It is 56 years old. The oldest science park in Europe. Located on Milton Road, it hums with 7,000 workers right now. They are building technologies, curing diseases, solving problems most people forget to ask about.
The new plan wants to change everything.
Imagine tripling the economic output to £3 billion a year. That is the goal. New buildings. Fresh infrastructure. A hard shift from organic, messy growth to a maximized space strategy.
“Opening up the new Park of Science” isn’t just PR speak.
Dame Sally Davies says this much. She is Master of Trinity College. Her college funds the proposal along with leasehold partners. The idea? Open it up. Not just to scientists in white coats. To young people. To families in the surrounding towns and villages.
The math is aggressive.
Built space jumps from 2.8 million square feet to 8 million. A big jump. The college claims growth will bring “benefits and opportunities” to Peterborough too, not just Cambridge. They are determined, it seems. Or maybe just hopeful.
Jobs come first. Construction crews, gardeners, HR staff, scientists. Then the soft stuff. Better bus links. Cycling routes. Flood resilience that actually works. Landscaping that lets bugs and bees survive.
It is already open to the public. The plan just adds outdoor exhibits. An open-air museum. Stronger ties to the Cambridge Science Centre. They want kids interested in STEM, which is fair. Who doesn’t want more future engineers?
Rebecca Porter, head of the Cambridge Science Centre, is excited. Probably for good reason. Since Trinity College moved them to the park, they scaled up fast. Thirty thousand visitors in 2025. Fourteen hundred pupils in Wisbech getting outreach.
Why is this location special?
It sits next to the research. Real time. Raw. As Porter says, they are translating innovation, not interpreting it from a safe distance. That proximity cannot be replicated elsewhere. You cannot fake it.
Roland Sinker, a university chair, sees a bigger picture. This is a vote of confidence in the UK. A statement. We are still leaders in science and tech, he argues. Thousands of high-quality jobs. Billions in national economy.
Maybe the breakthroughs will stay here. Maybe they will go abroad. The money is moving in, that much is true.
The park grows. The buildings rise. We wait to see if the promises land or drift away.
