Why Cambridge should lead the way on low carbon living

TERRY Macalister, ex-energy editor of The Guardian and senior member of Wolfson College, writes for the Cambridge Independent.

I wonder how you first heard about the City Deal. Was it through a friend worried about sudden road closures?

Did you wake up one morning to see yellow ribbons tied round soon-to-be-doomed trees on the pavement?

I heard about it first after an invite to a press conference by an organisation called Cambridge Ahead. Present was the leader of the council, a bigwig from the university and a raft of business executives.

The Cambridge Phenomenon – huge commercial expansion – could only be kept going if loads of new tech and other high-spec jobs can be created, we were told.

There had to be new homes and clear roads for these tech titans to be recruited from all over the world to rush to work and back.

All the talk was about the future growth of jobs, houses, and roads. The City Deal – a promise by government to fund transport improvements – was meant to be the key to this go-go future.

But there seemed to be little reference to the desires and needs of current Cambridge residents, workers or visitors.

What did they think about supersizing Cambridge? What about the present where public services already struggle to cope due to central government cash cut backs? What about current congestion with 73,000 cars coming into the city daily with all the health and pollution issues accompanying them? Communication throughout this process has been lamentable without getting on to the workings of the ruling City Deal assembly board.

Yes, we desperately need more homes but in proper communities with their own shops, schools plus public transport and other services.

We most urgently require some low-cost homes inside Cambridge for the thousands of not-so-well paid teachers, nurses and college staff, not high-price developments that largely benefit land developers and buy-to-rent landlords.

Then why today are developers often allowed to renege on their 40 per cent “affordable” housing requirements?

Two other major issues were and are also jarringly absent from City Deal discussions: climate change and social justice.

Even as countries around the world – including Britain, China and the US – ratified a treaty to cut carbon and tackle global warming, it appeared to be business as usual in low-lying and potentially flood-prone Cambridge.

This city has a world-leading university that is a centre of academic excellence on climate science, low carbon engineering and sustainable business. It has more wonderful green spaces in the centre than almost any other. It probably has more cyclists than any other.

Cambridge has a beautiful and historic city centre that needs to be surrounded by pedestrian walkways and clean air. And yet City Deal proposals seem intent on creating wider or new roads that could increase traffic while doing little to unblock the city centre.

Meanwhile bus services run by private firms are being hacked back not increased as needed. No wonder there are mass protests over the West Fields, Milton Road and elsewhere.

Before we allow colleges to sell off their green spaces and spawn another round of free-for-all development boom, we need Cambridge civic leaders to draw up a Vision for the Future that sets out what kind of city it should become in 2030 and beyond. We should all be asked to contribute and agree collectively to this.

I would like to see Cambridge set itself up as a model “green” city, pioneering the way on low carbon living as is happening abroad.

Paris, Madrid and Athens for instance have just pledged to ban diesel cars from their centres by 2025.

Cambridge should give itself over to walking, bikes, electric scooters and buses run on hydrogen or other non-fossil fuels as far as is practical. It would help the planet and our personal health in an age of obesity.

Serious consideration should be given to a light rail transport hooked into improvements to the national rail system.

And lastly but not least, there needs to be a hard look at what kind of city Cambridge has become and wants to be: surely not a gilded and gated community of a lucky few. For too long we have ignored a growing gulf between haves and have-nots here with 4,000 children living in poverty.

We should take action to counter inequality that can blight the lives of those at the top as well as those at the bottom, as the ground-breaking research in the Spirit Level book outlines. If there is £100m, £500m or £1bn in the City Deal, as some say, then it should be used to ensure everyone benefits, not just employers or the well-heeled.

The Brexit vote highlights a need to move away from elite agendas while unrestrained growth for its own sake can further diminish our quality of life.

Terry will be talking about the City Deal at a free public meeting at 11am on Saturday (January 7) at Cambridge Central Library organised by The Cambridge Commons, a group that campaigns around equality and social justice.