Summary

Questions on how the City Deal Board and officers will assess the Rail Haverhill and Cambridge Connect project proposals.

Transparency note – I run the Cambridge Connect FB page on a voluntary basis (on the grounds that I want Cambridge to build an underground light rail metro to deal with our road motor traffic problems). 

My email to democratic.services@scambs.gov.uk (who you need to email to submit a Q to the City Deal authorities) is as follows:

“Hello Democratic Services

Please can I submit the following tabled Q to the City Deal Board.

“The City Deal Board announced an award of £50,000 of funding for research into the Cambridge Bullet Bus (reported at http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/city-deal-invests-futuristic-120-12124803). I have not been able to find any explanation into this project online – the complete opposite of the case for Rail Haverhill and for Cambridge Connect Light Rail.
Please can the City Deal Board:
1) release a formal document explaining at least the basics of what the bullet bus project actually is, and the considerations made before approving the release of £50,000 of funding for research for this project (which seemed to come out of the blue)
2) please comment on whether they will be willing to fund the necessary technical and financial feasibility studies for Rail Haverhill and the Cambridge Connect proposals in tranche 2 as part of the research budgets. I find it astonishing that such proposals were swept aside in tranche 1 given the levels of growing public support for both projects which have had extended publicity on the work already done, compared to the bullet bus project
3) please comment on how you will ensure the public – and in particular the academic community & experts in & around Cambridge will be able to scrutinise the assessments you make on the cost/benefits of proposals put forward given the disquiet of your conclusions originally for the rail haverhill project.
Kind regards

Antony Carpen”

Note the rules for tabling public Qs here. The deadline for submitting Qs to the City Deal Board is Fri 03 March 2018

Original source – A dragon’s best friend

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