When the housing secretary, Michael Gove, announced grand plans to turn Cambridge and its surroundings into Britain’s version of Silicon Valley, including a “new urban quarter” with up to 250,000 homes built in the next 20 years, elected representatives and businesspeople in the area were stunned.
“I need to know how big is it going to be – and where is it going to be?” says Anthony Browne, the Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire, who was only informed there would be any kind of announcement “a couple of days before” and has labelled it “nonsense”.
Lucy Nethsingha, the Liberal Democrat leader of Cambridgeshire county council, is similarly baffled, adding that she and other local leaders were briefed “a matter of minutes before” the announcement on
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