The Flying Pig - A pub of national and international significance

I dusted off my old spreadsheet skills and did an analysis of the petition. Each signatory is required to fill in their location and postcode. Here is what I found (to date): There were a total of 11,138 signatories, of which 6,025 were from the CB postcode (Cambridge and the surrounding villages), 3,818 were from the rest of the UK and 1,295 were from abroad.

Given the nature of Cambridge as a tourist hot spot, a world centre of higher education, and an important place for science and innovation, it’s not surprising that people from national and international locations have been moved to sign the petition. Cambridge has a transitory population, but the Pig still sticks in people's minds as being an important part of their Cambridge experience as they move on. Many people use it as a meeting place when they return to Cambridge. Language students feel safe and welcome. International musicians enjoy playing there. Tourists remember it as an important part of their Cambridge experience, to the extent that they follow updates about it on social media. People discover it when they get off the train and it gives them such a good impression of Cambridge that they feel moved to sign the petition despite not living here.

A casual look through social media reviews (google and trip advisor) will leave you in no doubt as to the Pig’s enduring popularity and its importance as a place for visitors, commuters and the local community.

The developer talks about a gateway development for Cambridge but they already have an iconic pub on the site that has acted as a gateway for Cambridge for years; it’s close to the train station for visitors/commuters; it gets fantastic reviews from visitors and residents alike; the workers at important offices nearby, like Microsoft, Apple, Mill and Reeves and Amazon to name but a few, frequent the place. Why would you want to knock it down? You should be wanting to promote it as your key to the whole development. Make the Pig a central focus of the office development, promote it as a long-standing cultural institution, one that is important to Cambridge and its national and international visitors to say nothing of the local community in and around Cambridgeshire.

If the developer were to do that then everybody would get behind him and help him to achieve commercial success for the new office development. After all I’m sure there are examples of new developments worldwide that have retained historical buildings within their schemes and indeed taken advantage of them to demonstrate the developer is progressive and not just about demolishing old buildings but retaining them and enhancing them with sensitivity whilst constructing new modern buildings for the future. It is not beyond the wit of human kind for the developer and his architect to come up with a scheme that includes the existing Flying Pig as a cultural and historical focus point to the new development where it can be used to promote the development as a gateway to Cambridge. After all the blurb in the developers website says just that: ‘a new vision is emerging for a forward thinking office scheme to act as a gateway to Cambridge with an energised and visionary workspace at its heart’. I couldn’t think of a workplace that would be more energised and visionary if it had at its heart a wonderful local boozer with a soul and heart and good music and lovely staff and punters. Now that’s what I call an ‘exemplar’ scheme, one that would attract progressive, innovative businesses that employ young smart people that need a social hub to meet and exchange ideas etc – it’s called the Flying Pig.

So let’s tell the developer that on Thursday and Saturday. Rant over.