EIGHT YEARS AND STILL WAITING - BROKEN PROMISE FOR WHOLE GENERATION OF CHILDREN

A local Councillor has raised serious concerns over the prolonged delay—about eight years—in opening a new active recreational area and an adjacent play area on Hobson’s Park and an adjacent play area key, both intended as integral amenities for the new communities in Trumpington. These setbacks, he warns, undermine public confidence in further growth around Cambridge. 

Hobson’s Park, developed on former farmland as part of the Clay Farm development in the south of Cambridge between the Guided Busway and the Biomedical Campus, features an active recreation area that has remained officially closed and fenced off since its construction.

Trumpington Lib Dem Councillor Olaf Hauk stated, “These recreation areas was promised to local residents from day one. It is extremely frustrating for them to walk or cycle by it every day, only to see it hidden behind large metal fences. These should be important community amenities but new residents who have moved in with a whole generation of children have now sadly missed out.

He continued, “To add insult to injury, the developer Countryside recently re-committed to opening the recreation area by April 1st of this year at a joint on-site meeting that I organized with the Trumpington Residents’ Association, the City Council, the Biomedical Campus, and other local Councillors last November. That new deadline came and went without any notification of delays—it felt like an April Fool’s joke. Moreover, part of the nearby children’s play area remains fenced off despite repeated assurances that it would open ‘soon.’”

Cllr Hauk emphasized the broader impact of these delays, “These ongoing delays are not only frustrating for local residents, they actively undermine public confidence in the management of current developments and the broader promise that growth in and around Cambridge will be executed in a timely, transparent, and community-focused manner. New neighbourhoods need these sort of amenities from the start, to provide a community focus: yet here we are after all the new homes are built, still waiting. The developer and the city council must now get their act together, stop passing the buck and fix whatever issues exist, so these vital amenities can be opened. And the city council needs to learn the lessons for other new communities still to be built in the city, because this is a poor advertisement for growth, which is so badly needed to meet housing needs.”