NEG and the future of Cambridgeshire 02/06/21

NEG’s David Rogers was involved in an hour-long programme about the Ox-Cam Arc, broadcast by Cambridge105 Radio on the 2nd June 2021, one in a series of the station’s ‘7th Generation’ reports on how the people of Cambridgeshire are stepping up to the challenges of environmental emergencies. The broadcast covered many aspects of Whitehall’s Ox-Cam Arc plans, including levelling up (both within the Arc and between the Arc and the rest of the country), the impact of the proposed one million houses on the natural environment, Net Environmental Gain and the idea of doubling nature across the Arc. A short segment on the East-West Rail approach into Cambridge (the Bedford to Cambridge section) is included towards the end of the broadcast.

Click on the bar below the Cambridge105 logo to listen, and drag the cursor across the bar to any particular starting point. The continuity announcer throughout is Nick Skelton of Cambridge105.

In the first segment (to minute 22:30) you can hear Councillor Bridget Smith (Leader, South Cambridgeshire District Council, and Environment Lead of the Oxford Cambridge Arc Steering Group) and Richard Astle (Chair of Natural Cambridgeshire) interviewed by Lara Potter (Director, Workforce for the Future at Arcadis, and Board Director & Chair of the Future Skills Group at the Association for Consultancy and Engineering, ACE).

The second segment (from minute 24:44 to 25:55) is by Nicola Terry from Transition Cambridge, querying whether the planned growth of the Arc is the right sort of growth in the right place.

In the third segment (from minute 26:11 to 46:16) you can hear David Rogers (Secretary, No Expressway Group) interviewed by Michelle Golder (Cambridge105) who asked a similar set of questions to those asked in the first segment, but got some quite different answers!

The fourth segment (from minute 46:20 to 47:36) is by William Harrold (Founder of the Cambridge Approaches Action Group) campaigning for a fair consultation on the northern approach to Cambridge of East-West Rail (an option currently missing from EWR plans).

The final segment (from minute 48:32 to 51:55), written by Peter Zipp (The Cambridge Commons Steering Group) and read by Cambridge105 reporter Sarah Strachan, addresses inequality in the Arc and the high cost of housing, suggesting solutions that involve building social houses or self-build schemes (on previously publicly owned land) such as that at the Graven Hill site near Bicester, Oxfordshire.

Councillor Bridget Smith’s segment was recorded in March 2021, and David Rogers’ in May 2021; the broadcast was in early June. Right at the very end of the broadcast (from minute 51:55) the announcer Nick Skelton says that Councillor Smith recently got in touch to say that “the entire East-West Rail project could yet be scrapped. South Cambridgeshire District Council has demanded more information from the East-West Rail Company on its assessments on both the North and South approaches into Cambridge, and also for further assessment of the project’s impacts on the landscape, heritage sites and the area’s ecology; plus calling for the project to be fully electric from the start.”