Gordon Edge The government's role in getting things started? None. As for the origins of the whole process, it was a kind of chain reaction. Outside of the university, there has never been any government money or any initiatives in this area. That marks it out as quite unique. You'll find that as you go around Cambridge, there is virtually no public sector activity, no defense activity, no European-type projects, practically none at all if you compare Cambridge with Sophia Antipolis, where there are a lot of EU projects. Such government intervention is a culture mismatch here. Cambridge has always been very slow in terms of infrastructure. Many roads only have two lanes . The visions of the planners are very limited. We got involved in a planing battle with the Cambridge City and Cambridgeshire County Councils, as did the Wellcome Trust and the University Department of Animal Behaviour, but the city blocked all three applications. After three years and an appeal to the central government, we finally got permission to build according to our needs. The government appointed an inspector, who was independent and who came out with a very strong recommendation that we should be allowed to develop. In general, whereas the government does express a great interest in what is going on, the question is, to what degree can it help us? People in Cambridge are very self-sufficient. They prefer doing it the hard way. They appreciate intellectual property, and generating cash flows, and not massive losses. It is not a culture of dependency. |