Council refuses to divulge plans for market in the city’s new £3m Cultural Quarter

Mystery surrounds Cambridge City Council’s £3million plans to turn the market square and Guildhall into a new cultural quarter for the city.

The council is seeking £1.5m in public money from the Combined Authority and will provide £1.5m itself for the project but has so far not revealed any of the ideas it has for the area, saying the work is still going through “internal processes” – despite putting out a statement on the council’s website celebrating the funding.

Cambridge market traders say they have not yet been consulted about the ‘cultural quarter plan’. And they now fear for the future of the market, with many stalls lying empty during the week. They say that investment in promotion of the market appears to have stalled “due to this ongoing redevelopment”.

Market trader Bill Proud said: “The market hasn’t recovered since Covid. Whilst the city council is very good at attracting significant funding for social projects, we see very little evidence of this on the ground.

“We have been told nothing about this proposed cultural quarter. What’s it going to look like? Who is involved?

“The council will say they have big plans for the future, but the day to day promotion, the enthusiasm to promote what they’ve got, and use that as a springboard to do better, doesn’t seem to exist. There’s a lack of investment due to this ongoing redevelopment, which we haven’t really seen much of.”

He also questioned whether Cambridge needed a new cultural quarter, given the number of museums, restaurants, cafés, theatres, and shops in the city.

“What are they wanting to add?” he said. “To improve the market, we need to attract new traders doing diverse things and actually support them, as opposed to just carrying on with low visibility and low investment.”

Fellow market trader Phil Graves says he has been considering reducing his days on the market due to lack of footfall.

He says: “Mondays and Tuesdays are just awful when you see how many empty stalls there are then.

“And if you get bad weather, like last week, I think there were only 12 or 13 traders on the market.”

He argued that any investment in the market square should first tackle practical details that are putting off shoppers, rather than creating a cultural quarter.

“The council has put a huge cardboard waste skip in the middle of the market square – why have they done that?” he says.

“It’s incredibly unappealing. If you stand on one corner of the market all you can see is the black rubbish compactor and the skip.

“They’re playing with our future, really. And there’s so much uncertainty. I’ve not heard anything about this cultural quarter.

“All I hear is, ‘We’re working on sorting out the issue with the rubbish’. But that’s been going on for probably two years.”

The city council is, however, pleased to have secured £1.5m match funding for the new cultural quarter in the area of the market square and the Guildhall, which will bring the total available for the project to £3m. A report from the Combined Authority gave a single line mentioning the funding and no background or description at all about the project.

The Cambridge Independent asked to see the documents that the city council used to persuade the Combined Authority to invest in the plan, but the council would not release any.

A spokesperson for Cambridge City Council said: “We welcome the report from the Combined Authority in which the possibility of £1.5 million match-funding for Cambridge was identified for the development of a ‘cultural quarter’.

“We put forward a number of outline proposals to the Combined Authority, and now that we know which areas of work they may help us to fund, the next phase of work for us is to develop a full business case before investment can be secured.

“The funding from the Combined Authority is not yet guaranteed, but the proposal enables us to think more coherently about our current offer in and around the market square, and what our options may be for the future. We also still need to determine our own ability to match-fund any work to develop a cultural quarter, once we have a clearer project proposal.

“In terms of a timeline, we’re working to develop the business case, and plan to publish a project proposal to be discussed at strategy and resources scrutiny committee in January.

“We would like to reassure people that once we have worked the proposal up in full, and confirmed whether we are ultimately able to secure the funding, we will make sure to communicate our proposals in full, and consult with stakeholders.”

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, meanwhile, said the £1.5m had not yet been officially granted and that its budget was out for consultation until January 11.

A Combined Authority spokesperson said: “If the budget is approved, we would then work with the city council on the business case before any funds are committed.

“The release of any funds would be subject to a separate board approval process. This process is the same for all projects included in the draft proposals.

“Initial conversations between the city council and the Combined Authority have taken place on the scope of this exciting project but this is very much at an early stage and there is no substantive documentation in the public domain at this stage.”