Savills Planning Team in Cambridge are instructed on behalf of St John's College, Cambridge to submit responses to the Issues and Options Report on the CNFE having regard to the College's landholdings and land interests at St John's Innovation Park west of Cowley Road and east of Milton Road.

It is the case that vehicular access into and out of the CNFE Plan area remains a significant problem and it is through land ownerships and incremental changes and piecemeal highway works that have created a situation whereby the existing access to the area is limited with a single main route in the form of Cowley Road in and out of Milton Road. Conseqently the Councils have accepted that this creates a significant bottle neck constraint to further development given the amount of heavy peak time congestion and the environmental and economic consequences of such characteristics. Clearly in the circumstances where significant new development proposals are coming forward for the area, then it is entirely appropriate that a wholesale comprehensive highway solution needs to be considered. Such an access needs to secure links into the whole of the area and certainly create an environment where the present problems do not exist.

In such a context, it would appear that the most obvious area to concentrate major highway improvements is the interface where Cowley Road meets Milton Road close to the entrance of the Cambridge Business Park. In the situation where Cowley Road remains the main route to and from any new railway station then it is clear that it is at this point that a significant new junction needs to be put in place to cope with new traffic levels. To perpetuate a situation where the whole area is being accessed through a single stretch of road wedged between the Innovation Park area and the Taylor Vinters buildings is simply going to exacerbate existing problems and dissuade landowners from looking at alternative uses and dissuading investors in bringing forward development proposals. A new major interchange is required for vehicular traffic with the existing network of footpath and cycleways creating links to the surrounding area.