Greater Cambridge Local Plan Preferred Options

BACKGROUND

Watkin Jones Group PLC (WJG) is the UK’s leading developer and manager of residential for rent homes. By spearheading this emerging sector, WJG are creating the future of living for a diverse and growing group of people who want flexibility, convenience, and a strong sense of community alongside the best location and value. Its purpose-built build to rent (BTR) homes, co-living and student homes are designed and built sustainably, and welcome people from all backgrounds to enjoy a great way of life, generating a positive impact for wider communities. Beyond residential for rent, its successful and well-established home-building division has an increasing focus on the delivery of affordable housing products and build to rent single family houses.

With increasing pressure on many areas to quickly create new housing, WJG an excellent track record of delivering homes fast without compromising on quality. Over 95% of its developments are on site within six months of the grant of planning permission and its in-house construction capacity means that it can rapidly boost local housing supply. Over the last 25 years WJG have delivered over 46,000 student beds across 130 sites, with a pipeline of over 12,300 BTR, student or co-living homes currently.

Fresh is WJG’s multi award-winning operator and manager of residential for rent schemes and works on behalf of a wide range of clients, managing over 20,000 rental homes and student bed spaces at over 60 sites across the UK and Ireland. Fresh achieves 95% customer satisfaction, and cares for its residents with a range of wellbeing and community building activities.

Our evidence suggests that cities like Cambridge offer a great opportunity for each of our residential for rent products, namely BTR, co-living and student homes. We are supportive of the Council retaining and/ or introducing policies to support the delivery of BTR and purpose-built student accommodation, however the Council does not have a clear and supportive planning policy environment to capture co-living. As such, our representation focuses upon ‘H/BR – built to rent homes’ within which co-living could be captured, but more likely requiring its own policy, an approach increasingly being undertaken across the UK (e.g. Policy H16 ‘Large Scale Purpose Built Shared Living’ of the London Plan 2021).

PLANNING FOR CO-LIVING

We encourage Greater Cambridge to proactively plan for, and therefore introduce policies, related to the provision of co-living across the Greater Cambridge area. This will allow for any planning applications for co-living within the Greater Cambridge to be assessed against those policies.

Co-living is a relatively new concept of housing which aims to provide a housing option for single person households, who cannot or chose not to live in self-contained homes or houses in multiple occupation (HMOs). In planning terms this housing type is sui generis non-self-contained market housing and is not considered conventional residential, which would fall under Use Class C3. This type of housing is not restricted to particular groups by occupation or specific needs.

In addition, communal amenity space is provided in lieu of private floorspace to create a sense of community and encourage social interaction and engagement between its residents. The concept is that one sleeps in their room but lives in the building. The private units are appropriately sized to be comfortable and functional for tenant’s needs and generally include en-suite bathrooms and limited cooking facilities (e.g. a kitchenette), but with access to larger kitchen facilities elsewhere in the development which allow for communal dining. It is important to note that the National Housing Space Standards do not apply to this type of accommodation due to its key attribute as a ‘cost-effective’ alternative form of housing, which would be proven negligible should unit sizes be increased.

WJG is actively pursuing and delivering co-living schemes in core cities across the UK, noting that co-living has played an important role in attracting and retaining talent and supporting economic development. In fact, it is of note that some UK cities have installed a specific and pro-active drive for more co-living developments (e.g. Exeter), recognising that those cities with already established co-living opportunities are at an advantage when seeking to retain and attract graduates seeking quality and cost-effective accommodation. On this basis, WJG has identified Cambridge as an ideal location to support, sustain and derive benefit from this residential model, noting that there is a particular drive to encourage graduate retention associated with a number of industries across the city and that co-living represents an excellent opportunity for Cambridge to achieve this.

A crucial role of the Greater Cambridge Local Plan is to maintain the supply of new housing, in order to meet housing requirements with sufficient flexibility to take account of changing circumstances (e.g. relating to the delivery of some development sites). A plan-led solution to supply will help to ensure that housing is delivered in the most sustainable locations, that meets the needs of groups with specific housing requirements, as set out in the NPPF at Section 5. Therefore, there is an overriding principle to facilitate the supply of housing to meet specific needs in the city, this should include housing targeted at single households, including co-living.

WJG believes that co-living has an important role to play in diversifying the choice of accommodation in Cambridge. It can also assist in realising strategic objectives around the attraction and retention of talent, providing that such accommodation is provided to a high quality, with appropriate room sizes, in appropriate locations and is delivered by experienced operators. Co-living also has the potential to make a significant contribution to physical regeneration and realisation of Greater Cambridge’s aspirations for place-making when delivered at scale.

WJG welcomes further discussions with Greater Cambridge on co-living and will review and respond to any draft policies that Greater Cambridge proposes to consult on at a later stage.

BUILD TO RENT (BTR)

WJG welcomes the proposal to include policies relating to BTR within the Greater Cambridge Local Plan. On the whole, WJG supports the Council’s proposed policy direction and has little comment to add at this stage.

WJG does not support, however, the suggestion that Greater Cambridge may look to limit BTR as a proportion of all dwellings within mixed tenure schemes. The basis of WJG’s objection is threefold, namely: that BTR responds to the increasing number of UK residents who are renting, rather than purchasing, their homes; it is recognised that it is an effective way of delivering a significant quantum of housing, as it is typically funded by institutional investors (e.g. pension and insurance companies); and the market is continuing to evolve and, whilst operational BTR across the UK has typically been delivered as apartments or flats to date, BTR single family houses are increasingly being developed across the UK. It does not therefore follow that the proportion of Class C3 BTR units within mixed tenure schemes is limited.

Similarly, concerns are raised regarding the suggestions to limit the overconcentration of BTR and its contribution to a mixed and balanced community. WJG questions the evidence behind this, as BTR is Class C3 (like conventional ‘for sale’ homes), is not limited to specific members of the community and, given its different form as apartments and/ or houses, caters for all members of society from young professionals through to family homes through to retirees looking to downsize and be located close to cultural and leisure facilities.

It is respectfully requested that policies related to BTR take account of the above.