Greater Cambridge Local Plan Issues & Options 2020

Nothing chosen

Planning for a 20 year period time scale allows for recognition and appreciation of some of the longer term strategic issues facing the region. However, being able to create certainty beyond the 15 year time period on issues such like housing is more challenging and difficult. Technology will also change immensely over this period so we cannot be certain that the mobility solution for today will be suitable in 20 years’ time. The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) is clear that strategic policies should be prepared over a minimum 15 year period and a local planning authority should be planning for the full plan period. This is particularly relevant to the Greater Cambridge area where major improvements in infrastructure are likely to happen in that period and there is a need to anticipate and respond to them. Grosvenor and USS broadly agree that this plan period is an appropriate response to the Government’s guidance on meeting housing needs. Even though a plan period to 2040 is supported, the importance of regular reviews at least every five years in accordance with paragraph 33 of the Framework should be adhered to. Such reviews will be important in ensuring that the Plan remains relevant to local circumstances and able to effectively guide the long-term growth and development of the Greater Cambridge area. We note that the above plan period is based on adoption of the Local Plan in 2023, and would suggest that the plan period is reviewed if the timeframe for the preparation of the Local Plan Review were to slip.

Nothing chosen

Issues in Greater Cambridge and Peterborough area identified in the Cambridge and Peterborough Independent Economic Review (CPIER) include: doubling its economic growth in the next 25 years, catering for an ageing population, clean growth and creating an inclusive society where economic growth works for everyone. The need for new housing in Cambridge is high and the adopted Local Plan sets out how the objectively assessed need for 14,000 additional homes between 2011 and 2031 can be achieved. The Councils’ agreed in a Memorandum of Understanding that the housing trajectories for both areas be considered together for the purposes of housing delivery, including calculations of 5 year housing land supply. Other cross boundary initiatives includes the Oxford-Cambridge Arc, which signifies an area of significant economic potential, including a joint declaration of ambition between government and local partners. The emerging Local Plan should promote policies which encourages the growth of this joint declaration and build on its economic potential The NPPF is very clear that Local Plans must be “based on effective joint working on cross-boundary strategic matters that have been dealt with rather than deferred, as evidenced by the statement of common ground” (paragraph 35). Any Plans that fail in this regard would be found to be unsound. For this reason and given the geographical nature of the Greater Cambridge area, it will be essential that the Local Plan Review is prepared in very close collaboration not only between Cambridge and South Cambridge but other adjoining local authorities to assist in meeting the strategic housing requirement of the wider area.

Nothing chosen

The CPIER notes that the wider Cambridge region is committed to doubling its economic output over the next 25 years which is a strategy that Grosvenor and USS would endorse. On this basis, continuing economic growth should be captured and addressed in the next Plan. However, this economic growth should be captured in an appropriate spatial strategy which balances employment growth with housing development. Cambridge already has a significant range of key employment areas, many of them in South Cambridge. Many of those employment areas have expansion plans and therefore it is the sustainable option to direct housing development in close proximity to them. The location of new employment opportunities and housing needs need to be considered in the context of their relationship to sustainable transport links

Grosvenor and USS’s key concern related to the previous assessment of the Cambridge Green Belt which formed part of the evidence base for the current Local Plan. As mentioned elsewhere in the representations, the nature of the site and its environs are changing. The alterations to the landscape will alter the contribution of the site to Green Belt purposes. This should be recognised in any Green Belt review the Council undertakes to support future stages of the Plan. Please see Terence O’Rourke’s Green Belt and Landscape Appraisal prepared in support of these representations, which makes references to the conclusions made in the LDA Inner Green Belt Assessments (2012 and 2015).