- S/RSC/HW Land between Hinton Way and Mingle Lane, Great Shelford
This land is currently within the Green Belt and has already been considered in the last Local Plan, and then dismissed, as unsuitable for. There are multiple reasons for this prior exclusion including the adverse impact on the Green Belt changing the linear character of this area of the village, resulting in backland development and encroachment into the transitional area of the fields that provide a softer edge of the village.
There must be "exceptional circumstances" for release of Green Belt land.

- What are the new factors that justify reassessment?
The Greater Cambridge Green Belt Assessment (GCGBA) report, which states the impact on Green Belt of use of this parcel of land as 'Moderate-High'. The report also states that the purpose of Green Belt is to "prevent communities merging into one" (GCGBA page 9), preserve "landscape that retains a strong rural character" (page 26), "prevent further coalescence of settlements" (page 28) and "prevent communities in the environs of Cambridge from merging into one another" (page 42). This proposed development lies exactly on the boundary between the parishes of Great Shelford and Stapleford, which clearly contributes to the merging of the two villages into one continuous settlement.

- Where is the environmental impact study for the two areas that make up this proposed site?
The two areas sit on very different land quality - part on meadow, part on agricultural land. The meadow has been lightly grazed and/or left fallow for many many decades, and as a result has built up significantly diverse flora and fauna, many of which are listed as having a UK conservation status of ‘red’, and as ‘meadow’ has one of the highest nature ratings in the European Monitoring of Biodiversity in Agricultural Landscapes (EMBAL) Survey Manual 2017. To wilfully include the meadow in a plan but only include a small fraction of what is heavily used agricultural land with ‘between very low and rather low nature’ value suggests that the plan must be ill-conceived, and it certainly goes against the local planning mantra that supporting biodiversity is at it’s core.

- How have you assessed the poor quality access to this site?
The proposed access from Mingle Lane is not suitable for 100 houses. Mingle Lane is a narrow 20 mph restricted lane and accessed either through particularly narrow roads through the conservation area or from Hinton Way. The large increase in traffic onto Hinton Way will cause further issues at the already congested railway crossing. I note GCGBA states that the impact of development should consider the "degree of activity from the development (e.g. by traffic generation)" (page 16).

- What is the assessment of impact on local services (e.g. schooling, GPs etc)?
There is a great deal of local opposition to development of the site.
There has been no persuasive new rationale for use of this site, it is against the findings of the consultation, against the principles of the Local plan.