Putting residents and communities at the heart of the conversation


As part of our council’s transformation programme, Our Cambridge, we are working with partners, our residents and communities to help everyone in the city live safe, happy and healthy lives.

This also includes creating new relationships and developing new ways of working with our partners and communities to better deliver our future council and improved outcomes for everyone. We want to work with our residents to collectively create a better city.

We will be talking to our residents, and communities, on a range of subjects over the coming months and years as part of the Our Cambridge programme.

What matters to you

During February and March 2023, we put residents and communities at the heart of the conversation. We ran a survey to ask about the things that were important to them and their families, and what they liked and disliked about where they live and over 500 people gave us their views.

Alongside the survey we ran several pop-up events and discussions with community groups and engaged with a further 384 people.

The purpose of all the conversations was to help build a shared picture for Cambridge and this will help to define our future role in ensuring Cambridge continues to be a great place to live and work.

Survey outcome report

What people valued included:

  • open and green spaces
  • a sense of community
  • being within walking or cycling distance of amenities and services

Participants felt that these were important for a good quality of life.

The £100 Love Cambridge Gift card winner was a resident from Trumpington.

Next steps

We will be sharing the findings with councillors and teams across the council so this can be used to inform future day-to-day operations.

The findings will also be shared with a wide range of partner organisations so they can also consider this as part of their day-to-day operations and future work.

The insight will also feed into other projects within the Our Cambridge programme, including the projects that are considering what services we deliver and how.

The learnings from the project will help to build relationships for continued conversations that will help shape future priorities and outcomes for residents and communities.

Our aspirations for the future

We’ve been working with partners, and people across Cambridge, to create a picture sharing what we all collectively want Cambridge to be like in the future – our aspirations for the future.

We call this the Cambridge Rich Picture.

Cambridge Rich Picture

The Cambridge Rich Picture includes what’s important, what’s critical and where the council, partners and community groups should focus our attention on the future. 

Alongside its companion piece, the State of the City report, the above picture will inform council and partner priorities.

State of the City report and dashboard

The Cambridge 'State of the City' report and dashboard provide a data-led overview of what Cambridge is like economically, socially, and environmentally. It also compares Cambridge to other cities in England and Wales.

Together with our communities we will be able to see how close or how far Cambridge is to the ambitions captured through this engagement project and help us identify how we work together to make a difference.

We will be tracking the impact of the collective work that we and our partners are doing to help everyone in the city live safe, happy and healthy lives, knowing whether we're making a difference.

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