The First Proposals suggests that Greater Cambridge Local Plan will require developments to:

• Respect, retain or enhance local landscape character (as set out in the Greater Cambridge Landscape Character Assessment).
• Fully consider cumulative effects of development and incremental change on landscape character.
• Retain and enhance landscape features within new developments
• Protect and enhance the setting of Cambridge, including the green corridors extending into the city and along the River Cam corridor, and strengthen or recreate the well-defined and vegetated edge of Cambridge, improve visual amenity and enhance biodiversity.
• Protect and enhance the setting of the villages in South Cambridgeshire and continue to protect identified Important Countryside Frontages.
• Protect important green gaps such as between Longstanton and Northstowe.

Policy GP/LC goes on to state that the Important Countryside Frontages, identified in the South Cambridgeshire Local Plan 2018, are part of village character, and warrant continued protection.

As demonstrated in the accompanying Vision Document, Land West of London Road and the proposed development responds positively to the Important Countryside Frontage designated along London Road. The development of the Site provides an opportunity to create a gateway into the settlement, providing a transition between the wider settlement and the village. The delivery of a village park will reinstate the countryside frontage, framing the edge of the settlement and aligns with the principle of the designation.

The First Proposals document is also supported by a Landscape Character Assessment, prepared by Chris Blandford Associates (2021).

The Assessment identifies Fowlmere as having retained its small scale character and that it can be glimpsed from the wider landscape, benefitting from soft edges comprising mature hedges and hedgerow trees, shelterbelts, small fields and paddocks provide a transition between villages and the wider chalk landscape. The assessment goes on to state that “occasional lines of poplars and telegraph poles are occasional features which interrupt the skyline”.

Whilst we do not disagree with the Important Countryside Frontage designation, it should be noted that Land to the West of London Road, however, is bound by a mature hedgerow belt which dissects the Site from the wider countryside. The Site does not have long distant views to the countryside.