CSET busway ‘won’t happen without government help’, warns Greater Cambridge Partnership chair

Additional reporting: Hannah Brown, Local Democracy Reporter

The Cambridge South East Transport (CSET) busway plans will not happen without government help - and there’s no sign of that yet, a leading councillor has warned.

Progress on the controversial scheme was ‘paused’ last September by the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) amid spiralling construction costs.

But the GCP said it would continue to seek alternative sources of funding for the busway, designed to provide an off-road public transport link and active travel route between the south east of the city, including Cambridge Biomedical Campus, with the A1307 and A1301 area, including Babraham.

GCP leaders argue the second phase of the CSET scheme should receive government funding as part of the ‘Cambridge 2040’ plans unveiled by housing secretary Michael Gove, who wants to see 150,000-plus homes built in the region.

The government established a Cambridge Delivery Group to work on these proposals, chaired by Peter Freeman, the head of Homes England.

The GCP’s executive board heard last Thursday (January 4) that there was still no sign of the government agreeing to provide specific funding for CSET.

Rachel Stopard, chief executive of the GCP, said: “We were disappointed that we did not receive funding for the CSET scheme in the Autumn Statement.

“We continue to work closely with Peter Freeman as the secretary of state’s sort of convoy in the area.

“He continues to argue back to the Treasury that [CSET] is a scheme that should be supported, this is a scheme that enables scalable growth in the future along the lines that the secretary of state has set out that he has the ambition for.”

Labour’s Cllr Elisa Meschini, chair of the board and deputy leader of Cambridgeshire County Council, said the GCP was doing all it could to seek alternative funding.

She said: “I think the thing that we should be looking forward to this year, which I am hoping is going to happen, is more of an understanding on the part of government that unless they take action this is not going to happen, and it is a real problem not just for the area in 50 years, which is what we should be worrying about, but about the area in the next five years.

“We will continue to work very closely with everyone who will engage and we just hope for constructive engagement from everybody, because honestly not everyone has engaged constructively, certainly not from government, in the last few months.

“We have always been ready and willing to work co-operatively when offered the chance.”

Cllr Brian Milnes, the Liberal Democrat board representative from South Cambridgeshire District Council, said the area continued to see “exceptional growth” and said they “desperately need a transport system suitable for that level of growth”.

Cllr Mike Davey, Labour leader of Cambridge City Council, said: “I want to place on record our pleasure that Peter Freeman has engaged effectively with the GCP, and that despite the fact that at times central government appear to be talking purely about housing, there is clearly the desire to look more broadly than that.

“You can’t build hundreds of thousands of houses without addressing the transport situation and I think we all have a responsibility to ensure that message is taken forwards.”

The GCP was established to spend up to £500million of government money secured under a City Deal for infrastructure improvements in Greater Cambridge. But last autumn it said inflation meant construction costs for all its projects had increased by more than £200million, eroding the value of the deal.

As a result, it paused CSET and the Foxton Travel Hub - the two projects that ticked the fewest boxes on its list of priorities.

The CSET busway would run from the A11 via Sawston, Stapleford and Shelford to the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, with a new active travel route alongside it for walkers, cyclists and horse riders, similar to the one along existing guided busways.

But campaigners, including local parish councils, continue to argue there is a far more cost effective and less destructive alternative to CSET.

The charity Cambridge Past, Present and Future has led the calls for an on-road bus scheme along the A1307 corridor instead, which it argues would offer “similar transport benefits” and cost about £100m less.

The GCP, however, says it has looked at on-road options and they would not deliver the same benefits.