The development at North East Cambridge is not supported. As previously noted by GCSP prior to this First Proposal, no allocation was made at North East Cambridge due to uncertainty of the Waste Water Treatment relocation, which recognises that housing and jobs for the plan period and beyond are not dependent upon S/NEC, which can be provided via other policies. Policy S/NEC is being promoted as sustainable but requires the construction of a replacement for a fully functioning and future proofed Waste Water Treatment Works to an area of Green Belt, which doesn’t appear with the same level of prominence in the Proposed Plan for consideration.
The proposed relocation will be at a great cost to the Public Purse at a time Post Covid 19, when the country can least afford it and there is limited surety around future working patterns and business requirements.
The area of Green Belt currently proposed for relocation of the Waste Water Treatment Works has been tightly defended throughout earlier Plan issues and its importance reinforced in previous Green Belt studies, the most recent in 2021 which confirms that development at the proposed location would result in ‘Very High Harm’. This doesn’t appear to support the substantial weight that should be given to any potential harm to the Green Belt.