Anyone live near Cambridge station in CB1 development?

[Tolivewhere19]

Moving to Cambridge soon and realise the only thing we can potentially afford in the city is shared ownership. I'm looking at a few of the properties currently on sale at 30-50% share near the station. Does anyone on here live in one of the new builds? What is it like?

I have walked around the area several times and it looks ok. I've just read a 2017 article about it though calling it a 'future slum' Is the area good/bad for children? If anyone does shared ownership would love to hear about that too.

Hi, the area that is over the other side of the cycle bridge is mixed but closer to more traditional pleasures and amenities of Mill Rd Romsey Town. The way in which it is mixed is that some flats seem well looked after and some have dated quickly because they are not.

The newer areas around the station are dominated by student accommodation and the bus depot. There are a few shops near the station. A very good small Sainsbury and a little M and S. Some coffee, lunch concessions etc. A Coop on the edge of the development. It's still not far from Mill Rd.

Ravensworth Gardens, which I think was/is a mix of housing association and private housing was built in early 2000s. Some of it has dated very badly given it was prestige development and it's become surrounded by flats and the redevelopment of the area. This older development might stand as an indicator of how the newer bits will fare.

Re children - small parks 2, larger park on Coleridge Rd has paddling and nice climbing frames etc, pls big open green space. 10 mins walk away for that one, 10-15 mins away if Romsey Wreck also nice park.

Romsey and Mill Rd areas have lots of kids facilities and groups at Romsey Mill, Ross Street community centres and there are groups at St Philip's Church on Mill Rd plus also St Barnabas Church

it hasn't turned into a slum.

I'm in shared ownership in Cambridge. Not near the station though. Trumpington.

The 'slum' storio came after a succession of police reports at council meetings about anti-social behaviour and pop-up brothels. Subsequent to that there has been a lot of press coverage of intractable noise/pollution from permanent traffic jams on Great Northern Road - see the @stationaryroad Twitter feed for details. You could also try looking for the write ups of residents meetings on the CB1 Community website, but you will have to dig, they are hidden away. Finally, there are still planning applications going through for the northern end of the site, so construction will be happening for another couple of years, in case that's important to you.

Many thanks mastertomsmum - very helpful.

Thanks shumway - What is Trumpington shared-ownership like?

Thanks for all the info DorothyParker111 - so helpful. Traffic looks awful judging by twitter. Thanks also for info re: ongoing applications. That's interesting to know, keen to see what else will be built.

Whoever is calling it a future slum should have seen what it used to be like before all the building. So dodgy, abandoned warehouses, and a creepy abandoned house on station road, druggy, horrible. It's much better now, modern and clean and safe, but of course there is the associated traffic and people etc. Have you thought about Ely? I live there and commute to Cambridge, the train line is usually good, and it's a much nicer place for children I think.

MaGratgarlik1983 - interested to know about the house you refer to. Was this part of the row of beautiful Victorian houses that there was a campaign to save? If so, sad to hear how this was allowed to happen as it clearly helped the case for knocking them down.

On the other side, the carpark area had lovely old goods sheds one which one was a bike shop. I like the new development except for the way they boxed in part of Ravensworth gardens with new buildings very close to their gardens.

I'm not sure, I don't think so, it was at the top of Station Road near the Tennyson Road turning.

The station area was previously down at heel, for sure, and overdue some investment. But nothing that was promised for CB1 has been delivered: integrated transport hub, 30% affordable housing for Addenbrooke's staff, a home for the County records office, a tourist information centre ...
Anyone who has tried crossing the 'piazza' as a cyclist will know the feeling that they are taking their life in their hands. The shared space design does no-one any favours. Taxis take pride of place in front of the station, buses are shoved 100m or more away round the corner. The reports of anti-social behaviour around the flats are real, not manufactured by the police.
So if your argument is that it's better than it was, my response is it damn well should be after £700m being spent on it. But it's not nearly as good as it should/could have been.

MaGratgarlik1983 - sounds like the same area. The houses went down rapidly in a manner that seemed to be deliberately calculated to engineer the their demolition.

The station area was dated but fine before the CB1 stuff started. The old flour mill was ok before the fire and took a long time to be redeveloped. It’s an underwhelming redevelopment. Overall the area now looks ok but some of the buildings knocked down might have been better being restored

Lots of police call outs apparently to that area for antisocial behaviour drugs and prostitution but to be fair it's Cambridge so it's not like bad parts of other cities. It always feels safe to walk around there and I've never seen any trouble myself.

I don't think there's much of a community feel as it's mainly student housing. Not really a family area as it's all flats. It's obviously a convenient place to live with good transport links.

Where will you be working?