Cambridge’s major “traffic generators” including retailers, Addenbrooke’s and schools are to present their views on tackling Cambridge’s transport challenges to councillors on the Greater Cambridge City Deal board at private events.

The Greater Cambridge City Deal organisation is charged with spending significant sums of public money to tackle housing, transport and educational problems in Cambridge.

On the 11th of November 2015 a launch event for the City Deal’s “call for evidence” was held at the Guildhall in Cambridge. Individuals and organisations in the city have been invited to compete for a slot at one of three public evidence gathering events to be held in the upcoming weeks where the case for various ideas can be pitched to councillors. The plan is for councillors to challenge those putting forward ideas to test the robustness of proposals.

The launch event heard that separate events are to be held in private to hear from major traffic generators in the city including Addenbrooke’s, business parks, companies, retailers, schools as well as bus operator Stagecoach. Chair of the City Deal Board Lewis Herbert justified the secret evidence gathering sessions, to be held behind closed doors, saying:

It isn’t easy to talk about changing the behaviour of your staff in a public arena, particularly if it’s in the Cambridge News the following day.

I think Jon Vale and the Cambridge News should see that as a fantastic accolade. It appears the quality of reporting on the City Deal’s activities has prompted councillors to decide to keep reporters out of the some of the most important sessions to be held by the City Deal Board. By keeping out reporters councillors are of course also denying the wider public the ability to find out what our councillors on the City Deal Board are doing with the huge powers delegated to them.

The leader of Cambridgeshire County Council, Steve Count, supported the plan for the secret, private, sessions, and even revealed he thinks those due to take part will say something different in private than they would say publicly. Cllr Count said:

In terms of the private events I’ve got to agree with Cllr Herbert and when you’re engaging whether it be the retail sector or stagecoach on certain occasions or the traffic generators like schools and that if we put it into an open session and have the media here and the mics there which is not normal for them, and it may be more normal for us politicians, we’re going to get a very different set of answers and dialogue to what we’re going to try and achieve as it is.
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I do agree with that private events idea.

As some of the organisations to be invited to the secret sessions are public bodies I would expect them to formulate their own policies in an open and transparent manner, involving all those with an interest.

How can Addenbrooke’s come to a view on transport matters without broad public involvement and public papers and debates in public at their board and Council of Governors meetings? How can they take a different position in private to one they espouse in public?

While meetings of the City Deal Board have to be public by law, and there are rights to film and report on such meetings I suspect councillors will attempt a charade such as defining the meetings as merely “events” or “sessions” rather than meetings in order to side-step the law.

Shortly after the existence of the planned secret, private, events was mentioned I challenged the idea and urged Cllr Herbert and his fellow councillors on the City Deal Board to reconsider. I said we all need to be able to see what these organisations are saying to the City Deal Board so we can challenge and respond to their submissions.

In some cases I expect public hearings might reveal differences of opinion which would remain hidden at private events. For example the owners of a business park might take a different view than those who work there (something we’ve seen over proposals for new foot and cycle accesses to Cambridge Business Park). A public session would enable workers to learn about what their bosses and those who own their workplaces have said and speak up if they disagree.

At Addenbrookes hospital managers might take different views from the staff, and those might be different from views of patients. The views, and perspective, of poorly paid staff might differ from those of highly paid clinicians.

If we have private events then pupils and parents won’t be able to hear what headteachers, or chairs of Governing bodies are saying to councillors. I can imagine a sixth-former who drives into lessons from a village outside the city might have quite a different view on the allocation of road space to a headteacher wishing to ingratiate themselves with councillors.

I hope the idea of secret evidence sessions is dropped and we all get to see what happens when the Chief Executives of Stagecoach, and Addenbrookes, the manager of John Lewis, the heads of our local schools, and representatives of major employers come face to face with councillors on the City Deal Board.

Transcript of Relevant Exchanges

Cllr Lewis Herbert: I’m Lewis Herbert and I chair the City Deal Board. I’m also leader of the council, Cambridge City Council.

The purpose of the evening is effectively to set the scene for the call for evidence and the three sessions to come.

We also have a separate dialogue with what we broadly call the traffic generators so we’ve got a dialogue with people where we need to make progress in discussions with retailers or schools or some of the operators of some the large business parks and business within the city and more of a sort of more of a different type of session because some of what they want to say they just want to be free to say it without it going straight into the Cambridge News the next day.

So some of the aim of that isn’t because the information is secret it’s just that there is a need for a dialogue to engage some of the parts of the city that are effectively generating the traffic at the peak time so that they are part of a discussion.

Richard Taylor: I’d like to, you’ve commented Lewis Herbert, in your speech that you’re going to talk to the traffic generators at private events. I’d like you to really reconsider that because I don’t think that that information should be given to the board at private events. I think we should all be able to see what people are saying so we can challenge it and respond to it. I think it is particularly concerning that some of those traffic generators you mentioned are schools, those are public bodies, we shouldn’t have public bodies making their case to the City Deal in private sessions.

Cllr Lewis Herbert: It’s still our view Mr Taylor that’s going to prompt more discussion with retailers, with some of the schools, with Addenbrooke’s and some of the people because this is the first time we’ve had a discussion with them. The notes and the summary that we prepare will be published and we will make a decision on if there’s a value of having an open dialogue with them. The assembly in particular has an ambition to have a dialogue with some of the key people. We believe there are sound reasons for the approach because we will have a more productive discussion with people. It isn’t easy to talk about changing the behaviour of your staff in a public arena, particularly if it’s in the Cambridge News the following day. So I think we will have a dialogue and ultimately there are no secrets, but it is looking at where the traffic is generated at peak times that we have to consider why it is being generated and what are the alternatives.

Cllr Steve Count: In terms of the private events I’ve got to agree with Cllr Herbert and when you’re engaging whether it be the retail sector or stagecoach on certain occasions or the traffic generators like schools and that if we put it into an open session and have the media here and the mics there which is not normal for them, and it may be more normal for us politicians, we’re going to get a very different set of answers and dialogue to what we’re going to try and achieve as it is. The public questions have been out there with those people for many years already. People have already said why aren’t schools doing this that and the other in order to help the situation and what we’re hoping is maybe by discussing what carrots and sticks are out there that we might slightly different behaviours and hopefully volunteering some ideas. So I do agree with that private events idea.