The Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) marketing department has been out and about. How many of the dozen or so involved was unknown, as the GCP has now hidden the head counts and org charts on its website. But we digress.

The Cambridge News has a quote from the chair, as can be read in the article.

Councillor Elisa Meschini, chair of the GCP board, said all major works are due to be completed by the end of September. She said: “We’re on time, well on budget, which is a fabulous achievement.”

So there are two facts stated here. Time and budget. Hard facts. Simple facts. But are the facts, well, factual? Has a little GCP marketing glitter been applied?

You may ask yourself, is it on time? It seems to be dragging on a bit. Well, this depends on how you define time. There is the normal temporal ticking of the clock, and then there is project reporting time and how to determine what is late.

The GCP prefers a somewhat granular definition of time, as it helps keep the project documents tidy. Behold the 2024 March update from the GCP regarding project status, a table of beauty.

You may gloss over the original target date for Milton Road of 2021, given they didn’t start until June 2022.

The Milton road project is deemed “On Time” if completed in 2024. Not the June of 2024, which was the plan. If the project is completed in 2024, it will be reported as “On Time”, pats on the back all around. That is good data for the Gateway review, perhaps a little dubious, but it’s fair game if you mark your own homework. Welcome to marketing folks.

The article says September, so it’s only three months late—not too shabby. Those who live in the area may disagree. Note the key phrase “major works” in the quote. Expect works to continue for months after the grand opening photo opportunity.

But, I hear you say, ” Completing major works” isn’t the same as the “Completion Date for the whole Project.”

You would be correct. The two are not the same. But, as the GCP would no doubt comment, it’s just semantics of little importance in the overall plan. After all, only you, dear reader, have to live with the reality of it.

If we look at the budget, well, that does seem odd. This is from the same document as the table above.

Milton Road, costing £24 million. Same as previous years. A staggering sum, but not enough to move some service boxes an arm’s length to keep the pavements clear. Oh no, that costs *too much* money to do. Well, you can’t have a pavement and walk on it your cake and eat it.

Read further on. As you should, these documents are works of art that everyone should appreciate. Conceptual art in places, perhaps. Continue until you hit the draft budget (or jump to page 67 for the impatient). Well, it seems a little different here.

For some reason, Milton Road is now £31.945 million. Clicking away on the abacus shows that the project’s cost has increased 33%. But check for yourself; the document can be found here. Perhaps it will become clear that a mere £8 million discrepancy is just too slight a figure of your money to worry about.

Perhaps there is a new definition of “well on budget” that the Zone is unaware of. Should we all chip in to buy them a dictionary?

It seems that Milton Road will be “a fabulous achievement,” perhaps just not in the way the GCP intended it to be.

The Zone wonders what the budget will be for the remedial works required once it is finally completed—answers on a postcard to the usual address.