About

Protect Fenner’s Action Group is supported by nearly 5000 people. This includes members of the cricketing community, Cambridge University staff, alumni and local residents.

Former England captain, David Gower, and Hughes Hall alumnus and former England player, Steve James, are among those who want to safeguard Fenner’s cricket ground.

The campaign was set up in 2024 to stop Hughes Hall building 100 rooms on designated Protected Open Space at Fenner’s, to prevent a dangerous precedent for Cambridge, and to reverse the decline of cricket at Fenner’s.

Protect Fenner’s Action Group (PFAG) has rallied support through national and local press coverage, and brought change. But scarce green land at one of Cambridge’s renowned historic sites remains under threat of development.

New Hughes Hall masterplan, 2026

Hughes Hall has recently expanded its development plans to include up to 120 student rooms and teaching spaces on its campus and at Fenner’s. PFAG welcomes the use of brownfield sites for the first time for key buildings. But this cannot justify the significant loss (587 sqm) of highly rated Protected Open Space at Fenner’s that Hughes Hall still intends to build on.

The action group is now working harder than ever to prevent the planned three storey Wileman Court building on Protected Open Space and the dominating effect it could have on adjoining historic houses at Covent Garden. Other planned development incursions onto green protected land at Fenner’s will also be contested.

Wider reaction

The influential planning watchdog, Cambridge Past Present and Future, is critical of the new masterplan and warns of “a dangerous precedent” for the incremental erosion of Cambridge’s protected lands. (See its report HERE)

Residents and cricket fans are not bowled over either. See HERE for recent feedback.