Greater Cambridge Local Plan Preferred Options

We broadly agree that a good standard of education should be offered offered to all citizens and that good schools can strengthen and stabilise our local communities giving our children and young
people a steady foundation for their future. However, going to a good school is no guarantee of a child’s ability to improve their life chances if the complications of accessing help at home are to be considered. A representative from Kings Hedges Family Support Group has observed that growing inaccessibility to social care and services means that many families miss out on getting help when their children are young, entrenching these members of our society in patterns of inequality that follow them throughout their lives. According to this spokesperson, having a space to study at home and having parents who provide books to read makes a bigger difference than going to a school attended by children from different socio-economic backgrounds. [1]
This also feeds into the cultural capital of Cambridge’s young people from deprived backgrounds which has been considered by those running the Cambridge Junction. They identified that there is a need for children to have a greater sense of ownership of cultural capital across socio-economic boundaries. If a child comes from a family who cannot afford to travel to a cultural event/activity or to buy refreshments whilst there then this of course prevents them from engaging with that activity and cuts that child/children off from valuable cultural engagements that others of their age group benefit from. There needs to be ways of giving ownership of the arts to those young people who don’t feel it’s for them. In terms of how Cambridge is going to help its disadvantaged citizens gain better accessibility to community, sports and leisure facilities, three barriers have to be overcome. First, those most affected by inequality cannot be easily reached. Regardless of the multitude of Cambridge organisations that exist to assist our residents with the lived consequences of core inequality, Cambridge’s core inequality will only be properly addressed once those who really need help are effectively targeted. Second, there is a lack of effective frameworks and resources in the areas that are most affected by inequality. After all, setting up these structures requires dedicated time and energy that local people just cannot afford even if the funds are there to do it. Third, there is an absence of real understanding of the existing inequality in Cambridge, and a corresponding lack of real motivation to help the communities most affected. [1] In Cambridge a “wide cultural gap exists between those at opposing ends of the inequality spectrum who have very little contact with each other.” [1]
Further, concerning access to Cambridge’s recreational green open spaces, we would like to see more access to green spaces for the residents of Abbey, Arbury and Kings Hedges. We object to the City Council having built on an open space alongside the Meadows Community Centre in Arbury and would like to see the City Council turning the existing open spaces in Arbury into spaces for
recreational use.
[1] https://www.thecambridgecommons.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Cambridge-Commons-SIPFinal-
Report-1.pdf

We recommend that temporary spaces and buildings are used to assist with Cambridge’s glaring problem of unaffordable housing via the method of property guardianship which is endorsed on our government’s website: “It is widely accepted that a property guardian is someone who has entered into an agreement to live in a building or part of a building that would otherwise be empty for the primary purpose of securing and safeguarding the property.” [1] There are a number of well established property guardianship organisations and it is known that one of them, Dot Dot Dot, has experience of finding temporary tenants in empty properties in Eastfield, Chesterton which provided an affordable place to live for a number of individuals in the interim period before these properties were demolished to build more social housing by local housing association, Hundred Houses Society. [2]
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/property-guardians-fact-sheet/property-guardians-afact-
sheet-for-current-and-potential-property-guardians
[2] https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/news/eastfield-regenerating-the-past-9054166/

We broadly support that appropriately scaled developments are required to contribute to local training, skills and employment opportunities, especially apprenticeships, in order that the local community benefits from the development. We also support the idea that these same developments open up supply chain opportunities to local businesses during the stages of development.
Furthermore, we are in agreement with the Cambridge Anti-Poverty Strategy 2020-2023’s identification of a hollowed-out labour market that is particular to Cambridge City. We believe that many Cambridge residents have limited access to the higher tiers of the Cambridge labour market.
There are no obvious routes into the science and tech business and Cambridge University careers from the standpoint of the local Cambridge citizen. The existence of the science and tech scene in Cambridge and the presence of Cambridge University attracts brilliant minds to our city and along with that great wealth but the wealth is not filtering down. [1] There needs to be more opportunities for our young people to grow and develop their skills, knowledge and passions with interesting
careers, not just those advertised on the Cambridge Network or on the Cambridge University Jobs website. There is a lack of an obvious go-to resource for local citizens to find interesting opportunities, aside from that provided by the Job Centre or by sponsored jobs search engines. We recommend that a provision with the same verve and vigour as the Cambridge Network is set up to
provide the aforementioned local skills, training and apprenticeship opportunities and that these opportunities are targeted towards those in our local community who most need it.
[1] https://www.thecambridgecommons.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Cambridge-Commons-SIPFinal-
Report-1.pdf

The Cambridge Green Party advocates the following measures to provide a healthy environment for
its residents:
- An emissions-free zone in the centre of Cambridge
- Campaign for major investment into active transport with the goal of creating a fully interconnected, properly segregated cycle network
- Work with residents to create low traffic neighbourhoods [1]
- Campaign for improvements to the bus system to make it the cheapest and most enjoyable way to travel around Cambridge
- Campaign for strict rules against engine idling as long as diesel and petrol vehicles are still used in the city centre
- Accelerate and manage the shift to electric vehicles by installing many more free or low-cost charging points, accessible to existing residents and standard in all new builds, and introducing appropriate safety regulations including clear guidelines on which vehicles can use which routes
In addition, in line with our response to the Infrastructure section, we broadly welcome initiatives to reduce movements within settlements, and to enhance the use of either active or electric transport which in turn reduce pollution and enhance the health of our residents.
We specifically support attributes that can be incorporated into the design of the settlements
themselves such as:
1. Cycle greenways
2. A parking permit cost that is a deterrent, with exemptions for special needs. Significant costs for second car permits
3. Ensure ‘advance green phases’ for bicycles at lights
4. European style provision for cycles and pedestrians and disabled people
[1] https://www.sustrans.org.uk/our-blog/get-active/2020/in-your-community/what-is-a-low-trafficneighbourhood

Great places have a compelling blend of community, nature, and beauty. Cambridge is destroying all of
these, and rapidly creating naff spaces.
The Great Places paper refers to Heritage Assets, but completely fails to recognise that the city of Cambridge is a city heritage asset of worldwide significance which meets UNESCO’s Outstanding Universal Value criteria for World Heritage status.
This significance derives from the combination of its built and natural heritage. The draft Plan fails to recognise the vital role which this special character plays in making Cambridge a great place to live in, work, study, and visit.
The draft Plan’s approach involves a false separation between Landscape and Townscape (Objective 6)
and Historic Environment (Objective 7), which for Cambridge has resulted in inadequate consideration
and valuation of the historic city in its historic landscape setting, with historic landscape and open spaces
considered as green infrastructure but not as historic environment.
Cambridge’s special character has been, and continues to be, under severe threats from the quantum of already approved growth (built developments and pressures on both streets and green spaces). There are severe environmental capacity issues in trying to accommodate the demands of a 21st century city within what remains the built fabric and spaces of a medieval market town.
These fundamental conflicts between growth on the one hand and environmental capacity and special character on the other should have been recognised as a key challenge for the draft Local Plan.
But the draft Plan documents include no assessment of current pressures, let alone the impacts of the draft First Proposals.
Instead, para 3.2.4 of the Strategic Heritage Impact Assessment: baseline makes a totally unjustified statement that:
“3.2.4 Future growth in Cambridge has the potential to strengthen and reinforce these characteristics,
enabling the City to meet contemporary environmental, economic and social drivers without undermining
its economic identity”.
Overall, the Evidence base for Great Places is inadequate, and the proposals are premature pending a
thorough review of the success or failure of existing policies.
Community requires a degree of stable population, and works better when people are investing in a place they want to stay in. However, people often come to Cambridge for 5 years in a tech job or a research post and move on again. This benefits the diversity of our city but means that civic engagement is patchy and social networks are largely based on livelihood or interests, rather than place. New neighbourhoods need additional community spaces to encourage cohesion and local friendships.
Independent shops are a good place for community to build, we must do away with the assumption that new developments will orbit around a supermarket.
Nature is being annihilated globally, it is not a problem specific to Cambridge. It is necessary to have some spaces where humans can enjoy interacting with nature, and some spaces where nature can enjoy NOT interacting with humans. For a city, Cambridge is quite wealthy in green spaces, but lockdown and shortage of community facilities have given many green spaces the air of a festival in daytime and a fix room at nighttime. New developments must do better than a tree in a square metre of soil, or a rooftop garden, people need space to walk in nature, to watch it, to rest in it.
Beauty is part of our heritage in Cambridge, not only through the natural world but an incredible architectural inheritance. The narrative on many central streets is one of design and construction skills being lost - vulgar unworthy buildings which spoil the setting of the wonderful ones. Soulless concrete and glass, towers of it, and chain brands that welcome you to Clone Town, Anywhere. And public art that aspires to be vapid enough to fit right in.
We want to see this three-fold destruction paused, until the planning system is fit to support appropriate means to heal the damage.

We are concerned that by merging the local plan with South Cambs the detail relating to the special
character of the city may be diluted:
Developments within Cambridge should enhance the character of the city.
The local plan should be clearer about which local characteristics we want to maintain, and which we
want to see no more of.
For example, we’d be happy to see more roads like Willow Walk, we’d be happy never to see another
Station Road.
We would like to see discussion of giving protection to views and approaches. For example, Sheffield
Local Plan seems to have more protection for views because the hills offer a few really distinctive views.
Oxford and Edinburgh seem to have more comprehensive protected views, where we only seem to have
a mention of views into and out of the conservation area which hasn't helped to protect Station Road,
Hills Road or Histon Road from ugly development.
Construction seems to cut a lot of corners, many homes have poor insulation and soundproofing.
We would like to see an analysis of why the last Local Plan has allowed so many dire buildings, to inform
improvements this time around.

The proposed policy sounds good, but doesn’t take into account how overdevelopment is changing the
landscape. Parks can get saturated with walkers, litter, barbeques, dogs, vehicle noise… overuse is a
tangible change to landscape character.

The proposed local plan is ripping chunks out of the Green Belt, so it’s impossible to take this policy seriously.
The detailed Green Belt assessments are inadequate because they don’t include the historic environment, such as Conservation area designations. N.B. the Green Belt was set up to protect the setting of the historic University city.

“Major schemes should share a native 3-D file for assessment” - we do not understand what is meant by
a native 3-D file and suggest this needs to be clarified in non-technical terms. We think the ideal approach would be for the planning portal to provide a facility for computer models to be viewed on the web by consultees prior to approval. Currently the planning portal is one of the biggest obstacles to community engagement.
“Create attractive and appropriately-scaled built frontages to positively enhance streets and/or public spaces in both urban and rural settings.” - we suggest this needs to go further. Frontage is important but often neighbours will have a view from the back of a new development. The design has to be great quality from all viewpoints, and from walkways within.
Quality seems to be something that has been compromised on in many new developments, with
developers offering S106 money or a park to make up for the fact it looks horrible or is otherwise poor quality. There needs to be a higher minimum standard, which doesn’t leave room for horse-trading.

We support the point about prioritising pedestrian movement. We recognise a difficult challenge in managing the needs of different users, for example allowing sufficient safe space for pedestrians and wheelchair users while allowing somewhere for delivery vehicles, electric scooters and bikes, and taxis to pull up. Some more thought needs to be given to making footways porous for pedestrians, but
protecting them from motorised vehicles. One example might be the provision of inset bays for drop-off of people and goods (with appropriate deterrents against use for general parking in line with Policy I/EV).
How is the local plan going to treat anti-terror architecture, for example the anti-cyclist barrier on Kings
Parade? If this is temporary, as the council claims, the replacement should be planned out and subject to consultation.
We want to see widespread implementation of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. In particular, the Local Plan should be setting out a plan for low-traffic movement around the city centre, progressing the Making Space for People SPD, and 15 minute neighbourhoods.
The Oxford adopted local plan has a section (V4) on the strategic importance of district and local shopping centres for reducing travel time, and the character and uses of these. Some of the transport problems in Cambridge seem to be to do with people driving to shops which only have one outlet in the city centre and it seems to be worth trying to decentralise this.