Key Players in the Ox-Cam Arc Plans
The Oxford to Cambridge Partnership
The Oxford to Cambridge Partnership is a pan-regional partnership that has been set up to oversee the development of the Oxford to Cambridge Arc.
The Partnership is made up of the following members:
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority
Councils
Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs)
Arc Universities Group
England’s Economic Heartland
All members pay an annual subscription.
Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority
Led by directly elected mayor, Dr Nik Johnson, the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority is made up of local authorities and a Business Board. The role of the Combined Authority is to create ‘sustainable growth across the region’ and to make ‘life better, healthier, and fairer for all’.
Seven local authorities are part of the Combined Authority:
Dr Nik Johnson, Mayor of Cambridgeshire & Peterborough
Cambridge City Council
Cambridgeshire County Council
East Cambridgeshire District Council
Fenland District Council
Huntingdonshire District Council
Peterborough City Council
South Cambridgeshire District Council
The Business Board is a local enterprise partnership for the area.
Councils
The following councils are members of the Oxford to Cambridge Partnership, according to Shadow board meeting minutes from June 2023:
Bedford Borough Council
Cambridge City Council
Cambridgeshire County Council
Central Bedfordshire Council
Cherwell District Council
Huntingdonshire District Council
Luton Borough Council
Milton Keynes Council
North Northamptonshire Council
Oxford City Council
Oxfordshire County Council
Peterborough City Council
South Cambridgeshire District Council
West Oxfordshire District Council
West Northamptonshire Council
Local enterprise partnerships (LEPs)
Local enterprise partnerships are ‘business-led partnerships between local authorities and local businesses’ (lep network). The goal of an LEP is to drive economic growth in the area.
Three local enterprise partnerships participate in the Oxford to Cambridge Partnership:
Note: The government plans to withdraw support from LEPs in 2024. It is expected that LEPs’ responsibilities will be transferred to local authorities.
Arc Universities Group
The Arc Universities Group is made up of nine universities in the Oxford-to-Cambridge region. It champions economic growth through ‘research, skills and innovation’.
England’s Economic Heartland
England’s Economic Heartland advises the government on transport infrastructure in the region. Its area of interest is from Swindon and Oxfordshire in the south to Peterborough and Cambridgeshire in the north. It is one of seven sub-national transport bodies in the country.
To meet its goal of growing the region’s economy, EEH produces a transport strategy for the region and government and advises the government on investment. It is funded by the Department for Transport and member local authorities.
As part of its environmental goals, the EEH wants to ‘achieve net zero carbon emissions from transport by 2040, ten years ahead of the legal requirement of 2050’. It claims it wants to enable ‘growth in a way that improves the environment’.
The following local authorities are members of EEH:
Bedford Borough Council
Buckinghamshire Council
Cambridgeshire County Council
Central Bedfordshire Council
Hertfordshire County Council
Luton Borough Council
Milton Keynes Council
North Northamptonshire Council
Oxfordshire County Council
Swindon Borough Council
Peterborough City Council
West Northamptonshire Council
Oversight and funding
Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, announced government backing for the Oxford to Cambridge Partnership in January 2023. He is giving the group access to £2.5 million of funding over two years.
The Partnership publishes its meeting minutes on its website. A video of the board meeting held on 14 September 2023 is available on YouTube. They also plan to have public meetings, but details about how these will operate is not yet available.
Dipesh J. Shah OBE, Independent Chair for the Oxford to Cambridge Partnership
The Oxford to Cambridge Partnership Board
The Partnership is overseen by its board, whose role is to oversee the delivery of the work programme. The board has the following members:
Chairman - Dipesh J. Shah OBE
Board members - Dr Barbara Ghinelli, Prof Lynette Ryals OBE, Cllr Bridget Smith, Prof Alistair Fitt, Cllr Peter Marland, Cllr Liz Leffman, Cllr Jonathan Nunn, Peter Horrocks CBE, Mayor Nik Johnson, Cllr Susan Brown
Dr Richard Hutchings is Managing Director.
East West Railway Company
The East West Rail Company is responsible for designing and delivering the East West Railway (EWR). It was set up by the government as a separate company to ‘deliver’ a rail connection between Oxford and Cambridge as quickly as possible.
A National Audit Office report summarises one of the government’s goals for the East West Railway:
‘One of the most significant intended benefits of the project is to support economic growth in the region through enabling new housing and attracting business expansion along the route.’
East West Rail Economic Growth Board
In September 2023, HM Treasury set up the East West Rail Economic Growth Board. The Growth Board is made up of several government departments and will be run by HM Treasury.
Information about the Growth Board appears in the National Audit Office’s report on East West Rail. According to the report, the board aims to:
Support local areas to accelerate and maximise the wider social and economic benefits of East West Rail.
Provide a forum for the various departments with an interest in East West Rail.
Coordinate central government activity.
Align East West Rail with the government’s broader policy ambitions.
Richard Fuller, Conservative MP for North East Bedfordshire, also gleaned information about the Growth Board in a written question to the Treasury on 4 December 2023.
The board met for the first time in September 2023. However, minutes from the meeting were not made public. The campaigning group Cambridge Approaches requested a copy of the minutes through a Freedom of Information request. The request was denied by HM Treasury.
Stop the Arc - Campaigning against the Arc
The Stop the Arc Group began life as the No Expressway Group which helped to set up several No Expressway local campaign groups in Beckley, Stanton-St-John, Forest Hill, Brill, Marsh Gibbon, Worminghall, Oakley, and Woburn Sands. The Covid outbreak put a stop to direct contact between our groups and also halted the village hall-based talks we gave in 2019. After our very successful petition to 10 Downing Street and drop-in event in Westminster in February 2020, our campaign ‘rested’ for much of the rest of that year, although keeping abreast of Ox-Cam Arc developments via official reports and announcements.
We re-started the campaign in early 2021 and were delighted when the government officially cancelled the Expressway - ‘paused’ for more than a year - in March 2021. That necessitated a campaign name change to our present title - the Stop the Arc Group - democratically decided by consulting with all our supporters, who suggested more than 170 alternative new names for our campaign
We continued to raise awareness throughout 2021 via webinars, meetings and newsletters.
We believe local groups are effective because they know the local community and how to mobilise them into action! We also believe that by working together, sharing information, resources and skills we are stronger together.
We have a regular committee meetings and keep in touch with other campaign groups to keep us moving forward!
In 2022 we became a Community Benefit Society (CBS) which gives our Trustees limited liability for campaign activities. We were also granted charitable status, which allows us to claim tax back on any donations from UK taxpayers.
Campaigners for the East West Rail Routes
Two campaign groups deal specifically with parts of the proposed East West Rail connection between Oxford and Cambridge.
Environment Groups
The environment can’t speak for itself but there are many who can: the Wildlife Trusts – Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust and Beds, Cambs & Northants Wildlife Trust; Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE); Woodland Trust; Friends of the Earth; RSPB.
In June 2020 the Wildlife Trusts, RSPB and the Woodland Trust launched Nature’s Arc, a set of principles for ‘protecting and restoring nature and tackling climate change if large-scale developments get the go-ahead in the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Arc’. This announcement was hugely controversial, and a scathing article by George Monbiot in The Guardian resulted in the resignation of many members of the respective charities - and a fairly rapid re-writing of their websites.
The Wildlife Trusts
The Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust expressed their reservations about the environmental impact of Ox-Cam Arc plans during the 2021 Arc Spatial Framework consultation.
The Beds, Cambs & Northants Wildlife Trust proposed an alternative vision to the Arc, called 100 Miles Wilder. Included in their vision are wildlife corridors, cycle networks and planned ways for people to access nature.
The RSPB
In June 2020, the RSPB was one of a group of UK environmental charities that set out a group of principles, called Natures’ Arc, to help protect the environment if development for the Ox-Cam Arc goes ahead.
The Countryside Charity, CPRE
In addition to its many publications on all aspects of development that threaten our countryside and natural environment, CPRE has produced numerous documents and critical analyses of Ox-Cam Arc plans, from an early policy paper on the Arc in 2019 to a more recent opinion piece, that also includes a link to its excellent response to the 2021 Arc Spatial Framework consultation.