Cambridge
Cambridge is a wonderful city to live in, which is why so many people are attracted to it, and why they stay. However, it does face a number of challenges. Increased employment has led to increased demand for housing, which for a long time was not provided, forcing people to live in the necklace villages and commute in, with serious consequences for congestion and traffic volumes in the city. This has not been helped by the policies of the Tory-led County Council, which focus on the desires of rural residents, rather than the need of Cambridge residents.
Managing growth
Now that housing growth is happening in earnest in and immediately around Cambridge itself, we face another series of problems - how to link these new settlements into the rest of the city. Cambridge is littered with areas that were built with insufficient local facilities, making it harder for them to form true neighbourhoods. We also face the problem of providing sustainable transport access so that these new settlements make minimal contribution to the awful congestion we already have.
A diverse city
The population of Cambridge is very diverse. There is a popular impression that it is a wealthy city, but this wealth is very unevenly spread. Cambridge still has more than 8,000 council houses, roughly 20% of the city. Although some areas have very high educational achievement, and a huge density of people with degrees, other areas do not have such a luxury. Cambridge needs an MP who is at home talking to University academics and council tenants, high-tech workers and the unemployed.
East Chesterton
I spent 8 years as the County Councillor for East Chesterton, gaining the seat from Labour. East Chesterton itself is a microcosm of the whole city, including large estates of council housing, newly-built fashionable flats, and historic Old Chesterton. Some residents are wealthy and well-educated, some the opposite. I spent much of my time trying to build the sense of community in the area, building up the level of social capital in the area. We set up new resident's associations, and I worked particularly to develop the locally created groups that did form. This meant using political campaigning as a tool to create communities - for example, the campaign we organised to move the route of one bus service, and save another, was as much about bringing people from different areas together, working on a common goal, as it was about the buses - although success with the buses was also excellent! We also worked together with the local police, and in particular the excellent (then) PC Nick Percival, to build up a sense of cohesion, so that the police were seen as a positive part of the community.
Much of the work of a County Councillor is dealing with individual private pieces of casework, which in my case covered the whole range of possible issues; education, social services, transport and planning. Most people seemed to be pleased with how they were looked after, based on their responses. There are a number of more visible achievements - when I was first elected, my election pledge was to build a much-needed community centre in the ward. This was delivered, and has provided much more for young people to do, as well as a meeting point for various organisations.
