Greater Oxbridge

Oxbridge is an ivory-tower state of mind, perhaps, or at least two ancient rival universities, but how about this: in the future the word could describe a fully connected English economic region, a rival both to London and to the great midlands and northern cities.

This is the aim of the National Infrastructure Commission, headed by Lord Adonis. This advisory body, a legacy of the Osborne chancellorship, wants to create a 130-mile economic corridor linking the two varsity towns and their hinterlands just beyond the Chilterns. It is running a competition to glean ideas as how to best make the new places in it. A fast cross-country road is planned, while the long-abandoned ‘varsity line’ railway from Oxford to Cambridge is being re-established bit-by-bit.

It brings into the mix less glamorous towns along the way. Milton Keynes, Bedford, Bicester and Buckingham lie along the main corridor: Northampton marks its northern boundary, with Aylesbury to the south. Consider them all together as part of the same thing, and what do you get? Well, a lot more high-tech industry and a lot more housing, for a start; two serviceable existing airports at Cambridge and Kidlington (plus Luton lurking nearby), and no need to go from one part to another via London. That’s the thing about southern England — its towns and cities are on strings leading out of London, not on strings connecting each other. Greater Oxbridge (my term, not theirs) aims to put that right. If it sounds like a variant of Osborne’s Northern Powerhouse, that’s because it kind of is.

We don’t talk much about ‘new towns’ any more, but they exist, usually hidden under the names of existing ones. Cambridge and Northampton are expanding like mad, Oxford less so, but the towns in between offer the greatest potential.