Peterborough station is technically in the city centre.

You would not necessarily know it when you walk out.

Compare it with Cambridge.

Come out of Cambridge station and you land among cafés, restaurants, bars, taxis, buses and thousands of bikes.

You immediately get the sense that the station is part of a wider neighbourhood.

Peterborough?

You get a station.A taxi rank.A lot of road.

Queensgate somewhere over there.

And, if you are new to the city, a brief moment wondering which subway actually takes you somewhere worth going.

That is probably the best argument for the £50 million Station Quarter project.

Not that Peterborough needs a prettier railway station.

It needs the station to feel as though it belongs to the city around it.

PCC admits the current route into the centre is not easy or welcoming, describing narrow pavements, dark underpasses and pedestrian bridges on a journey that should only take around ten minutes.

The first major work is the new City Link between the station and Cowgate.

Two of the three subways underneath Queensgate Roundabout are due to disappear, replaced with more direct surface-level pedestrian and cycle routes.

And yes, that has already divided opinion.

Some people will be delighted to see the back of the subways.

Others quite reasonably ask whether sending pedestrians across roads is really progress.

The wider Station Quarter plans also include a revamped eastern station entrance, a completely new western entrance, a new Station Square and changes to taxis, drop-off areas and parking.

But the most interesting comparison is still Cambridge.

Not because Peterborough needs to copy Cambridge.

It doesn’t.

But Cambridge demonstrates what happens when the area around a railway station becomes somewhere in its own right rather than somewhere you simply escape from.

You can get off a train, meet someone for coffee, eat, have a drink, catch a bus, grab a taxi or walk through an active neighbourhood.

Peterborough station currently feels much more detached.

And that may be the real £50 million test.

When somebody arrives in Peterborough for the first time, will they finally know they have arrived in a city?

What would make the biggest difference around our station?

Better cafés and restaurants?

Easier buses?

A proper station square?

Better walking routes?

Or simply making the route into town obvious?