Alconbury Weald has a rich history that covers thousands of years of people living, working and enjoying this unique part of Huntingdonshire. This heritage is reflected throughout the development, with the past playing a key role in shaping the future designs, delivery and activation of Alconbury Weald, so new residents and visitors can engage with the history around them.
Alconbury Weald’s more recent military history, and particularly its intelligence and reconnaissance role during the Cold War, is embodied in the Heritage Area coming forward in Phase 3 of the development.
The Heritage Area is set out in the development’s Outline planning framework, as a place that will protect, conserve and revitalise the Cold War heritage of Alconbury Weald, including providing viable uses to the Listed Avionics Building and TR-1 “spyplane” hangars there that are unique to the UK, and promoting public access and engagement to allow the history of the site to continue to be told.
To support the development of the approach, the U&C team have established an Alconbury Weald Heritage Group – made up of local stakeholders including Cambridgeshire County Council, Huntingdonshire District Council, Historic England, The Stukeleys Parish Council, Huntingdonshire Local History Society, Airfield Research Group, Oxford Archaeology, and the local United States Air Force representatives. The group have come into their own in the last year, helping the team develop the Heritage Area Action Plan (HAAP) which is a core part of setting out the future framework for the Area as Key Phase 3 is delivered.
A series of additional meetings and one to one discussions were set up as part of pulling the HAAP together, as it needed to demonstrate how the Heritage Area can be protected in perpetuity, identifying a series of management, maintenance, engagement proposals, as well as future infrastructure that enables the area to have more sustainable utilities, better access, and appropriate landscape and drainage that fits into the wider approach across the development. The team are also active members of the Cold War Heritage Network, hosting events and discussions with the group led by Leeds Beckett University, which includes Cold War assets, museums and interest groups from across the UK, who are supporting the understanding of the future heritage tourism role of the Area.
I am pleased to be chair of Alconbury Weald Heritage Group, and it is great to continue to work with Urban&Civic to help shape how the future plans embrace and engage people in the unique heritage of the site: which is both an opportunity, but also a huge challenge for a developer to recognise at this scale. The group is becoming a strong partnership of exchanging ideas, expertise and passion, and will in time become an important part of the area’s future stewardship of the historic environment.
Quinton Carroll, Head of Natural & Historic Environment, Cambridgeshire County Council
Alconbury Weald is a fascinating site and presents some great opportunities to bring together both academia and industry to create and develop new ways of managing and developing heritage assets within regeneration projects and brownfield sites. Urban&Civic is working hard to be good custodians of this important site, which includes a number of listed buildings, and their engagement with The Cold War Network provides opportunities to share expertise around curatorship, community engagement and social history which will ensure that Alconbury Weald is well positioned to share important stories with current and future communities, visitors and others with an interest in this emerging and important heritage.
Peter Robinson, Head of Subject: Events, Tourism and Hospitality Management, Leeds Beckett University