The following article by Cllr Cameron Holloway, the new Leader of the council (pictured below), was first published in Cambridge Independent on 28 May 2025 (page 16).
"It is a huge honour and responsibility to take on the leadership of Cambridge City Council. After two city council by-elections this May, the council remains Labour-run. I am very fortunate to have by my side my deputy, Cllr Rachel Wade.
I want to thank Cllr Mike Davey and Cllr Alice Gilderdale for their outstanding leadership of the council over the last two years. In difficult circumstances, they have worked tirelessly to build council homes, address poverty and inequality, invest in our communities, tackle the climate and biodiversity crises, and secure the financial sustainability of the council.
Cambridge is a special place, a global city, that brings together people from across the world.
It’s a wonderful, diverse, multicultural city. Not just that, but a city that will always oppose attempts to divide our communities, and a city where everyone is welcome.
No one is a stranger in Cambridge.
But the wonderful, supportive communities we have here don’t happen by accident. It takes the work of many generous residents of this city, and it also takes the support of the city council. In a world where people lose faith in politics, we cannot be complacent. If we are to protect and strengthen democracy, we must enthuse and involve you, our residents, in local decision making – not just through voting once every few years, but through opportunities to shape and feel a part of your local community on a daily basis. We know consultations without visible results can be frustrating, so we want to engage with you more deeply, giving you a real say in major projects like regeneration and investment in North Cambridge, and our ambitious plans for the Corn Exchange, Market Square and Guildhall.
Recent times have seen a major Government focus on Cambridge, and I know that, while proud of the success of our city, many residents worry about the sustainability of growth in our area. I believe that we can and should support efforts to facilitate the world-leading research and innovation that takes place in Cambridge and benefits people across the planet, but this shouldn’t be at the expense of existing residents. Genuinely affordable housing, solutions to our acute water shortage, improved transport, and new social infrastructure can benefit everyone, and are key to ensuring that existing inequalities are bridged, not exacerbated, by the coming investment in our area.
And as change comes to our area, we’ll continue to prioritise tackling poverty and protecting the environment.
We know we’re an unequal city, and that’s why much of our effort focuses on helping those who need it most. We continue to prevent and address homelessness in the city – 57% of those who started the last year as long-term rough sleepers in the city have now moved on to long term accommodation. We’re tackling the causes of the housing crisis too – we’ll soon celebrate the 1,000th home of our house building programme, and we've hiked council tax on second homes and empty homes in the city.
At the same time, we’re supporting good, local jobs and amenities – helping young market traders to start their own business, investing in the Corn Exchange for its 150th year, and building a new community centre, library, pre-school, and shops in East Barnwell.
We're also finding ways for businesses to give back to the city. The Greater Cambridge Impact Fund aims to raise significant sums to invest in local projects addressing poverty and inequality, while our new Match My Project scheme makes it easy for companies to offer practical support to charities and community groups.
But it’s not just the human inhabitants of Cambridge we work to support – it’s also animals and plants, our natural environment.
Protecting the environment is one of our core aims, and it’s only becoming more urgent as the years go by. Last year saw catastrophic biodiversity losses and the hottest year on record. The chance to keep global temperature increases below 1.5 degrees is rapidly slipping away. The work to fix this starts on our doorstep.
Our chalk streams are of international significance, and we’re undertaking vital work to protect and restore these rare and beautiful habitats. We will continue to restore biodiversity throughout the city, with exciting projects like the Logan’s Meadow wetlands, and tree planting programmes in our parks and on our streets, helping our furred and feathered, slimy and scaly friends, but also helping ourselves – pollinators help us grow crops, trees and wetlands can mitigate the effects of extreme weather, and time in nature is hugely beneficial to our own wellbeing.
We must also play our part in protecting the environment globally. We will continue our efforts to reach net zero carbon emissions in our own operations by 2030 and to help others in the city and beyond to do the same: developing a city centre district heat network powered by renewable energy; adapting our bin lorries and our buildings, reducing costs and carbon to ensure our operations are fit for the future.
And all of this will need the talents, enthusiasm and generosity of you, the people of Cambridge. The coming years will be tough, but they’ll be exciting too, and I believe that, working together, we can achieve a huge amount for this city."
