Greater Cambridge Local Plan Preferred Options

We support the proposal to encourage the reuse of vacant buildings, where this is an effective way of minimising whole life carbon emissions.

We support the proposal for homes to be concentrated at higher densities (rather than spread out through the countryside) However there needs to be plenty of public realm green space, so these don’t become unattractive slums

We support the proposals for provision of at least one EV charging point per home..

we would like to see a REDUCTION in the required total number of parking spaces per property. The S Cambs local plan currently requires 2 one of which is on the curtilage. This wastes land and encourages private cars

if developers were allowed to provide just 0.5 spaces fewer, the development would take 5% less land. This would improve financial viability, and hence provision of affordable housing. It would also allow more space for biodiversity

To enable this car clubs and safe cycling routes

We support the proposed policy

We support the proposed policy, but would like to see it strengthened, so that developers were required to contribute to the costs of improving the power grid in order to enable widespread connections of distributed renewable power generation

We support the proposal to increase the quality and availability of broadband and mobile coverage. This is important for enabling a thriving low carbon economy, because it reduces the need to travel, and improves the quality of life while reducing carbon emissions, congestion and road building (with its associated embodied carbon and habitat destruction)

44,000 homes is too many because the region is already environmentally stressed and economically overheated..
The constraints on water supply and disposal and the infrastructure such as electricity and transport are serious and must be recognised. Higher rates of growth could be counter-productive if traffic congestion gets worse and further environmental degradation occurs through drying up of rivers and unacceptable sewage releases

For this reason we would only support the absolute minimum number of new homes, ie around 37400, of which most are already in the planning pipeline.

Development should be focussed on upgrading and retrofitting existing buildings, unless it could be shown that this would result in higher lifetime carbon emissions than demolition and new build.

We support proposals for change of use of existing buildings, where this can be done without compromising the standards of the result (eg for habitable space, light and energy efficiency of residential units) or for the community.

We support proposals for change of use of existing buildings, where this can be done without compromising the standards of the result (eg for habitable space, light and energy efficiency of residential units) or for the community.