Starting with the opening of the UK’s first science park in 1970, Cambridge has grown from the sleepy market town of 60 years ago into an internationally renowned centre of technical research and innovation at the centre of a metropolis that spreads for 20 miles (32km) from the city centre. Further investment of £3.5 billion is planned to turn the Cambridge-to-Oxford corridor into Europe’s Silicon Valley.
Throughout this expansion, however, members of the Cambridge Preservation Society, founded in 1928, have been vigilant in ensuring that historic sites and green spaces within this growing conurbation were not sacrificed to the dreams of the master planners. In 2009, they adopted a new name – Cambridge Past, Present & Future (abbreviated to CambridgePPF) – to signal that their focus had broadened from ‘preserving’ the past to representing people, communities, and the environment in future planning.
In their first 50 years, CambridgePFF restored the UK’s oldest surviving windmill (documented from 1636 at Bourn); prevented a ring road from being built across Grantchester Meadows; saved the Gog Magog Hills from development; and created a country park around the hillfort at Wandlebury. Its members also zealously mapped footpaths in the city’s hinterland that have since served as the basis for a network of off-road routes for walkers and cyclists, linking the centre to peripheral hubs.
