An indigenous Amazon, Facebook or Google is every government’s dream. Now, Theresa May’s government is banking billions on the Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge arc.
The 80-mile corridor is to get its own ‘Expressway’. A million homes will be built. And that’s before the icing on the cake for the rail enthusiasts who never gave up hope: there will once again be a fixed rail link between Cambridge and Oxford, close to the route of the original ‘varsity line’ that was closed in 1967.
The Oxbridge arc has all the right ingredients for the UK to hit the knowledge transfer big time, according to the many consulting firms that have produced economic impact reports for the government. It has two of the world’s top five universities and their associated knowledge transfer machinery. It has vast numbers of start-ups and small companies nesting close to multinationals. There are investors hovering nearby—all collaborating, networking, sharing and creating what they hope will turn out to be a herd of British unicorns.
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