Land between Hinton Way and Mingle Lane (the site)

I strongly oppose this 10 hectares of land being proposed for housing development for the following reasons:

1. The site is in the Green Belt and there are no exceptional circumstances for its release. The planners rely on the fact that there is a village railway station which they say provides “excellent” access to Cambridge and once the new Cambridge South station is open will do so to the Biomedical Campus. It is difficult to see that a railway station can of itself create “exceptional circumstances” otherwise any village with a railway station and surrounded by Green Belt land could find itself at risk of land being released from the Green Belt for proposed housing development. “Exceptional “ is a very strong word and signifies the need for a very strong reason before being categorised as exceptional.

On the facts one cannot say there is “excellent access” to Cambridge. Even at busiest times the trains run only approximately every 30 minutes and off-peak hourly, and the numbers using the down line towards Cambridge is very modest. The South Cambridge station has not been constructed and is only at the planning stage. Assuming it is built it is very difficult to envisage any substantial number of persons if they were to live on the site and work on the Biomedical Campus using the train for the short journey. They would have to walk or cycle to the station, leave plenty of time to get there in case the level crossing barriers were down (it is necessary to cross to the other side of the line and sometimes the barriers are down long enough for 3 trains to pass). Some will find the train does not fit with work patterns and probably use cars instead. It would probably be impossible for more trains to stop at Shelford as it would result in the barriers being down for even longer exacerbating traffic problems on Hinton Way at peak times (a survey a few years ago found that the crossing barriers are closed to traffic for approximately 22minutes in every hour). At peak times now waiting vehicles on Hinton Way can back up to Orchard Road and on Station Road to the main traffic light-controlled junction.

2. There are very few parts of Cambridgeshire where rising ground is a significant feature of the countryside and we are lucky that the Gogs generally with Magog Down is one of those. It would be a disaster if building developments were to impinge in anyway on people’s enjoyment of such natural landscape. The planners accept that views of the landscape are relevant because they say in their proposals that any development should have constraints and design “should preserve key views from Stapleford Conservation Area including from Mingle Lane past St Andrews Church and the adjacent vicarage”. Whilst that is a welcome sentiment it ignores the fact that “key Views” are going to be lost from many other properties by the development proposals. This should not be happening.

3. It is very concerning that the planners say that there might be potential for higher capacity of the site if an additional access could be found. It is not too difficult to envisage that such an access might be found. If this present proposal proceeds one may then be faced not merely with 100 houses (which would be an appalling situation anyway) but applications for probably twice that number or even more and it would seem that the planners might not be unsympathetic to that. This could be further aggravated if the proposed busway from Abington to the Biomedical Campus is approved despite much public hostility and anger towards it. One could end up with several hundred houses creeping up the slope towards the Gogs completely ruining the landscape, the protection of which was one of the reasons the Green Belt was put in place. To prevent the possibility of this happening, the 100 houses proposal should be removed from the plans straightaway.

4. Any development on site involving 100 houses (or possibly more if another access was obtained) would lead to a further blurring of the dividing line between Great Shelford and Stapleford. There is already some blurring in Mingle Lane and London Road but a large development on the site would make the position much worse and result in a large conurbation with the two villages own distinctive features being lost.

5. The access proposed is not a good one. Although one of the aims of the overall proposal is to cut down on car use the reality is that at most houses there will be one if not two cars. This will lead to more traffic in Mingle Lane with its several bends at the Stapleford end and at the Shelford end there will be the junction with Hinton Way and the problems arising from the presence of the level crossing at Shelford Station referred to in paragraph 1. above.

6. One has to ask who is going to live in these 100 houses. Whilst 40% are proposed to be affordable (and one knows how that figure is often reduced by developers saying a development is not viable unless it is reduced) at least 60% are likely to be high quality properties (particularly if the density is not as great as is often the case) way out of the reach pricewise of most people. One suspects that a number will be bought by people who have no real connection with the area and particularly not with Shelford or Stapleford, not an outcome that anyone dealing with these proposals would seek.

7. The proposal for 100 houses is a minute proportion of the 49,000 homes proposed overall. Apart from Green Belt incursions for the Biomedical Campus and the Babraham Research Campus and a very small estate at Oakington, the site proposal is the only proposal for a housing estate on its own in the Local Plan that requires release from the Green Belt. It is understood that the 49,000 figure is some 50% approximately more homes than the Government says is needed. The planners may well have over estimated the number of homes needed (which can be a very inexact science) and also have allowed over 4,000 houses for contingencies which may be a very over generous allowance. Bearing in mind the massive uncertainties about all the possible future needs the removal of 100 houses from the proposed 49,000 would be so small that it would not interfere in any way with the general objectives of the draft plan and it would remove most of the arguments about unnecessary incursions into the Green Belt.

8. On a personal note my property which I have occupied for the last 43 years is bounded on two sides by the Site. The proposals if accepted are clearly going to have a substantial deleterious effect on the use and enjoyment of my property and probably on its value. If this proposed development site were a brownfield site then protestations against the proposals for development might be more difficult but where the land is Green Belt I believe strongly that I and numerous other houseowners adjoining the site or affected or likely to be affected by it together with lovers of the countryside have every right to oppose strongly the development of this site unless there really are genuine “exceptional circumstances” justifying over-riding the serious objections put forward. I can see none here and request that the proposals for development be deleted from the proposed Local Plan.