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:

• 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

• North Northamptonshire Council

• Oxford City Council

• Oxfordshire County Council

• Peterborough City Council

• South Cambridgeshire District Council

• West Oxfordshire District Council

• West Northamptonshire Council

  Note: Milton Keynes Council withdrew its membership from the Partnership, according to the Partnership’s meeting minutes from September 2024.

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:

• Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (OxLEP)

• South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership (SEMLEP)

• Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority Business Board

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.

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.

• Bedford for a Re-Consultation, BFARe - challenges the official route of the line in Bedford.

• Cambridge Approaches, CA - challenges the southern approach of East West Rail into 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 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.