Mayor says Greater Cambridge Partnership’s ‘time is up’ and set sights on light rail for city

Cambridgeshire’s new mayor has delivered a stark verdict on the region’s controversial busway plans, declaring “the time is up” for the Greater Cambridge Partnership and setting his sights firmly on light rail.

Paul Bristow confirmed that early work is already under way to explore light rail – including plans for a formal feasibility study that could be announced in the coming weeks.

“I’m hoping, very soon, to announce the next steps that would be around some sort of feasibility study for light rail,” the mayor said. “We need to start funding the future rather than refunding the past.”

His comments come in response to a public question from Daniel Fulton, of Cambridgeshire Action, who criticised the GCP for continuing to push ahead with costly public inquiries into busway schemes that he argued are outdated, deliver poor value for money and lack public and political support.

“Four out of five mayoral candidates backed light rail,” Mr Fulton told a meeting of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority board on 4 June.

“Despite this, the Greater Cambridge Partnership insists on pushing ahead with expensive public inquiries for its busway schemes which deliver very poor benefit- cost ratios, which will fail to provide sufficient capacity for transport to key destinations, and which lack broad public and political support.”

Mr Bristow, elected last month, echoed the frustration, saying: “Light rail is the transport solution that Cambridgeshire needs and deserves.

“As my campaign progressed, I was delighted that a consensus began to form around this idea, and that has only strengthened since.

“There’s no such consensus on busways – our focus should be on light rail that links homes and major research hubs.”

He also revealed that discussions with key partners are already under way.

“I’ve already had encouraging discussions with members of this board, Cambridge City Council, the Cambridge Growth Company and the government about the prospect of light rail and how that might work in Cambridge,” he said. “We’ve seen how light rail has worked in Coventry – and I’ve seen how it’s worked on the continent in some similar-sized cities to Cambridge or at least the level of development that is the ambition for Cambridge.”

The Conservative mayor did not hold back on his view of the GCP’s role in current transport planning.

“The GCP began as an opportunity, but it hasn’t delivered the transport solution that Cambridge has needed,” he said. “I was clear during the election that the GCP’s moment had passed and its time is up.

“I’m confident that the government has listened to this view, and I was very pleased that the council of mayors and the government seemed open and were positive about this view, and will rapidly reach the same conclusion.”

“[It] doesn’t matter when it was set up and which government did. A bad idea is a bad idea,” he added.

Mr Bristow had pledged during his campaign to scrap the GCP, which is progressing plans for three busways around Cambridge.

He described the £230million Cambourne to Cambridge busway as a “deeply flawed project that threatens to carve through our countryside” and pledged that if he became mayor it would “bin” it.

Likewise, he described the £162m Cambridge South East Transport busway as “a disastrous project that threatens to tear up our countryside while failing to deliver the transport improvements local people actually need”. He promised the current plans would not proceed if he became mayor and instead “a better bus route using the existing road infrastructure” would be adopted.

The GCP was contacted for comment.