Question 38. What do you think the priorities are for new infrastructure?

An integrated public transport network of a scale that substantially displaces single occupancy vehicles is the main priority, alongside expanded renewable electricity infrastructure to allow heat and transport to become zero carbon.

Sites and developers should be chosen on their ability to satisfy sustainable transport goals and shift the overwhelming majority of everyday journeys out of cars and into walking, cycling and public transport. If a realistic Transport Assessment cannot achieve that goal then the site is not suitable for development.

Safe, attractive active travel infrastructure which makes walking and cycling the most convenient and attractive mode of transport

Wide cycle paths. Desalination plant on the coast to pipe in water.

It is somewhat beyond the scope of a local plan, but Greater Cambridge needs a considerably enhanced approach to public transport and a strategic network of pedestrian/cyclist routes linking villages with nearby employment locations and railway stations and Cambridge itself. Furthermore, villages within walking and cycling distance from large employment – e.g. Ickleton to the Wellcome Genome Campus (1km from village) as well as numerous employment opportunities at Duxford (1.8km to the north) should be prioritised for residential development.

Reference is made in Section 4.7.3 to the adopted Minerals and Waste Plan, but not the emerging Local Plan which can be found on www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/MWLP. This should be included, as it will be adopted prior to the completion of the Greater Cambridge Local Plan. See attached

As noted in our response to Question 37, the Trumpington Residents’ Association supports the development of new public transport infrastructure such as Cambridge South station, the Cambridge South East Transport Scheme and the aims of the City Access Better Public Transport Programme, all of which should help reduce car use, congestion and pollution. We also agree with the need for the Travel Hub at M11/A10 junction. We stress the importance of good public transport services.

• New water infrastructure is the most pressing necessity for Greater Cambridge, even for the growth proposed in the 2018 Local Plan. There is obviously insufficient water in the chalk aquifer to meet the needs of a growing population (even with the best water-saving devices and encouragements to save water), to allow for abstraction for farmland, and to provide sufficient water to sustain the ecology of our streams and rivers. • In Fulbourn, our springs and the adjacent ditches in the Fulbourn Fen Nature Reserve are now dry at the 15m contour, even after a relatively wet winter period. The spring at Poor Well, the lowest point in the village at the 10m contour, has been running in the winter but can become sluggish in a dry, hot summer. The water that is seen running in the Nature Reserve (a significant site for wild orchids, particularly marsh orchids) is entirely the result of remote borehole augmentation and the water quickly disappears when the pumps are turned off. This is not ecologically sustainable and will have a major impact on the flora and fauna in the long term – a higher water table needs to be restored, urgently. As the name suggests, Fulbourn Fen Nature Reserve was once part of the Fens, but the unsustainable water abstraction from the local aquifer has caused the site to dry.

Savills (UK) Ltd are instructed by St John’s College, Cambridge to make the necessary submissions to the Council’s consultation “The First Conversation” as part of the Issues and Options consultation process for a new Greater Cambridge Local Plan. The College is a significant landowner in and around Cambridge and accordingly needs to make the necessary representations to the Councils in respect of its assets and on other relevant planning policy issues that will arise in the context of any new development plan for the two administrative areas of South Cambridgeshire and Cambridge City. As an employer of a range of workers in lower paid sectors, we would support policies within the new Local Plan that encourage the development of affordable housing and improved public transport from surrounding towns and villages to the city centre. This would support the reality that the cost of living in Cambridge is such that workers in many sectors cannot afford to live there. The College, therefore, remains concerned that any planning policies within any new Local Plan recognise that ensuring accessibility to and from the College within the Greater Cambridge area is convenient, safe and efficient is essential. Furthermore, sustainable travel needs to be available, affordable and convenient. In particular, it needs to meet the requirements of those working shift patterns and unsociable hours in 24/7 operations such as the city centre Colleges. As set out in the College's response to Question 11 , upgrading the fundamental services infrastructure (electricity, water, broadband) to meet the increasing requirements within Cambridge is an essential element of being able to develop a sustainable future. The current capacity is unlikely to be sufficient to support a full transition to renewable sources of energy, electric cars and domestic water consumption. Upgrading the flood plain management strategies may also be required.

Water supply and how to protect chalk streams in parts of the GCP area that are arid in summer hardly merit a mention here and should be a priority. The Cambridge aquifer cannot be treated as an infinite resource or an asset that is immune from whatever is built over it.

Again: is there a roel for heat networks in Cambridge? If not, how will residents of conservation areas and histric building heat their homes?

Water and waste

The priority is the environment obviously, unless we all want to drown/burn/choke/starve. Infrastructure decisions need to put the environment first.

In addition to standard requirements for social and environmental infrastructure required to support new housing development (schools, health, transport mitigation, open space and recreation, drainage, etc), major new infrastructure will be required to unlock Greater Cambridge’s economic development potential and to achieve zero carbon energy, most significantly: - electrical infrastructure (generation and transmission) - transport infrastructure to deliver Greater Cambridge Partnership’s Future Network vision and the Combined Authority’s CAM Metro framework. Both are essential.

The priority to provide physical infrastructure within new developments needs to be balanced with social infrastructure to promote wellbeing and social inclusion. For instance, if digital infrastructure promotion succeeds in encouraging substantial proportions of people in working from home then provision of improved, diverse social infrastructure will be increasingly important at the local scale to provide opportunities to reduce the potential for social isolation and consequent mental health risks. Renewable energy solutions for increased grid capacity should be facilitated within Greater Cambridge to promote local energy generation and address climate change.

[Duplicated entries: this is the decider] (1) The main priority is the integration of transport and land use planning. The draft Cambridge and Peterborough Local Transport Plan 2019 (LTP) mentions the EWR Central Section only in passing, highlighting the fragmentary nature of the Plan led system. A key decision affecting future travel patterns and spatial distribution of development is absent from the area’s transport plan. The risk is that the Central Section will fail to integrate with other parts of the transport network and will fail to capitalise on the opportunities it presents to address the Greater Cambridge area’s transport problems. (2) EWR Central Section and Cambridge Autonomous Metro (CAM) need to be planned together to relieve peak daily congestion in the city. The LTP identifies the CAM as the answer to the city’s local transport problems, by connecting the city with its commuter hinterland. This narrow focus on the CAM as the one and only solution underplays the growing need for a range of public transport options for the city and its hinterland. This is particularly the case if, as opined in the Regulation 18 consultation, the area will be required to plan for housing numbers over and above the ‘standard method’ calculation. (3) The LTP overlooks the potential role of the EWR to relieve local congestion and integrate light and heavy rail to address the city’s transport problems. The LTP encourages full integration to allow for “a true transport ‘network’ to develop” (LTP, 2.25) whilst ignoring the need to integrate EWR with the CAM and guided busways. (4) By including stations at Cambourne and Northstowe, and by approaching Cambridge from the north, the route alignment proposed by CBRR maximises the railway’s role in relieving congestion, providing an attractive commuting alternative into Cambridge to rival the private car. In so doing, the CBRR proposal does not hinder the EWR’s objective of providing a fast rail link to Oxford. What it does is to maximise the potential of the new rail line, ensuring it serves both local and long distance travellers. (5) If the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) genuinely want to “develop ‘hubs’ rather than ‘stops’ and provide better connectivity between modes (LTP 2.26) then it can do this by backing a Central Section route that includes local stops in commuter settlements Cambourne and Northstowe and creates a multi-modal road-rail corridor with potential for ‘parkway’ rail stations. The CBRR route is the only option that can create a truly integrated ‘central section’ that meets LTP objectives. (6) The CAM system, and one approach being considered by EWR for their Option E, requires significant tunnelling to create direct public transport access between Cambourne and the centre of Cambridge. By contrast, the CBRR heavy rail line with it northern approach into Cambridge through Cambridge North Station requires no tunnelling and provides a direct link between Cambourne, Northstowe and Cambridge Central Station using above ground track only, making it significantly quicker to plan and significantly cheaper and easier to implement. (7) In any event, the CBRR proposal does not preclude GCP’s aspirations for a CAM stop at Cambourne (LTP, 3.76). They are not mutually exclusive, but CBRR’s route would duplicate any CAM proposal between St Neots and Cambridge via Cambourne. If both were built, an interchange between the light and heavy rail systems at Cambourne would create increase the choice, capacity and resilience to serve both Cambourne and Bourn airfield developments, along with further extensions to these two communities that would help towards the future housing requirements in the new Greater Cambridge Local Plan.

Quality of life developments across the Greater Cambridge area to reduce the need to access the City Centre for everything, to meet the needs of young people and pensioners for near to home access. Essential to provide facilities at start of developments, and catch up quickly in Cambourne, Northstowe etc. Build CBG_Connect light rail network. Major new Concert Hall near Cambridge North station. Medium scale arts centre in the centre (old cinema near Waterstones?)

Safe cycleways connecting major villages such as Cottenham to major pieces of public transportation infrastructure (guided bus, railway stations). That alone would make a massive contribution to relieving the need for cars. Investment in rural travel hubs that enable interchange between cyclists, pedestrians and even drivers with public transportation (e.g., Oakington) including some that are located far enough away from the city to make a difference to car journeys through villages e.g., north of Cottenham and Willingham.

Priorities for new infrastructure should promote a reduced reliance on cars and promotion of active and sustainable travel. There are a number of initiatives in the pipeline for new infrastructure, which are steering towards the right direction, including: • Cambridge South West Travel Hub • Cambridge South Railway Station • East-West Rail • Cambridge Autonomous Metro (CAM) • Smarter travel initiatives • Cambridge South East Transport corridor Active travel corridors within and beyond developments should take priority over vehicles, prioritising walking and cycling. In addition, infrastructure such as a micro consolidation centre to help promote virtual mobility, a community concierge in a high profile location or a mobility hub are all alternative methods of promoting sustainable travel within new transport related infrastructure. These form part of the proposals for sustainable travel at Trumpington South, including the Cambridge South West Travel Hub which Grosvenor is supporting the delivery of.

• Safe, convenient and high-quality cycle routes everywhere, providing everyone with the opportunity to safely cycle for everyday transport purposes if they want, or to combine cycling with public transport.

Good public transport connections from the villages to the major settlements to help reduce non-sustainable modes of transport.

1 Electricity supply 2 Public transport

Priority 1 for walking and wheelchair use - should be segregated from bicycles. Priority 2 for cycling - should be segregated from pedestrians and motor vehicles including buses Priority 3 for public transport (not including taxis) Priority 4 for motor vehicles (including taxis)

Safe, convenient and high-quality cycle routes everywhere, providing everyone with the opportunity to safely cycle for everyday transport purposes if they want, or to combine cycling with public transport. Sustainable energy and heating. Zero carbon

Where to build The HCT would like to emphasise again the protective role of the Green Belt in preserving the character of Nine Wells and Hobson’s Brook. The Trust’s view on ‘Where to build’ is that the Local Plan should take account of this need in its allocation of zones for housing development. Particular issues that the HCT would like to raise are as follows: 1. Physical damage to Nine Wells and Hobson’s Brook themselves 2. Physical damage to their immediate setting, including ecological damage 3. Alteration of drainage that would detrimentally affect the flow and quality of water in Nine Wells and Hobson’s Brook 4. Scenic degradation 5. Public access alteration or removal

Sustainable travel. Carbon neutral design, designed for people, not cars. Designed for bike traffic, not lorries.

• Safe, convenient and high-quality cycle routes everywhere, providing everyone with the opportunity to safely cycle for everyday transport purposes if they want, or to combine cycling with public transport.

The most effective infrastructure would be an outer ring road, exclusively for Electric Vehicles, around Cambridge linking the stations, Rural Centre villages and major places of employment.

Impossible to prioritise. All these elements are necessary for a development to work.

Question 38. What do you think the priorities are for new infrastructure? • Safe, convenient and high-quality cycle routes everywhere, providing everyone with the opportunity to safely cycle for everyday transport purposes if they want, or to combine cycling with public transport. Put in place measures to protect the chalk streams and find ways of both reducing our water usage (eg new housing developments to use “grey water” for flushing toilets etc) and requiring water companies to dramatically reduce leakage and invest in new reservoirs, natural water catchment and flood prevention. See https://camvalleyforum.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/The-River-Cam-Manifesto-final2.pdf for more details.