Sign up to our newsletter for daily updates and breaking news Sign up here! Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

A Chinatown would be “socially disastrous” for Cambridge and would benefit the “giant numbers of tourists” coming to the city more than local people, a resident has said.

In a letter to Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner, Emma Johns wrote that a Chinatown - far from being the “perfect addition” to the city as businessmen have argued - would “do nothing but polarise and ostracise” people in the city.

The 28-year-old from Romsey - born and raised in Cambridge by an English father and a Chinese-Vietnamese mother - said she considered herself to be a “tolerant and cultured person” given her time spent living abroad and her mixed background.

But after hearing the plans reported in the News for a new Chinese quarter, with a proposed location on Burleigh Street, Ms Johns felt it was “necessary to stand up and say something about what is happening in this city”.

She wrote: “The huge boom in tourism, most notably tourists from China, has drastically altered the serenity that once was.

“It is not xenophobic to highlight the negative impact they are having on the way of life here.”

Ms Johns said the large number of tourists in the city centre was causing dangers for pedestrians and cyclists.

“As a cyclist you really have to be careful here, as mindless pedestrians are even worse when they’ve spotted an eye-catching handbag in a shop window on the other side of the street,” she said.

(Image: David Johnson)

In one incident, she said her partner had seen an elderly woman with a walking stick “being taunted by a group of Chinese men and their cameras”.

She said: “Of course these men do not represent the behaviour of most Chinese tourists, but with higher numbers coming into the city, will this appalling conduct become more common?”

Andy Tse, one of the brains behind the idea for a Chinatown, previously told the News that it would help divert tourists away from the city centre, relieving tourist congestion.

But Ms Johns said a Chinatown would only fuel “short-term” tourism.

“This proposed Chinatown is not for the integrated Asian immigrants, the Chinese scholars living here or for the rest of the local Cambridge community - it is for the giant numbers of tourists coming into the city on a day trip, and for the Chinese,” she said.

In a poll by the News, the majority of readers backed the idea of having a Chinatown in Cambridge, and the mayor of Cambridge, Cllr George Pippas, said it would "perfectly complement" the city.

But Ms Johns questioned who would really “profit” if the proposal went ahead.

Burleigh Street was one of the “only local shopping areas” left in the city where people could shop cheaply, she said, and it would be “a pity” if it were to go.

She wrote: “The building of a Chinatown would do nothing but polarise and ostracise the real identity of this city - the people. They are the ones who work for the council clearing the streets and maintaining the grass verges; the ones who work in the restaurants and cafés; the one who teach in all the schools; the tradesmen; the university; the schoolchildren - so many people.”

You can read Emma Johns' letter in full below.

You can keep up to date with all the latest news in and around Cambridge by downloading our free app. It is available for the iPhone and iPad from Apple's App Store, or the Android version can be downloaded from Google Play.