Cambridge City Council have put in planning applications for the Market Square  (these include all of the area around the Market Square, as well as the streets/area around the Guildhall and the Corn Exchange)  Comments on the applications (25/04382/FUL and 25/04383/LBC) have to be in by 18th December - only 8 days from now.  

The Council has provided an 'artists impression’ (above) which bears little resemblance to what will actually emerge.  Even so, what it does show is exactly what so many of us have been trying to highlight for years. That the plans the Council have for our Market Square will destroy our Traditional Market - the one that does serve the people who live and work in Cambridge 

FIRST: We do still have a chance to scotch this application and save our traditional market.  Please do get your comments in.  The greater the opposition, the more that the councillors will be forced to think again.    

SECOND - please do take a good look at the applications.   This is such a flawed application over all.  Some immediate thoughts:  

An essence of our market is that it is a traditional outdoor market.  something that there are vanishingly few of these days.   Ours is also a 7 day a week market.  How many of those are there around these islands?  

The ‘artists impression’ image shows a market with stalls designed which are closed-in cabins.  With a small opening - most suited for serving hot food.   Of course the illustration shows these cabins as colourful, clean and attractive.  Very similar to what you would see in London indoor Tourist Hot Food markets.  Outdoors, they won’t be clean and sparkling for long

To anyone in any way familiar with our current traditional market it is clear that these stalls will not work for:  any of our fruit and vegetable traders; for the bike man; for browsing in amongst second hand books; for browsing jewellery; for flowers; for our fish man etc etc.    In essence - these cabins are not designed for traditional traders, bringing their produce and goods to the people who live and work in Cambridge.  These are cabins designed for one thing only, and that is the Tourist market.   

The ‘artists impression’ image does NOT show the proposed demountable stalls at the Guildhall end of the Market Square.  These are the stalls that are being ‘offered’ to our traditional traders, even though the Council hasn't yet managed to produce demountable stalls that are viable and stable for the traders.  The application doesn't even provide any details of these proposed demountable stalls.   Nor does it include any detail of how and where traders are to be relocated during the works - the issue which scotched the  previous proposals 20 years ago.

FIRST - do please just get a comment in on the application.  In the meantime John is currently going through the planning application with a tooth comb.  We will do a further up-date  when he has been able to condense a lot of material into tangible accessible pieces.  

All thanks - we are so grateful to everyone who has engaged with this.  And to all who are still wanting to SAVE our Traditional Market.

Kati and John