It’s deja vu all over again: Can the Ox-Cam Arc work second time around?

By Joey Gardiner2025-02-24T06:00:00

The chancellor has given her backing to an expansion plan for the corridor connecting Oxford, Milton Keynes and Cambridge, including thousands of homes, which the previous government dropped. Joey Gardiner asks what hope the industry can have

It did not take long for the backlash to begin. Even before chancellor Rachel Reeves had stood up to deliver the speech at which she announced her backing for a “growth corridor” between Oxford and Cambridge, the Daily Telegraph was already reporting the fears of residents in the corridor that the plans will “wipe us out”. And the Daily Mail has already branded one village for proposed development, Tempsford, as “Starmer’s village of the damned”.

Reeves said her decision to push for growth along the arc linking Oxford, Milton Keynes and Cambridge could gift the UK a £78bn boost to economic output in the next decade alone, through fully harnessing the potential of the hi-tech and life sciences industries springing out of the famous university cities.

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