Welcome. It has been a little while.  All good with you?

Some edits are below since some information has changed, though you can’t still easily find it for yourself.

The Zone has had things to do, quasi-organisations to ponder, potholes to negotiate, and complex systems to design—you know the kind of thing.

The Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) has also been a little quiet of late. The general election has undoubtedly ensured they keep their heads down. All 54 staff, including the 13 in the communications team, haven’t communicated much.  

What! I hear you say, spraying your tea across your screen.  54 staff!

Yes, they have 54 staff—or so their organisation chart says they do.  That does seem to raise a question or two.  External consultants perform all the heavy work, and the GCP hires more consultants to process the results. After all, they openly admit they are not the experts. They buy those in.  So what do they all do? Perhaps ask them or someone knocking on your door during the election. You’re paying for them all, after all.

Above is the org chart from the GCP website. You can grab a copy yourself if you wish. Or, you could have done. It seems that GCP read these musings, so it’s changed. They have flattened it and removed all the head counts. The new one is below.

It appears Peter Blake has started making changes as the interim Director of the GCP. Peter Blake, known for his open and transparent methodology, is now steering the ship.

It is still in the governance section. Try finding it on the GCP website. We can wait. If you need a hint, it’s next to the sign “Beware of the leopard” **.

This is just one section you cannot access by following a link on the GCP website. You have to search for it. The ‘About us’ area is no longer linked; perhaps the 13 communication people don’t want to communicate. Maybe they are busy helping the 15 Transport people communicate their work to the world. Or perhaps the GCP wants to keep how large it has become off the beaten track, so to say.

Perhaps they all have been busy watching the Milton Road works. You must know them; they are running late and massively overspent. Don’t be surprised; it’s a common theme in GCP projects. The work was due to be completed in June 2024. A deadline has sped by like facts slipping through GCP’s fingers. They are expected to drag on until at least Christmas. What a lovely gift from the GCP for us all. The Zone expects to present the workers with a third-anniversary cake; confidence in the timeline is that high.

It may have gone after if sections didn’t need to be redone. The Consultants, who the GCP had oversight of, made a few minor errors in the design. You, the people, noticed these and raised them during the planning stage. You were brushed aside, ignored, if you will.

New pavements that have needed to be remodelled. Why? Well, you couldn’t walk on them; they were too narrow. If you had a pushchair or, heaven forbid, a wheelchair, you were going nowhere. A cyclist could zip along no issue at all, providing they remember to give way at the floating bus stops. The floating bus stop the RNIB calls outright dangerous. Some areas have already had accidents; they have been tweaked, too. The Cyclops roundabout looks to cause confusion, close calls, and accidents. Given the huge number of lights, poles, and infrastructure needed, it must be good. Perhaps the GCP will produce a training video?

The Zone wonders when the first accident will occur at the new Golden Hind junction when it is completed. It is probable that many of you have no idea how dangerous that is going to be for some users. You read and understood the design drawings, didn’t you?

Anyway, we stray from the crux of this update. Data.

You may remember in September 2022 when Peter Blake, transport director of the GCP (with his 15 staff), presented his Public Transport and City Access Strategy at the Greater Cambridge Partnership Joint Assembly. It was a memorable event. Did you miss it?

It is a work of beauty. If not a work based on accurate data and assumptions. You can’t have everything, I suppose.

The Public Transport and City Access Strategy boldly stated that Cambridge was the second-worst place for traffic in the UK. Based on the INRIX 2021 survey, you can pull that up yourself. They said we all lost 75 hours of our lives just moving around over a year. This was a great report to support the Sustaintainable Travel Zone (STZ) or congestion charge for the rest of us.

Well, time passes. The GCP doctrine of doom and gloom remains in all their publications. Much of your money was spent watching consultants do all the work to tell them so. Even Peter Blake himself put his name on the reports. So it must be true. Gospel even.

Roll onto the 2023 INRIX survey, published today – or 25 June 2024 for those reading this on catch-up.

Where is Cambridge now? Things can’t have improved. The GCP warned us that they were only getting worse. We need the STZ to sort everything out. Have we finally beaten London to the top spot?

Well, Cambridge has dropped to 30th in the UK from second. According to INRIX, things are 20% better than in 2019. You can check this out for yourself; the 2023 INRIX data is here.

Go Cambridge!

However, since the GCP report, we have added many new homes and created more jobs. We are supposed to be gridlocked. Even with such hugely disruptive works as Milton Road, things have improved. They have been improving for years, and the council’s own data shows that.

The Zone wonders if the other schemes in the planning, such as concreting over an Orchard to build a road for six buses an hour, need another look. The basis and assumptions don’t seem to follow the GCP’s predictions. If things are improving, and the GCPs projects are not being delivered or even started, what are they for?

The GCP couldn’t be, well, wrong. Could they?

** Those of a certain age who know who Douglas Adams is will understand the reference. Those who don’t, read more and expand your horizons. You will then see why the GCP is more Vogon like than is comfortable. Poetry anyone?