Cambridge Half Marathon 2024

**** SPONSOR ME HERE ****

On Sunday March 3rd I’ll be running the Cambridge half marathon again, and have been training for a while using an excellent app that whispers encouraging words in my ear to accompany my playlist of fast-paced songs. It’s working so far, but the real test is yet to come.

Katie with Hilary Cox Condron at the start of the 2022 Half Marathon
Katie and Hilary at the start of the 2022 half marathon

I’ve mostly been training in Cambridge, joining the many others on Midsummer Common and Stourbridge Common, but had the occasional session in the Yorkshire Dales, which is significantly hillier and offers a very different challenge. I’m sure my calves will recover..

Katie sets off to run near the Tan Hill Inn

I’m running to support the important local charity Something To Look Forward To which provides positive things for people affected by cancer who are also suffering as a result of loss of income due to their illness. It relies on donations from companies and individuals.

If you’d like to sponsor me and help me reach my goal of £300 then you can do so on the People’s Fundraising website.

Thank you!

Katie off for a Cambridge training run

Saving the Trees on St Matthew’s Piece

The application to fell three trees on St Matthew’s Piece was rejected by the City Council planning committee today.

This application has had a lot of attention, and many residents attended the committee, to call for the protection of all trees. Several spoke including Friends of St Matthew’s Piece and Petersfield Labour ward councillors.

Unusually, there was no recommendation on whether the application should be accepted or refused, but the reasons for refusal were clear and strong. The debate that followed was rigorous and acknowledged the many residents who took time to write into object.

The final, formal reason for refusal was comprehensive and robust. The decision was unanimous.

This is what I said in my statement:

Continue reading “Saving the Trees on St Matthew’s Piece”

Gaza

The recent attack on Israel carried out from Gaza by Hamas was an appalling act of terrorism that killed many civilians, and has been rightly condemned.

Israel has the right to defend itself, but the current actions of the Israeli government seem to amount to collective punishment of the people of Gaza and may be in breach of international law. They have created a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and millions of people who played no part in the attacks, many of them children, are suffering. People in Gaza have no food, water, or power. Hospitals cannot function. There is no safe place, no exit, and currently very little aid is being allowed in.

I grieve for everyone killed or harmed, in Gaza or in Israel, by acts of terror or in retaliation. I want Hamas to stop terrorising not just Israel but the population of Gaza. I want the Israeli government to turn from its current path and operate within international law, allowing aid and supplies to a desperate population that has already suffered so much.

And I want those politicians and others in the UK who may have some influence on the Israeli government, particularly the leadership of the Labour Party, to make it clear that Israel must pull back from causing such suffering to those living in Gaza. Standing to one side is to side with the death of many innocent people, and we must speak out.

I also endorse the statement which was read by Mayor Jenny Gawthrope Wood at the meeting of Cambridge City Council on October 19 2023. It is published on the council website, but I wanted to reproduce it here:

Continue reading “Gaza”

“Pure Clean Water” at Cambridge Film Festival

I’m really pleased that Pure Clean Water, a documentary made by my friend Tony Eva, is screening at the Cambridge Film Festival – and I’m in it!

It concerns the water crisis in the greater Cambridge area, and particularly looks at the impact on our precious chalk streams

It is screening on Wednesday 25 October at 1820 and Thursday 26 October at 1420 at the Arts Picturehouse – details on the CFF website. And I will be taking part in a discussion about the film after the Wednesday screening.

You can find out more on the Pure Clean Water website.

Getting ready for May 4

it’s the last weekend of campaigning before the local elections on Thursday, and I’ve been all over Cambridge these past few days supporting my fellow Labour candidates, when I’m not canvassing and delivering leaflets in Cambridge. It’s hard work, but worth it to support great local candidates like Alice Gilderdale, Anne Miller, Antoinette Nestor and Mary Murphy, and everyone else, of course – see the full list on the Cambridge Labour website, and find out where to cast your vote here, if you haven’t already voted by post, on the excellent ‘Where do I vote?’ site from Democracy Club:

I couldn’t have managed it all without my trusty Urban Arrow electric cargo bike. Since we bought it in 2018 it has been a vital part of my life, getting me around, and carrying leaflets, shopping, books, clothes and a lot more. We have the ‘short’ cargo version, which is a lot more manoeuverable than the long one, but won’t take a small child!

(And see my earlier blog post about choosing the bike.)

Cycling is the main way I get around, so I’m always pleased to respond to the Camcycle election survey – see my answers on the Camcycle website.

The Cargo Bike outside Outspoken

The cargo bike is a complex machine, and so this week we took it back to Outspoken for a full service – which included upgrading the firmware on both the controller and the battery – and now it’s as smooth to ride as when we bought it.

Parked outside Savino’s on Drummer Street

I’ll try to wave as I whizz past you – and don’t forget to vote on Thursday (and bring some ID).

Rail is key to Cambridge’s Future

I wrote an article recently for the East Anglian branch of Railfuture, raileast

You can see the whole issues here on the RailEast website


It’s a real privilege to represent Cambridge City Council on the East West Mainline Partnership, and an opportunity to ensure that we can make a full contribution to improving rail services in the region.

It also reflects the commitments made by Cambridge Labour, the controlling group on the City Council, to support further rail investment and improvements, acknowledging what has currently been achieved and building on it.

Our wider transport strategy is clear about the importance of rail and the City Council, via the County Council as the transport authority, made a commitment to support investment and improvements in the rail network through the 2014 Transport Strategy for Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire, which supports our current 2018 Local Plan.

It’s great that all the planned rail service improvements have been implemented along with many of the future service enhancement sought, but the main outstanding development is the Bedford to Cambridge connection.

Fortunately funding has been allocated for the feasibility, contracts and delivery of the Stage 3 Bedford to Cambridge section and, subject to ministerial approval, could be approved in the next few weeks but with so many changes in the government we may have to wait longer to know if this will be granted or not.

And we want to go further, with a proper assessment of routes from Norwich and Ipswich to Bristol and Cardiff via Cambridge. We need a more extensive, integrated rail system that is not London-centric, one that reflects changing patterns of living and working.

It is vital that we get this right: a modern transport system needs to work for people in their daily lives. People shape their lives around transport systems, asking whether there is a bus stop near home or work, how long it will be to cycle to a rail station or get to the shops or GP surgery.

These are fundamental considerations, and we will be judged on how effectively we can deliver. Working with the East West Mainline Partnership offers a significant contribution to achieving our shared goals.

Election Day: Thursday May 5

Thursday May 5 is election day for local authority elections in England, Scotland and Wales and for all London borough councils, as well as some new unitary authorities.

Katie and Simon Smith, who is standing in Castle Ward

Please use your vote for Labour in these vital elections. Here in Petersfield my colleague and friend Richard Robertson is standing for re-election, along with many other great Labour candidates across Cambridge – see all their details here on the Cambridge Labour website.

My First Few Months in Petersfield

Thursday May 6th was a significant day, as we held four separate local elections – for Cambridge City Council, Cambridgeshire County Council, the Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, and the Police and Crime Commissioner.

Katie and her bike outside a polling station in Petersfield
Katie and her bike outside a polling station in Petersfield

It was also exceptional because in Cambridge, where council elections had been cancelled in 2020, it was an ‘all-up’ election for three councillors in every ward after the boundary review had changed the way the city was divided into council wards.

For me, it was both exciting and sad. Trumpington Ward, where I’d been elected by only four votes in May 2018, had been broken up in the review, and one-third of its electorate had been allocated to other wards, and I was standing in Petersfield, where many of them had gone. It was sad to say goodbye to Trumpington, but I was also pleased to be standing with my good friends and fellow councillors Richard Robertson and Mike Davey.

Because of the number of votes to be counted, and with Covid-19 affecting so many aspects of our lives, the votes on May 6th weren’t counted until the Friday and Saturday, and there was no opportunity for all the candidates to gather in The Guildhall and watch the piles accumulate as we tried to decide whether we had won or not.

As someone who had gone through two recounts in 2018, I knew just how nail-biting it could be, but it wasn’t an option. However I also felt that it would be no fun at all to sit at home waiting for a text message or watching the online stream from the count, and so for all of Friday and Saturday I hosted a Zoom call for candidates, where we could hang out, wait for results, chat, and celebrate or commiserate with our comrades.

Katie at a table set for a meal, with several Labour posters as table mats
Katie at a table set for a meal, with several Labour posters as table mats
Continue reading “My First Few Months in Petersfield”

Supporting the Aims of the CEE Bill

There has been some criticism of Labour councillors for the way we voted on a motion at the Council meeting on Thursday 27 May. A motion of support for the Climate and Ecology Bill, which had been laid before Parliament by Green Party MP Caroline Lucas and a group of other MPs in September 2020 came to the Council. Labour proposed an amendment which welcomed the Bill, but laid the emphasis on attempting to deliver change through the Environment Bill which is currently being debated. This amendment was passed, and the amended motion was then passed by the council

What that means is that the City Council supports the ambitions of the CEE Bill, but believes those ambitions need to be achieved in a different way, because not even the CEE Bill’s most ardent supporters believe it will become law when we have an anti-environment Tory government with an eighty-seat majority led by a man who has betrayed every promise on the green agenda he has ever made.

Continue reading “Supporting the Aims of the CEE Bill”