“We want our rural villages to continue to thrive and sustain their local services, but we don’t want to encourage lots of new homes in places where car travel is the easiest or only way to get around. We therefore propose some development in and around larger villages that have good transport links and services, and to support important employment clusters. In smaller villages, we’ll continue to support infill development and affordable housing on suitable sites, but we do not propose lots of village growth.”


"Housing Delivery Study – FINAL VERSION Prepared for: Greater Cambridge Shared Planning AECOM

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11.19 It is still the case that generally the spatial options that mix short-medium term sources of supply (smaller sites in urban areas and villages) with longer-term sources (new settlements, urban extensions and Green Belt release) are better-able to deliver across the plan period as a whole with a smoother trajectory. These sites also have different characteristics and are likely to result in variety in terms of location, size, type and tenure of housing, and also be more geographically spread to reduce competition, thus better-matching the housing supply with demand.”

“11.20 The housing delivery assumptions in this report still show that in order to optimise housing delivery, demonstrate a five-year housing land supply and maintain delivery across the plan period, it will be necessary to gap-fill the ‘troughs’ in the housing trajectory with additional sources of supply. This should be underpinned by cautious but realistic lead-in times and build-out rates, and an ‘over-allocation’ of land against the eventual housing requirement (we recommend at least a 10% buffer) in order to ensure that any unforeseen delays to delivering individual site allocations during the plan period, or changes to market conditions, do not result in under-delivery that would threaten the five year housing land supply or performance against the Housing Delivery Test.”

• The ’additional sources of supply’ which the Housing Delivery Study says will be necessary for gap-filling are not included in the ‘First Proposals’.
• The Councils have included an ‘over-allocation buffer’ of 10% but, as the Study implies, this simply underpins the gap-filling (by building in flexibility and resilience to the supply), but does not constitute gap-filling itself.
• What is needed for effective gap-filling is the short-medium term sources of supply that paragraph 11.19 refers to (smaller sites in urban areas and villages), like Land at Crow's Nest Farm, Papworth Everard (Greater Cambridge HELAA (2021) Site Reference: 48096).
• As paragraph 11.19 points out, spatial options that combine such sites with longer-term sources are better able to deliver across the plan period as a whole with a smoother trajectory.
• It is also the case that these short-medium term sources will provide greater variety in terms of location, size, type and tenure of housing and will, as stated in paragraph 11.19, “[better-match] the housing supply with demand”. These are essential matters in themselves but are of even greater import when coupled with their ability to gap-fill the housing supply ‘troughs’.
• Land at Crow's Nest Farm, Papworth Everard (Greater Cambridge HELAA (2021) Site Reference: 48096) and other small-medium sites that are well located in relation to public transport corridors and nodes should therefore be allocated in order to:
1. Provide a reliable, smooth supply of housing land over the whole plan period; and
2. Provide as much choice as possible in terms of the location, size, type and tenure of housing that the plan can offer.