This policy supports employment development in use classes E(g) (office, R&D, light industry), B2 (general industry) and B8 (storage and distribution) particularly in the strategic sites, Areas of Major Change and Opportunity Areas. The department benefits from permitted development rights to change the use of a building/site from a wide range of uses falling in Class E to a state-funded school. While we recognise the intense demand for employment space in Greater Cambridge, we recommend the councils take a pragmatic approach to new employment development which recognises the longer-term ability for E(g) uses to change to education, and the benefits education brings to the local labour market.

CMS will create jobs as well as developing a skills pipeline to higher education and industry, focusing specifically on STEM, so this sort of provision should be explicitly supported in the plan. The councils should recognise the long-term benefits of specialist education provision that produces the next generation of business owners and employees in the fields identified in the Employment Land and Economic Development Evidence Study – life sciences, ICT, professional services and advanced manufacturing. We therefore request some flexibility in the policies and site allocations, recognising the direct and indirect employment benefits of education facilities such as CMS.