What we secured for Cambridge — the conclusion of the council leadership process

On Monday, Cambridge City Council elected a new Leader — and I wanted to write to you directly to explain what happened, and what we secured for Cambridge residents along the way.
 

What the election delivered
 

On 7 May, Cambridge voters delivered a clear verdict. Labour lost six seats and their majority. For the first time in years, Cambridge now has three parties of broadly comparable size — Labour with 17 councillors, the Greens with 12, and us with 11. No single party can run this council alone. That is what voters said, and it matters.
 

What we tried to achieve
 

Our preference from the start was a three-party joint administration — sharing power fairly between all three parties, reflecting how Cambridge actually voted. Labour wouldn’t share power. The Greens wouldn’t act without Labour. Both blamed each other. So that wasn’t possible.
 

We then looked seriously at a Green and Lib Dem joint administration. But with no Green manifesto, no clear policy platform, and an unusual approach to group cohesion, we couldn’t be confident in the stability that Cambridge needs right now. We tried to make it work. We couldn’t get there.
 

What happened on 21 May
 

At the Annual Meeting on 21 May, Labour put forward their candidate for Leader with no agreed programme for joint working. The other parties did not support that candidate. The meeting adjourned without electing a Leader — giving us eleven days to press for something better.
 

What we secured — 1 June 2026
 

Monday's vote didn’t offer either of our preferences. But we weren’t going to hold Cambridge to ransom. A decision needed to happen — and we used our leverage to secure four specific commitments, things I have campaigned on and we owe to residents:
 

• Reversing cuts to street cleaning and reopening public toilets — including at Parker’s Piece and Quayside — this summer, with a Cabinet report on 7 July to agree long term funding and temporary staff hired immediately.
 

• Action on rental housing and short-term lets — examining what powers the council has and using them to address problems of concentration and living standards for tenants.
 

• Investigating new powers to tackle the noisy joyriders and racers who disturb residents — often through the night — following the model being adopted by East Cambridgeshire District Council.
 

• In a city that had the country’s first trans mayor (a Liberal Democrat)— ensuring that recent government guidance is interpreted with care, protecting the trans community while keeping facilities welcoming for everyone.
 

Labour have also committed to constitutional amendments giving the Liberal Democrat Group guaranteed speaking rights at Cabinet, and relaxing the council meeting guillotine to give more time for democratic debate. 
 

We took no paid positions under Labour’s control. We took no Cabinet seats. We remain a fully independent opposition — free to support good decisions and oppose bad ones.
 

We have put the Labour Leader on notice: the era of governing Cambridge as if one party has all the answers is over. They must now listen to and work with other parties for the good of this city.

Cambridge Liberal Democrats’ priority is to refocus the city council on its basic everyday services. In our platform for the city council elections on May 7th we proposed to restore some of the cutbacks made by the Labour administration in street cleaning, public toilets, and anti-social behaviour enforcement and to reform the failing repairs service to the council’s housing tenants.

As part of our plan to get council basic services in the city “back on track”, we aim to introduce tough new performance standards to monitor cleanliness of the city, and seek to stem anti-social behaviour by consulting on citywide controls on noisy and dangerous joy riding and press for measures to curb the nuisance from poorly-run Airbnb-type accommodation and unregulated Houses in Multiple Occupation.

We also want to keep neighbourhood centres, like Arbury Court, and the city centre “attractive and relevant to all, places where good businesses can prosper.” Emphasising the importance of working with residents and traders, their focus is on revitalising the role of centres as social and amenity hubs. They propose a new initiative to develop a vision for a much more inclusive city centre and support for major public investments in the so-called Civic Quarter, so long as they “increase usage, accessibility to all and reduce waste and energy - and payback to local people by subsidising council services.”   

For the long term of the Cambridge area, the Liberal Democrats aim to see the council adopt its new Local Plan, taking further strides to meet the local housing shortage, and to win government funding for further new social housing. But they will continue to actively challenge the government for infrastructure investment, its plan to remove local democratic planning powers and its abandonment of plans to regenerate North-East Cambridge. Having campaigned for many years for a simpler system of local government, the party commits to making the new unitary council work for the city, whilst serving a larger area. 

Read our full election platform below: