Planning isn’t sexy but it’s important

We would like to extend a thank you to the people at The Cambridge Room for putting the Beehive on the agenda for their first meeting.

The people behind the space have an interest in planning and a shared sense of frustration over systems that prevent real issues over developments being heard. We met with students, architects, people involved in planning and researchers to talk about the Beehive. The developer and their agents were not, as far as we know, in attendance.

BBCG was invited to share what it’s like to live by this site and how it’s affected us over the past four years and what we’ve been doing. We talked about the problem and offered solutions that are perhaps best summarised as a hope that developers - the land owners - will talk to people who know the area, and that trust and respect is important. We can see that Railpen are able to produce good developments, as seen at Devonshire Gardens, and we had hoped that this philosophy could be extended to the Abbey ward without the need to alter the perception of the Abbey ward. It is frustrating to see the term ‘residents’ being used in such a reductive way when everyone has input and value. 

We were grateful to know that our work has been recognised with comments on how helpful our website is and our considered contributions to the planning committee meeting.

We’ve also made contacts with people for the future, which we know will be helpful regardless of the outcome of the enquiry. Thank you to everyone who gave us a business card and offered to help.

Whilst it doesn’t change the current Beehive situation, it was reassuring to know that we’re far from alone in our frustrations, and those are shared concerns. It was good to talk with well-qualified professionals and people with a stake in our area for many different reasons and talk about a better way to do planning.

We’re on track with our report for the appeal, the deadline is 1st April for this. Then we wait until June. In that time, we recommend taking a breather as, regardless of the outcome, there will be more work to come, and we’ll need your help when it becomes clear what Cambridge is dealing with.