Travel hub off M11 with 2,150 parking spaces will ease commuting
Hannah Brown
The new travel hub is planned to offer 2,150 car parking spaces, including 108 blue badge bays and 109 electric vehicles - Credit: CCC
A travel hub off junction 11 of the M11 near Cambridge - with 2,150 car parking spaces, 12 private coach spaces and room for 326 cycles – has been supported by the county council.
A bus interchange with six bus stops and covered waiting areas is also planned.
It is aimed to help reduce congestion heading into Cambridge and to ease pressure on Trumpington Park and Ride site.
Cambridgeshire County Council planning committee unanimously approved the hub which is subject to not being called in by the Secretary of State.
Peter Blake, transport director at the Greater Cambridge Partnership, said: “There is considerable consensus and agreement amongst the public agencies of the need for this scheme.
“The scheme intercepts traffic, it reduces traffic volumes in the area and this is essential as traffic is returning following the pandemic, and the pressure on the existing network is considerable given the local planned growth.”
Dr Mike More, chair of the Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, spoke to highlight the project’s importance to Addenbrooke’s Hospital.
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He said: “At the moment the thing that worries me most is the recruitment and retention of our staff.
“We employ people below the average Cambridge median wage, and when you add in the 3,500 who we employ indirectly significantly 12 to 13 percent below the average median wage for Cambridge.
“Cambridge is a very expensive place in which to live and the cost-of-living crisis is compounding that.
“We are seeing an increase of two or three percent of turnover in our staff and I expect that to increase in the current economic climate.
“We are now at the position of 20 percent of health care assistants turning over every year. These are not people who are expensively paid or well paid, they are below average wage.
“More than half of our people live outside of Cambridge and many of them come in from the west or the south.
“Time after time if I talk to our staff, travel and housing are the two things that will be important to their ability to carry on working in Addenbrooke’s.
“That is why integrated travel transport provision, time and again, comes up as the thing which is important to them.
“It is not a silver bullet, it is not one thing, but it is an important thing to us.”
