time to conduct this review, pointing out that the Cambourne to Cambridge busway TWAO application had not come back to council for sign off yet.

Fellow Tory Cllr Mark Goldsack (Con, Soham North and Isleham) said he believed more information was required. He added that he did not believe the government would “cough up” the rest of the money needed for the proposed busway.

Cllr Meschini insisted that the alternative option had been looked at and assessed twice.

She said it had been shown that “the on-road alignment does not work”.

She said: “There is no point saying this is cheaper if it gives you nothing.”

The Conservative amendment failed to get enough support to be approved.

Cllr Neil Gough (Lib Dem, Cottenham and Willingham), former GCP chair, said the organisation had undertaken a “thorough process” to look at all the issues and tested the options for the project.

He said the biomedical campus was “thriving” and that there was a “blindingly obvious need for a public transport scheme to access it”.

“Busways really work and at this moment are the only practical solution to our transport needs,” said Cllr Ros Hathorn (Lib Dem, Histon and Impington), who highlighted the popularity of the existing guided busway.

Council leader Cllr Lucy Nethsingha (Lib Dem, Newnham) said she recognised some people were still unconvinced about the plans.

She said there were always going to be people who would prefer a different option, but said the proposed busway had been fully scrutinised and said it was ‘critically’ needed.

However, Cllr Bill Hunt (Con, Soham South and Haddenham) said the proposed busway was an “expensive folly”.

He said it was “obvious” from the people who spoke at the meeting that “residents in that area do not want their countryside destroyed”.

When a decision was put to a vote, 33 councillors voted to support, with 15 councillors voting against.

Cllr Meschini asked people to remember the message from the hospital representatives as she said they “came here to tell us please do this”.

She said: “We need this now, we cannot afford for any more processes to be started, any more reviews to be done, we have to do this now.”

The council is run by a Liberal Democrat, Labour and Independent coalition.

Additional reporting: Hannah Brown, Local Democracy Reporter