The First Proposals plan sets a challenging target for affordable housing to reflect the acute and substantial need for affordable housing across Greater Cambridge. This places a great responsibility on all major developments to provide an element of affordable housing.

Policy H/AH will have a significant bearing on the viability of individual residential developments, so it is vital that the affordable housing requirement is achievable in practice. Although the First Proposals plan indicates that viability evidence will be reviewed as appropriate as part of the plan-making process, this is not sufficient. Planning Practice Guidance indicates that plans should set out circumstances where review mechanisms may be appropriate, as well as a clear process and terms of engagement regarding how and when viability will be reassessed over the lifetime of a development to ensure policy compliance and optimal public benefits through economic cycles. Draft Policy H/AH does not do this. For example, changes in affordable housing tenure models or continued increases in build costs may render the viability evidence which underpins the affordable housing requirement out-of-date relatively quickly.

In relation to the development of land south of Horseheath Road in Linton, a Housing Needs Survey carried out in June 2019 indicated a need for 81 affordable dwellings in the village. According to a recent appeal decision there was still an unfulfilled need for 64 affordable dwellings as of 16 February 2021. There are no allocations for residential development in the adopted Local Plan and no proposed allocations in the village as part of the emerging GCLP. It is understood that two permitted developments will deliver 39 affordable homes, leaving a presumed requirement for 25-42 affordable dwellings – a requirement which will likely increase across the life of the Greater Cambridge Local Plan. Dependence on the allocation of strategic sites with already high infrastructure burdens is unlikely to offer sustainable, long-term solutions to the chronic and worsening affordability issues being experienced across the Greater Cambridge area. Strategic sites alone do not deliver policy-compliant levels of affordable housing, so, if this is the target, more smaller sites that are far more likely to deliver a policy-compliant level of affordable homes at a faster rate need to be allocated.

Draft Policy H/AH of the First Proposals plan requires 40% affordable housing on sites of 10 or more dwellings. With a total of 100 dwellings proposed on site 40554, 40 dwellings – of which at least 10 will be allocated as ‘First Homes’ under the national First Homes initiative - would be sought for affordable housing under this policy. As well as helping to address the current shortage of affordable housing over the Greater Cambridge area, the delivery of up to 40 affordable dwellings would satisfy the full affordable housing need in Linton – a significant benefit for local residents.