The A505 and the City Deal - an opportunity missed?

The discussion at Ickleton parish council the other evening about traffic along the A505 (and other recent developments including the school places shortage) has made me more determined that we have to get to grips with the issue of lots of growth but no infrastructure keeping pace, especially on local roads. I've gone back to the county to seek better answers, after a meeting I held the other week was inconclusive.

So putting it simply, the scale of proposed development - principally by bio-tech companies - along an east-west axis between Babraham and Duxford, and north-south between Whittlesford and Ickleton, is going to overwhelm the already creaking existing infrastructure, and especially the A505. Yet not a penny of the City Deal money is being allocated in response, nor is there any work on diverting people into alternative means of transport. 

The one significant transport initiative developed in the last two years has been the extensive cycle paths linking Whittlesford rail station to Granta Parks, and the Babraham Inst. to the Gogs, both of which were paid for largely by business, and some central government funding.

We are seeing the development of a bio-tech sub-area: its exciting stuff in many ways: the ambitious but essentially well-thought out proposals from the Wellcome Trust at Ickleton, the rather less developed proposals for an agri-science hub in the Hinxton area, the new bio-tech facility being developed between Sawston and Whittlesford on the old Spicers site, and the continuing growth at Babraham Institute and Granta Parks. Additionally, there are mini-science parks such as the Manor Barns development between Duxford and Ickleton. All told, this is a very significant growth curve, and we know that the A505 is the busiest non-Highways Agency road in the County. Yet, because it does not fit the radial concept of all roads leading into Cambridge, such as the A1307 from Haverhill, or the A14 from St Neots, but rather runs east-west, the A505 seems not to feature in any plans to alleviate congestion and find better ways of transport.

Village councils continually put to me their dissatisfaction with this state of affairs, not only because the A505 is congested  thus making residents' travel difficult, but also because of the knock-on effect of rat-running through the villages - including by HGVs  - to avoid such congestion. And we have Whittlesford Parkway as a rail station with big car parks which attracts people driving there to commute into London. 

But the point is less the current situation, sub-optimal though it is, and rather the absence of any plans to match the projected growth with viable means of reducing the congestion or finding alternative means of transport. This is particularly galling given the potential and vision of the City Deal.