Comment

North East Cambridge Area Action Plan Issues and Options 2019

Representation ID: 33302

Received: 23/03/2019

Respondent: Ms Maureen Mace

Representation Summary:

The area will need a good community centre (Eddington is a good example) and plenty of open space or people feel trapped and unhealthy.

Full text:

I have tried to find how to make a comment about the Northern Fringe consultation to no avail, in the end I have given up and am sending this email.
I found that there is very little information about what is planned and how it is going to look and the people at Brown's Field certainly couldn't tell me anything for certain which makes an awful consultation process. However, I would like to make the following points.

* Do we really need a large town stuck between the A14, Milton Road and Cambridge North? I hear affordable, flats, high storey, working in the same place as living. It just sounds like developer talk and how to get the maximum amount of people into a space for the least money.
* Who will live there? Will the places be affordable to shop staff and cleaners or will they only be affordable to software engineers at the Science Park?
* I was told buildings would be 5 stories high. Isn't this one of the problems with the area around Cambridge Main station. Too many people shoved together leads to too much noise, short term lets, no feeling of place?
* it is very close to the A14 so bound to have lots of pollution, would you like your child to grow up there breathing toxic air?
* ...and noise?
* If people didn't use cars, there would be far more deliveries and hence an increase in larger delivery vans with nowhere unable to park and left on the street when they make deliveries.
* The main exit for all these people would be Milton Road, think what a huge impact that would have, instant congestion.
* there is a distinct lack of buses in Cambridge especially on Milton Road so if destinations were not on the railway network how do they get there?
* Will the Metro be there?
* Cycle paths along Milton Road are being upgraded but will they be suitable for thousands more people? How would you ensure there was coherent cycling in all directions that is safe, wide and well lit?
* The area will need a good community centre (Eddington is a good example) and plenty of open space or people feel trapped and unhealthy.
* For a community to work there has to be a base resident population. For a family of three, one member of the family could work at the Science Park, another could work in Comberton or Chatteris and where would the nearest secondary school be? and how would that person get to Chatteris?
* I suggest you plan the roads well with wide cycle lanes, plenty of walking space with cars and lorries only allowed along the periphery, exceptions being for the disabled BEFORE any bricks are lain and discuss it with the developers. That mistake has been made the main station and already at Cambridge North when the planners built the lovely cycle paths and the developers designed a building that went straight through them.
* The people at the talk were really pleased to say it would be low carbon and there wouldn't be room for parking. Sounds great but you haven't achieved that anywhere else so what makes this place different? I do support the view of fewer cars but I am not sure others do.
Interestingly when I went to Brown's Field to see the stands - I wouldn't call it plans as there were none - I had been asked pick up some leaflets because very few people in the area around the proposed site knew anything about it. The box was very heavy. The officer said to me 'bring your car round and I will put them in the boot'. This off the cuff statement said it all and showed he had no idea of how others got around except by car. I didn't bring a car, I rarely go anywhere by car preferring to walk or bike if possible. But here was an officer who was intent on a car free area but obviously never went anywhere without his car. Sounded like one rule for him and another for everyone else, says it all. Please lead by example.