The Director of Cambridge Science Park Ltd, Jane Hutchins, said it was “not right” that for all the wealth being generated by firms on the science park, King’s Hedges ward remains one of the most economically deprived parts of Cambridge and Cambridgeshire – in a city that is the most unequal in the country.
As part of the Cambridge Wide Open Day I got up especially early to go to a workshop hosted by Jane Hutchins of the Cambridge Science Park. A few weeks earlier I had emailed her about the possibility of a new swimming pool on the motor garage site on on the southern side of the guided busway opposite the Science Park – one that would serve both employees and guests of the science park and also residents of King’s Hedges, the students at the North Cambridge Academy & Cambridge Regional College, the nearby primary schools, and all of the villages along the guided busway for whom the St Ives Leisure Centre in St Ives is too far to get to.
Above – a vlogpost by me outside the Science Park busway stop that could serve a new swimming pool, and pictured is Cllr Clara Rackham, one of our civic heroes whose campaigning over half a century got Parkside Pool built in the 1960s.While Ms Hutchins had a very successful science park to promote, she was refreshingly honest about its failings – and her sector’s failings in failing to deal with the huge inequalities within our city. Some of you will recall I was scathing in my comments about the University of Cambridge boasting about its impact on tourism when our city council cannot even afford to maintain a full time tourist information centre. I contrasted this with the approach from Cambridge Ahead’s Young Advisory Committee which took a much more positive approach on inequality in Cambridge. The signals from younger generations is clear: They won’t tolerate such extreme inequalities in our city. (Note Millennials are now in their late 30s – I’m in that generation between Generation X & Millennials who were in education (School/college/uni) as the internet was becoming mainstream).
‘The Cambridge Science Park has a moral duty to respond to the poverty on its doorstep’
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