The polls are open in Queen Edith’s for the general election and the city council election. If you haven’t decided how to vote yet please do take a look at my leaflets!
Andy Bower.
All posts by Andrew Bower
In Touch Election Special
The Queen Edith
Great news for Queen Edith’s as the brand new Queen Edith pub opens tomorrow, Friday 24 April! Run responsibly by a great local group, the Milton Brewery, the pub will be a great asset to the community here.
I was fortunate enough to have a guided tour by Richard Naisby from the brewery earlier in the month. Here is a preview:
Despite some objections, luckily the licensing application went through!
March In Touch
Queen Edith’s By-Election Result
Thank you to everyone who voted yesterday!
The results were:
- Sanders (LD) 933 – 36.4%
- Ahammed (Lab) 790 – 30.8%
- Bower (Con) 614 – 23.9%
- Chalfen (Green) 222 – 8.6%
We increased our share of the vote from 16% in May to 24%, taken out of the Lib Dems’ majority with virtually no movement for the other candidates – a great result that shows Queen Edith’s is a three-horse race. A special thanks to all who helped my campaign!
Homerton College Hustings
This evening I joined the other by-election candidates in a student hustings at Homerton College in the ward. Here’s my opening statement:
It was a fun evening, and nice to meet some of the other candidates for the first time!
Andy’s pledges: 4. A hardworking campaigner
I pledge to word hard for Queen Edith’s residents, turning up to meetings and doing my ‘homework’. I have a track record of all year-round campaigning on local issues in Cambridge and was already regularly attending South Area Committee meetings, long before this election was called, seeking to influence important decisions in our area.
Whether they are the big strategic issues or the small things, the pavement politics of individual streetlights and potholes, I will be on the case. Please get in touch if there’s anything you need me to be looking in to in your part of the ward!
Remember, polls are open 7am to 10pm tomorrow and you don’t need your polling card! Any questions, call me on 750002.
Andy’s pledges: 3. Putting the taxpayer first
The state of the public finances after the Brown years made local government spending restraint inevitable. It needs sound stewardship of public funds to make sure that the councils’ scarce resources are put to the best use.
I pledge to do my best to ensure public funds are spent well. As an example of where we need a change of approach, the culture of pots of money to be treated like windfalls and splashed on ill-thought out schemes like the Perne Road roundabout must end. Yes we have to honour the limitations on grants and other pots of money, but we should give their use exactly the same scrutiny and care as we do expenditure arising from council tax or the general purpose government grant.
Now that we have the city deal money ‘to spend’ the risk of waste is critical.
Only Conservative councillors can be trusted to fulfill this function.
Andy’s pledges: 2. Planning a better Cambridge
Readers of my newsletters will know the opposition that I and local Conservatives have to plans to develop the land around Worts Causeway, but what about the wider planning issues?
We need a huge programme of housebuilding in this country to make up for years of failure. People in their 20s and 30s find it very difficult to live in this area. That means developing on brownfield sites, greenfield sites and even judiciously removing some bits of land from the Green Belt.
We also have a duty to make sure we do not destroy the character of our towns, villages and countrysides, which is why we have the Green Belt. And we have a duty to make sure new development can be backed by infrastructure.
Can we satisfy both these requirements? Yes, we can. And it’s up to democratically-elected local authorities to sort it out. That means electing councillors who will not let developers run rings around them and who will work constructively with elected representatives from neighbouring local authorities, something that I have already started to do.
What is wrong with what we have been doing? The city council has repeatedly approved ugly buildings, in recent years often around the station area, and is urbanising Cambridge. Recent changes are often described as making Cambridge look like London. Nothing against London, I lived their for a while, but the city we love is more distinctive than that. Local planning policies must demand higher standards.
It is clear that sites like the Green Belt around Worts Causeway, as well as having major ecological implications to development, would be a transport disaster. There’s also a lack of other infrastructure like schools and community facilities to support further extension of the ward as a dormitory.
What we really need is new towns with integrated facilities and the best transport links. We should not be in denial that Cambridge will remain a principle employment centre and we do need excellent transport links with the new towns, which includes good roads, fully segregated cycling facilities and high quality public transport. The Green Party approach, which gets part way to the answer, falls down when it bundles environmental concerns with the anti-growth, ‘anti-capitalist’ ideology with which it is often, unfortunately, accompanied.
Andy’s pledges: 1. Transport that works
Transport issues have been at the heart of much of the campaigning that I have done over the years in Cambridge and it is no different this time in Queen Edith’s.
As someone who has always loved getting about by bicycle – and also knowing how horrendous traffic jams can be in Cambridge – I know that we live in a cycling city. In Cambridge we have the highest level of commuter cycling in the country at 30%. Sometimes when weather is particularly bad we get an insight into how much worse traffic would be in Cambridge if people didn’t cycle! Going around Queen Edith’s you see all ages cycling – it is always encouraging to see. (Not so encouraging, though, is seeing close passing of cyclists on Queen Edith’s Way…)
So we need to make sure that Cambridge is a great place to cycle – and that is worth an article in its own right – but we also need to consider transport infrastructure as a whole. One of the problems as Cambridge grows is the greater pressure on our roads. This needs to be taken into account when new developments occur, whether business or residential. The problem with the approach of Lib/Lab/Grn activists is that it is so focused on being ideologically green that the practical side of planing for transport is overlooked: they think you can play King Canute and pronounce that motor traffic isn’t welcome here, constantly ratcheting up the constraints without any adverse consequences, but the reality of even more congested streets is in itself a poor outcome for the environment, not to mention quality of life and our economic future here.
So yes, we need a properly upgraded, i.e. widened, A14, not the watered down ideas of the Lib Dems and we also need to work out other ways to relieve motor traffic in Cambridge. The county council should also model the effects of opening up the Addenbrooke’s access road to all traffic – it is crazy to send people round Trumpington High Street, Long Road and Hills Road when there’s a brand new underused road that could serve a useful function as core transport infrastructure, especially with the new development round there – another perverse outcome of treating green concerns ideologically instead of practically.
The Cambridge area has been allocated a lot of money for cycling from the government but, an ongoing theme with local government here, there is is a danger that it will be wasted on badly thought out schemes. The priority must be facilities that would actually be used, like cycle parking everywhere, not pointless roundabout redesigns like the new Perne Road roundabout that just create new hazards.
Car parking is a problem that needs solving in Queen Edith’s and that means local authorities and institutions treating car parking as critical infrastructure not a cash cow. Whether it’s the city council’s car parks, the park and ride or the hospital site, charging policies need to be reviewed. Yellow lines or residents’ parking may help in some cases, particularly where dangerous parking is taking place, but such solutions come with a downside for local residents and are no substitute for getting to the root cause of the problem.
QE Blue 