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The following fly-sheets etc., are reprinted in accordance with the Council's Notice on Discussions and Fly-sheets (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 117).
The Council's decision to revisit the Master Plan for the Sidgwick Site (Reporter, 13 December 2000, pp. 309-11) was welcomed by speakers in the Discussion of their Report (Reporter, 24 January 2001, pp. 385-6). Some disquiet about the substantive proposals in the Report was expressed, particularly as regards provision for cyclists, the building and courtyard development proposed, and its consequences for car parking. In their Notice replying in detail to points made in the Discussion (Reporter, 28 February 2001, pp. 499-500), the Council have responded - in our view satisfactorily - to those concerns. In particular:
We would additionally observe that two of the buildings proposed replace the existing accommodation at 7 and 9 West Road currently allocated to Criminology and English respectively. Of the other two proposed, one (that for Criminology envisaged at Site C) is to be set back considerably further from the Raised Faculty Building than is Foster's Law Building. The building at Site D will be quite close to Economics, but not as close to it as are the two wings of the Raised Faculty Building.
A key feature of the Plan is creation of a pedestrian route continuing the existing approach from the University Library and West Road, and then after a short sideways turn going on past Lady Mitchell Hall to Sidgwick Avenue. This should do much to give the Site what it has long needed: a greater sense of unity and identity. It will involve cutting through the 'green quad' enclosed by the Raised Faculty Building. Some of us will regret that; those of us who regard the quad as a lifeless and (for much of the year) bleak space will be heartened. Whatever our feelings, the sensible way forward is continued participation in the collective ongoing planning process rather than rejection of the whole scheme at this stage.
Since the Discussion a letter has been sent from the Faculty of Economics and Politics to Boards of other Faculties housed on the Sidgwick Site, introducing two new arguments. One is a complaint about inadequate consultation. The consultation process was indeed not perfect. But all Faculties on the Site were invited to send representatives to Open Meetings (well-attended as it turned out) last summer and again in November; and there have been other means for them to keep and be kept in touch. The Council have stated that all the Faculty Boards on the Sidgwick Site will be specifically included in further consultations. The other new matter raised in the letter is Economics' own need for extra space should the Faculty otherwise be in a position to press ahead with significant expansion of its activities in the future. This is a difficult issue for signatories of a fly-sheet to comment on. We hope we may draw it to the attention of members of the Regent House that they are being asked to approve the principles of the Master Plan, not specific matters relating to individual buildings.
We believe that the benefits of the Master Plan, and especially its provision of much needed extra accommodation for Faculties and Departments and its coherent and imaginative approach to the Sidgwick Site as a whole, outweigh some reduction in car parking (inevitable in new developments) and in open land. We therefore urge you to vote placet in the ballot scheduled for the Easter Term.
| P. J. BAYLEY | P. E. EASTERLING | JANE HEAL | A. MINSON |
| R. BEADLE | T. C. EVERTON | D. W. HOLTON | R. C. NOLAN |
| MARY BEARD | DAVID M. FOX | BRIAN F. G. JOHNSON | KATHARINE B. PRETTY |
| R. J. BOWRING | K. GLOVER | GORDON JOHNSON | IAN G. ROBERTS |
| N. BOYLE | GEORGE GÖMÖRI | A. V. JONES | M. SCHOFIELD |
| GAVIN BURNAGE | D. A. GOOD | IAN LESLIE | G. N. STANTON |
| A. G. CROSS | RUTH GRAY | JOSEPH P. MCDERMOTT | BRYAN S. TURNER |
| G. I. DAVIES | P. R. HARDIE | D. L. MCMULLEN | C. E. WARD |
| I. M. LE M. DUQUESNAY |
We support the development of the Sidgwick Site Master Plan, because we believe it will make the Site a more pleasant, more efficient and safer place for all. The plan for the Site, and plans for individual buildings within it, show sensitivity to the environment within and around the Site, as well as to the architectural landscape and heritage of this key Cambridge site for the Arts and Humanities.
It is our understanding that the Site Plan has been developed in consultation with users of the Site: by consultation with individual Faculties and Departments through the Sidgwick Site Committee, and by means of Open Meetings during the course of the Michaelmas Term.
This long-awaited development will enable certain Faculties and Departments in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, currently without adequate buildings, to have new and suitable accommodation, in some cases for the first time, on the Site that is their most appropriate location.
The Faculty of English, one of the largest in the University, has now been in temporary accommodation on the Sidgwick Site for some thirty years, although in fact it has not been possible to accommodate most of our needs at 9 West Road over that time. English has a desperate need for suitable teaching, research, library, and social space.
Under this Master Plan English is able to look forward to inhabiting at last a building designed for the needs of colleagues in three cognate Departments: the Faculty of English, the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, and the Research Centre for English and Applied Linguistics. Our planned new building, housing these three Departments, will make much more effective use of space on the 9 West Road Site, and since we are to stay on the Site currently occupied by English and Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, our new building will not be taking up space to which other Departments might have a claim.
Delay in implementing the Site Plan, and consequently in submitting an application for planning permission for our new building, will not only waste much time and effort but also risk entailing a very serious financial loss. With the active support of many of our distinguished alumni, our campaign for a new home for Cambridge English has so far raised £8.7m. However, nearly £1m of those funds comes with the condition that work must begin by March 2002: if this proposal is carried, we will be in grave danger of losing this sum. We will also risk a loss of confidence among our alumni in the University's commitment to the Arts and Humanities. We urge you to vote placet.
| GILLIAN BEER | M. L. JACOBUS | R. MENGHAM | JAMES SIMPSON |
| GILLIAN BROWN | SIMON KEYNES | ADRIAN D. B. POOLE | BARRY WINDEATT |
| JEAN CHOTHIA | R. KIRKPATRICK |
Because the Master Plan proposes transferring an extra Department to the Sidgwick Site, the density of development on the Site would have to be increased significantly from its present level. Many trees and green spaces would be lost. Buildings would be placed so close together that new buildings would deprive existing ones of natural light, and produce dreary concrete alleys between buildings. Vistas to the best buildings on the Site, a special feature of the original Casson scheme, would be lost.
Estate Management and Building Service seem bent on repeating the mistakes so evident on other University sites: 'oversized structures sited too close together, forming a depressing and harsh environment' (Rawle's description of the New Museums and Downing Sites). The loss of amenity would affect not just the several thousand students and staff who regularly work on the Sidgwick Site: the Site also represents an important public face of the University, hosting conferences, public lectures and concerts, and open days for student applicants.
The Site is already intensively developed. It is doubtful whether, as well as the necessary development of existing Faculties, it can absorb an extra Department without serious loss of amenity. And yet the University's Council have avoided serious discussion with existing site users over whether this environmental loss is necessary. Prima facie it is not: the proposed extra Department (Land Economy) is currently on a site which is near some of its cognate activities, and which, following the departure of the Maths Faculty, will benefit from huge spare capacity.
In order that discussion of these costs and benefits can at last be properly conducted, we urge members to vote non placet in the forthcoming ballot.
| MASSIMO BEBER | SRIYA IYER | PAUL RYAN | P. A. TINSLEY |
| SONIA BHALOTRA | TONY LAWSON | H. R. THOMAS | S. F. WILKINSON |
| B. J. HOLLEY | MICA PANIC |
We are concerned about the procedures adopted for consulting affected parties about the Master Plan. Our concerns relate both to this particular Plan and to the general trend to bypass established arrangements for democratic involvement in University decisions.
The Master Plan embodies major strategic decisions by the University. It outlines the form of future investments which will cost tens of millions of pounds. It allocates all the remaining space on the Sidgwick Site to selected Departments and Faculties. It affects the working environment of several thousand students, staff, and faculty; and, by cutting parking facilities, it affects the terms on which many existing staff are employed. In a number of ways, therefore, the Plan will affect Faculties' academic programmes.
The academic programme of each Faculty on the Sidgwick Site is the responsibility of a representative body regulated by Statute: the Faculty Board - charged by Statute C to ensure 'the provision of appropriate instruction and adequate facilities for research in the subjects of the Faculty'.
In preparing the Master Plan, the Council have chosen to bypass Faculty Boards, opting instead for ad hoc channels for consultation.
The architects made a presentation in November 2000 (without notifying affected people individually), and they received oral comments (it is not clear whether those comments have been written down, and, if so, whether anyone has read them).
Estate Management and Building Service also undertook to post the plans for the development on a website, together with an appropriate feedback mechanism. This was not done. The Council undertook in their Report in December 2000 to post plans in the Arcade ahead of the Discussion in January 2001. Again this undertaking was not carried out.
The Council have not sought the views of Faculty Boards on the Site. Subsequently, at least two Faculty Boards have raised with the Central Bodies their concerns about flaws in the consultation process. One Faculty Board explained the drastic consequences of the Plan for its academic programme, and asked that Faculty Boards be involved in consultation before the Plan was submitted for final approval. Had such consultation been agreed, and extra information been released promptly, it could have taken place in less time than is required to complete this balloting process. The Council refused, however, instead promising that Faculty Boards would be consulted in future, but only after the Plan had been approved by the University. By then, of course, none of the strategic decisions embodied in the Plan could be changed, and consultation could only influence the fine tuning of the Plan.
In order to secure, at last, proper scrutiny of the Master Plan, and to point out to the Central Bodies that this is not a satisfactory way of conducting University business, we ask you to vote non placet.
| TOKE AIDT | ROBERT EVANS | HAMISH LOW | DONALD ROBERTSON |
| MICHELLE BADDELEY | A. C. HARVEY | A. W. A. PETERSON | A. SUTHERLAND |
| J. P. DOUGHERTY | MICHAEL KITSON |
Colleagues have explained in another fly-sheet some of the defects in the consultation process for the Master Plan: the established and carefully regulated representative bodies have been sidelined, and the Central Bodies have been reluctant to release critical information. As a result, although we are confident that no-one has intended to act unfairly, the appearance has been created that the Central Bodies' even-handedness has been compromised. Inadvertently, not only has a sense of grievance been created but also academic performance is likely to be jeopardised.
Compare the treatment by the Central Bodies of the Department of Land Economy, on the one hand, and the Faculty of Economics and Politics, on the other. Although at first sight this may look like parochial sour grapes, the general implications for University policy-making will become clear.
Land Economy has been allocated a large plot on the Sidgwick Site, with serious consequences for the rest of the Site: much denser development for the site as a whole, with the loss of trees, green spaces, daylight to offices, and parking for existing users; and displacement of the East Asia Centre from its logical place near to Oriental Studies. Since Land Economy is currently located on a site with ample spare capacity (following the departure of its neighbours in Maths), the physical need to relocate is not obvious. And the only academic case presented is that it would bring the Department nearer to some cognate activities (without mentioning that it would take it further from others, including Development Studies, Management Studies, and Geography).
Economics, on the other hand, has been effectively told that it will never be allowed to achieve its long-held goal of a modest, environmentally friendly, extension on the Sidgwick Site. Yet the physical need is acute: external architects declared the existing building 'overfull' in 1964. The Central Bodies have never challenged that need in the series of applications the Faculty has made in recent years for expanded accommodation: the obstacles have been imposed by covenants and by planning authority policies. One illustration of the capacity constraint faced by the Faculty, and the resultant academic problems, is the fact that, to give them space to develop, the Faculty has had to hive off to other sites some of its most successful academic innovations in recent years: the M.Phil. in Development, the M.Phil. in Finance, and the Centre for Business Research.
The way that the decision has been reached, with the inadvertent consequence of favouring Land Economy at the expense of Economics, has added to the unease of those of us who are losing out. When the Master Plan was being developed, the Resources Committee of the Council of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (CSHSS) discussed our future accommodation needs with the Faculty. The minutes show that they responded sympathetically to proposals for extra accommodation on the plot adjacent to Economics, which is now allocated by the Plan to building D. The Faculty Board were subsequently by-passed in the decision process (as another fly-sheet explains), and the Plan was presented directly to the University for approval. In this version, building D, occupying the space requested by Economics (and much besides), has been allocated to another Department. Moreover, there is nowhere else for Economics to develop, since the Plan allocates all the remaining space on the Site, and therefore pre-empts any future development for the Faculty on this Site.
When the Faculty's predicament was explained to the Chair of the CSHSS, she responded very sympathetically and constructively, initiating discussions on how to modify the Plan to accommodate the Faculty's needs, arranging for the architects to investigate it, and asking the Registrary to delay promoting a Grace until this review was complete. But, to the Faculty's bewilderment, the Registrary refused this request from the Chair of the School, and presented the Plan to the University for immediate approval without amendment.
How can the Registrary's action be rationalised? One explanation might be that the University's allocation of land to Departments is driven by benefactors rather than by academic priorities. The only other explanation we can think of is that it might reflect a managerial aim of withholding resources from unsuccessful Departments and allocating them instead to successful ones. But then does the Registrary really want to stifle a Faculty whose members have gained two Nobel Prizes in the last five years (bringing the overall tally to four), attract half a million pounds a year in research grants, and provide large Tripos and graduate teaching programmes which are heavily over-subscribed (and which recently gained a QAA score of 24)?
And so we are left, as members of a Faculty whose Board has been excluded from a crucial decision which would stifle the academic development of our subject, with only one way of appealing for reconsideration of that decision: asking you to vote non placet in the forthcoming ballot.
| K. J. COUTTS | G. MEEKS | M. H. PESARAN | AJIT SINGH |
| PARTHA DASGUPTA | JAMES A. MIRRLEES | R. E. ROWTHORN | G. WHITTINGTON |
| JOHN EATWELL | D. NEWBERY |
The Master Plan would reduce the number of parking spaces on the Sidgwick Site while bringing more users onto the Site. A significant number of those currently working on the Site (we are not told how many) would lose their entitlement to park on the Site. The difficulties would be specially severe for assistant staff, who tend increasingly to be drawn from outside cycling distance of the Site (because central City house prices continue to rise faster than University salaries). Their daily travelling time could in many cases rise by an hour or more if they could not use their cars. Assistant staff are not members of the Regent House and so have no vote, but this does not justify disregarding their welfare. Inevitably there would soon be repercussions for academic performance, as Faculty Boards faced this extra handicap in recruiting and retaining good staff to run libraries, support teaching programmes and research, and maintain accommodation.
The Council, in their Notice of 28 February 2001, try to lay the blame for the parking cuts on 'car parking standards required by central and local government policies'. But informal enquiries of the planning authority suggest that the University has more freedom in this regard than the Council have acknowledged. The more buildings the University propose for the Site, and the more people require circulation space on and near the Site, the more parking spaces the University is likely to have to sacrifice. There is a conflict of interest between existing users of the Site, who would lose parking facilities, and the possible new users whom the Council wish to squeeze in.
In their Notice the Council do concede that there are 'very serious transport problems in the area', and propose 'to set up a bus service'. But there is no hint of where the bus might go, how often, and at what cost to the passenger. There are significant issues here for City traffic planning. For example a scheme involving buses from the West Cambridge Park and Ride might inconvenience staff for little benefit to the City: those travelling from the North, East, and South would still have to drive close by the Sidgwick Site to access the Park and Ride Scheme, only to ride back. A constructive transport plan needs to be developed before cutting parking. The Council have provided nothing which would help a Faculty administrator persuade valuable existing staff not to move to a job offering parking, or potential recruits to take a job on the Site.
To induce the Council to think again about their transport policy in relation to the Sidgwick Site, we urge members to vote non placet in the forthcoming ballot.
| GERNOT DOPPELHOFER | PAUL KATTUMAN | HAMID SABOURIAN | HOLLY SUTHERLAND |
| SEAN HOLLY | J. G. PALMA | SUSANNA SALLSTROM | MELVYN WEEKS |
| S. H. HORRELL | CLIFF PRATTEN |
The non-placet flysheets raise two main areas of concern to the signatories: the consultation process and the need for additional space for the Faculty of Economics and Politics.
The Council commented on the consultation process in their Notice in response to the remarks made at the Discussion of the Report on 16 January 2001. In summary, in addition to full and regular discussions at the Buildings Committee, at the Needs Committee and at the Planning and Resources Committee, there were two open meetings (at Sidgwick Avenue) before the Report to the University was published. The Sidgwick Site Committee have welcomed the coherent approach to the planning and development of the Site.
As to the need for further accommodation for the Faculty of Economics and Politics, that is well understood by the General Board. For that reason, as the Faculty knows, its short-term needs are to be addressed by the relocation this summer of the Centre for Business Research from the Austin Robinson Building to the Judge Institute of Management Studies at a cost of about £1m, using HEFCE funding. In the medium term the Faculty will also benefit from the further rationalization of space on the Site but only if the plans set out in the Council's Report go ahead.
On other matters, the Council have previously commented on the loss of car-parking that is a necessary consequence of any new development such as is now proposed, not only at Sidgwick Avenue. Negotiations are in hand for the provision of the bus service that the Council have agreed in principle; they are based on a service at fifteen-minute intervals linking the Site with Park-and-Ride facilities and other University Sites. The Council believe that the Site Plan includes provision for better and safer pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicle movement through the Site.
Authority to promote a Grace is vested in the Council and it was the Council who on this occasion took the view that the overall interests of the University, and of the various Faculties concerned including Economics and Politics, required that the proposed site development plan should be approved to provide the basis for the further detailed planning, and so that fund-raising could go ahead. If there are further delays not only will the academic plans and ambitions of several Faculties be jeopardized but significant external funding may be lost. I urge members of the Regent House to vote placet.
PETER GODDARD
for the Council
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Cambridge University Reporter, 23 May 2001