This is my Cambridge Independent article this week
(The photograph above shows Sam Dyer, Katie Thornburrow and Gemma Birley outside The Guildhall in 2024 with the Sustainable Food Place Silver award received by Cambridge Sustainable Food Partnership.)
The Civic Quarter sits at the heart of Cambridge. It represents centuries of our collective civic, commercial, and cultural life. The Market Square has been a focus for the city since the Middle Ages, the Guildhall site has been the centre of local democracy for nearly 800 years, and the Corn Exchange has been a cornerstone of entertainment and community gatherings for more than a century and a half.
As a council, we hold all three in trust for the people of Cambridge. I believe we have a duty of stewardship to care for them properly and keep them in public and civic use. We should never consider selling them, but they must be properly maintained. That means investing in renewal and restoration after decades of underinvestment.
Continue reading “A Civic Quarter for the Next Century”