Greater Cambridge Local Plan Preferred Options

The consultation document outlines the preferred settlement hierarchy and identifies the main urban centre as Greater Cambridge. It will also seek to retain the approach within the South Cambridgeshire Local Plan 2018 for locations outside Cambridge. The Local Plan presently identifies Papworth Everard as a ‘Minor Rural Centre’ where residential development and redevelopment up to an indicative scheme size of 30 dwellings will be permitted. The former Papworth Hospital Site provides an opportunity to deliver a healthcare development, which would be over 30 dwellings, in the form of a healthcare use (C2). At this stage, we would suggest that Papworth Everard is identified in the emerging Local Plan as a ‘Rural Centre’, which would support and does not limit the development potential of the site at the former Papworth Hospital.

The former Papworth Hospital site represents a strategic and excellent opportunity to deliver a high-quality healthcare development (Use Class C2) for older persons on a previously developed site in a sustainable location. Therefore, and as has been demonstrated through this representation, the Council should consider allocating the site, as it is presently within the South Cambridgeshire Local Plan 2018, to support extra-care accommodation within the existing community of Papworth Everard.

Land Between New Road and Water Lane Melbourn (HELAA site 40500)

Additional information has been submitted through the call for sites proforma.

The assessment should be amended to reflect matters set out in submissions, and should result in the site scoring an overall green rating. The Councils have made allocations for two peripheral sites to the north of Melbourn and in our view site 40500 should also be allocated as a sustainable addition to assist with the early delivery of housing to meet local needs and teh planned growth target, especially in the shorter term.