BETTER TRANSPORT THAT SERVES EVERYONE — AND OUR ECONOMY

Cambridgeshire is growing rapidly — with 150,000 more houses and nearly a quarter of a million new residents planned for the county. But our public transport system doesn’t even serve the Cambridgeshire of today.

We must lay the foundations for a better system now. A more ambitious system that serves everybody in our region. That provides easy access to jobs, education and training, shops and leisure facilities. 

That connects not just our towns and villages with Cambridge, but also with each other. That allows those of us in smaller towns and rural areas to get not just to Cambridge but also across it. Quickly! And that reaches beyond county boundaries too.

It means planning now for trams or light rail tomorrow. Covering both Cambridge and our towns and villages. With stations where you can change from rail to bus, taxi, cycling or walking. It means decent accessibility for those with pushchairs, wheelchairs and bikes.

It also means revisiting the case for the £8 billion East West Rail project — an expensive missed opportunity that, sadly, delivers few benefits for Cambridgeshire, while cutting a 500-metre wide strip through our farms and green spaces.

When we build new roads like the A14 and A421/428, we must plan for better, safer active travel on the old roads — unbelievably, the A428 project will cost a billion pounds, yet does nothing for active transport! Road deaths and injuries are all rising in our constituency and we need action to prevent the devastating effects of this affecting even more families.

Speaking of roads, the Conservatives have neglected everything from motorways to footpaths — the UK’s tarmac has never been in a worse state. They’ve left a whopping £14 billion repair bill! Clearly, the government must invest more in filling potholes. But better use of technology should prevent them. 

What better transport doesn’t mean is an unaccountable Greater Cambridge Partnership imposing huge, unpopular and unworkable schemes like the STZ — Cambridge’s congestion charge — without offering a real alternative to driving. That’s why I voted against it.

And it can’t mean bulldozing green spaces that are crucial to nature and biodiversity. Sites like Coton Orchard. That’s why I voted for the C2C busway, but against that damaging route.

If we don’t plan for all this now, it will be too late — we’ll never get what we need. So I’ll fight for it.

I’ll work with the Combined Authority Mayor, and politicians of all parties in this region and beyond to make sure we have a plan that supports Cambridgeshire people. That supports sustainable economic growth across this region. And doesn’t trample over our wonderful rural areas.

 

Buses

After years of wrangling with his opponents, the Combined Authority Mayor is finally consulting on bus service improvements. Many changes are welcome. Franchising offers us the chance to stop commercial operators pulling routes at short notice — like the X5 from St Neots, or the 905 from Cambourne. But his plans don’t go nearly far enough.

The proposed routes are too few and infrequent. Whole villages are left unserved — some can’t even reach a town a few miles away until late afternoon. What use is a £1 fare for young people if the buses don’t go where they need to be? And the driver shortage is ongoing — so it’s not even clear that that the current plan is deliverable.

 

East West Rail

We need much better connectivity between the West of this region — St Neots and Cambourne — to Cambridge. But this plan doesn’t deliver what they need. There isn’t even a station at Cambridgeshire’s biggest town! It also misses the opportunity to serve the villages to the North of Cambridge that a Northern approach could have delivered. Places like Northstowe.

Really, it’s just a Trojan Horse: it’s designed to open up swathes of rural Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire to allow massive housebuilding programmes on our greenfield land. Just look at how many stations there are at the Oxford end versus the Cambridge end… It’s HS2 all over again!

We do need East-West connectivity in this region. But we can get a much better system for these many billions of pounds of taxpayer’s money. A system that’s better for people, and is better for jobs, growth and productivity.  

 

Trams & Light Rail

As Cambridge grows, those of us in towns and rural areas around it will find it harder and harder to get into and across it. It’s always been a small city, which is why we’ve stuck with buses and bikes. But buses alone aren’t going to cut it in the future. Neither will East West Rail.

We need a mass-transport system fit for a modern city. So we can get to any part of it, from any part of this region. And we’re not hobbled by bus driver shortages.

There’s been a huge amount of work done here by community and campaign groups to develop workable proposals for trams or light rail. There are also clever projects elsewhere — Coventry’s Very Light Rail springs to mind — that promise to deliver similar benefits for less, without digging up Cambridge’s streets. While supporting British industry.

East West Rail shows the money’s there for transport. And Cambridge’s economic boom is too important for any government not to back it. So let’s make a plan that serves us all!

 

Roads

Through 14 years of austerity, the government has burned cash on vanity projects like HS2, but hasn’t covered the bare essentials we need to keep our road network fit for use. There’s now a £14 billion repair bill — so the government’s plan to spend just £8.5 billion means our roads will only get worse!

From 2018 to 2024, motorists spent an eye-watering £9.5 billion on repairs due to pothole damage. And there are other hidden costs. For example, the fleets of vans and lorries that stock our supermarkets and bring things to our door, costs more to maintain, repair and insure. Such costs are passed on to us all.

Hit a pothole at speed on a bike or motorbike, and it’s about much more than money and inconvenience. A deadly disgrace.

Can we fix it? We can. Clearly, the government must invest significantly, but it can’t end there. We should also look to new technology to prevent potholes. Scanning can spot tiny cracks before they even become potholes. Connected vehicle suspension data and AI can be used to map potholes before they get bad. Research in Cambridge into ‘self-healing road surfaces’ looks promising too.

Let’s work smarter — and fix more for our money!