Savills Planning Team in Cambridge are instructed on behalf of St John's College, Cambridge to submit responses to the Issues and Options Report on the CNFE having regard to the College's landholdings and land interests at St John's Innovation Park west of Cowley Road and east of Milton Road.

Paragraphs 9.11 through to 9.16 acknowledge the importance of the Northern Fringe as a potential employment hub for the Cambridge area. It is the case that increased accessibility provided by a new railway station together with the enhanced links provided by the Guided Busway will ensure that higher density and more productive use in terms of land uses should be encouraged in order to maximise development potential and meet with the objectives of the Plan area. The specific work commissioned by the Councils acknowledge the continuing pressure and demand for employment space in Cambridge in general, and specifically the City Centre and the Northern Fringe around the Science Park. The development of a new major employment area will therefore respond to the market and help to deliver new buildings in a highly sustainable location.

Paragraph 1.94 of the Plan recognises that the area should meet the need of a range of users and this includes small firms and start ups together with major firms with large numbers of employees. Certainly the importance of the St John's Innovation Centre and the Innovation Park area is an absolute key part of the Cambridge economy and as stated in separate responses to other questions posed by the Plan it is important that the CNFE acknowledges that the immediate area around the St John's Innovation Centre including circulation areas and other buildings around the Innovation Park provide the real potential to increase employment floorspace and to capitalise on the very credentials that the Cambridge economy is famous for. Accordingly, the specialist sectors which are indicated in terms of creation of new employment clusters in the CNFE are supported together with an approach which should look to the area delivering a flexible range of unit types and sizes including start ups and small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). Encouraging the variety of employment space together with the need for new office floorspace including commercial laboratory space are all component parts of delivering new employment on new areas of land as well as consolidating existing employment areas at the Cambridge Business Park and St John's Innovation Park.