Present-day and Future Development
In the 2000s, six University colleges on The Backs commissioned Robert Myers, a landscape architect who had studied at Girton College, to prepare a new landscape management plan for the area. The report, entitled The Backs Cambridge Landscape Strategy, was completed in November 2007 and released on 1 December 2007. It sets out proposals for the evolution of The Backs over the next 50 years. Myers' proposal is to improve the "legibility, coherence and visual quality of the landscape as a whole" by retaining and enhancing the existing structure of the landscape and sight lines, while screening off the traffic on Queens Road. Over-mature and inappropriately-sited trees will be removed and new ones planted. In addition, there will be a phased replacement of avenues, an extension of the "wilderness" planting behind St John's and along the edge of Queens Road, and the creation of a "wildlife corridor". In particular, as regards Queens' Green at the southern end of The Backs which is owned by Cambridge City Council, there is a proposal to extend an existing avenue of beech trees to the Queens Road to create an additional "rung" to the "ladder effect" created by other tree avenues, and to plant more trees and wilderness to partly enclose a stretch of grass.
The colleges are currently in consultation with the City Council and English Heritage regarding the report, and if it is approved will carry out the suggested work in their own time using their own funds. In December 2007, The Daily Telegraph reported that "there has been a remarkable degree of consensus between institutions well known for prizing their autonomy".
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