Trumpington has been described as a “dumping ground for problem families” from Cambridge and London by its county councillor.
Liberal Democrat Barbara Ashwood raised her concerns as the Cambridgeshire County Council’s Communities and Partnership Committee discussed how best to tackle poverty and social mobility across the region yesterday (May 30).
She said the focus has been on other areas in Cambridgeshire, but despite a reputation for affluence she said: “Trumpington has problems too”.
Speaking after the meeting she said: “I have no problem with affordable housing being built but the infrastructure has to be there. It frustrates me how little we are doing for these people.
“By the time all the new housing is built Trumpington will have doubled in size. My concern is to try and put this into a community that works together with each other, but at the moment we are getting different factions growing up.”
She said she'd been told “problem families” are being moved out of Cambridge and even London and into Trumpington, but said she was not sure which authority or housing association was responsible.
In the meeting she said “we have enough of a problem with our own underprivileged families” but that the area is being used as a “dumping ground”.
Vice chair of the committee, Conservative Kevin Cuffley, said he too recognised problems in the area.
Cambridgeshire County Council
“A lot of people do tend to neglect Trumpington,” he said. “There are some serious issues going on in Trumpington.”
He said the problem is the area is “not affordable” and various authorities are “putting people into Trumpington that cannot afford to live there”.
Speaking after the meeting Cllr Cuffley said: “In recent times there seems to have been some measure of people that they cannot house in other areas and for whatever reason are being allocated to housing in Trumpington.”
But he added he too was not sure which authority or organisation was responsible.
“Some are on benefits or low incomes and they just cannot afford it. It is creating a bit of a social problem,” he said, questioning whether or not it was responsible to do so.
Cllr Ashwood told the meeting people were being moved out of the north of Cambridge and “out to Trumpington, which is causing big anti-social behaviour problems that we have never had before”.
Cllr Ashwood added she is pleased to see the issue of "inequality in communities” being addressed.
She said: “Trumpington has three new developments, Trumpington Meadows , and the Clay Farm and Glebe Farm developments, as well as houses that sell for over £1m, but 40 per cent of the housing in all of those developments is social/affordable.
“We have a food bank - that is the sort of problem we have. So looking at that has got to be key.
“It ties in with improving early literacy, etc. I chair a governance of a primary school that opened nearly two years ago - 44 per cent of the pupils have English not as their first language and a lot of them are coming from that social/affordable housing.
"It’s causing big problems with schools having to put massive effort into trying to pull up the standard of those children without it impacting on the others but anything we can do to look at that.”
She added after the meeting there was “a question raised” about whether a school she is involved with should have a food bank.
She added: “They have been very careful with the new developments not to ghettoise it, but you can tell which is social/affordable.”
