I firmly believe that Marshall should stay at Cambridge Airport for as lomg as the company wish to remain. At stake is not merely a Cambridge institution, but, much more importantly, the 1,700 jobs of those directly and indirectly employed by the airport. During these tough economic times, I find it extraordinary that the Lib Dem council would effectively lobby in favour of job losses!

There are clearly issues around housing shortages which I have addressed elsewhere on this site, yet I do not see building 12,000 homes at Cambridge Airport as the answer. It is too far from the city centre to realistically expect commuters to cycle in to Cambridge en masse each day, yet adequate planning has not been made for public transport either. As I have constantly stressed, if adequate transport links are not put in place prior to the building of new developments they often lead to exactly the problems they are trying to solve: high levels of traffic; poor sense of community; and environmental decline.

The Government’s decision to consider Northstowe as one of the second wave of eco towns meets with my strong approval. Plans for Northstowe were already well advanced when the Government invited bids for eco-towns across the country. At the time, I pressed then Housing Minister Yvette Cooper to press ahead with Northstowe because of the acute housing shortage in the Cambridge area. The slump in the housing market has stalled development, and it is now sensible to look again at the plans, to ensure that the development is built to the highest standards. Crucially however, unlike Cambourne and the Airport development, Northstowe has an alternative to the car by way of the Guided Bus.

Labour’s Kickstart Programme, making £550 million available nationally to reinvigorate the building of housing during the recession, also provides alternatives. The £3,823,854 allotted to the NIAB project on Huntingdon Road will relieve pressure for housing in the north of the city, keep builders in work, and shows that, even in the current climate, the government is committed to making bold initiatives that will benefit the people of Cambridge.