S/OA/NR Newmarket Road Retail Park
S/OA/BC Beehive Centre
Cambridge Past, Present & Future strongly supports the inclusion of these two new opportunity areas. Combined, they include some 25 acres of surface parking. If a multi-storey car park was built on a small portion of this land, some 20 acres could be released for development. Cambridge Past, Present & Future submitted an outline proposal for the re-development of the car parking area on both sides of Coldhams Lane during the public consultation for the 2018 Local Plan. This showed how the site could accommodate 1200 dwellings with only a marginal loss of car parking space through the provision of a multi-storey facility and by allowing parking beneath the residential blocks which were raised on columns.

When progressing the development opportunities for these sites, access to green space must be included in any schemes.

We also request that you include an adjacent area as part of these two New Opportunity Areas and this is marked in orange on the diagram attached.
There are two reasons for requesting for this inclusion:
1. It is a similar land use to the other two areas and in the same location and therefore the same principles apply.

2. We have seen a number of planning applications coming forward in this area. These are being dealt with on a piecemeal basis with all the associated problems of piecemeal development. This is not an area of high quality design and is negatively impacted by Newmarket Road. A strategic planning approach is required to ensure that any planning applications contribute towards improving public realm and the overall improvement of the area.