Partly Supportive but OBJECT to parts of this policy as being incomplete. The Local Plan (LP) states that it will include settlement boundaries around settlements, identifying areas that are considered to be part of the settlement for planning purposes.
However, it fails to include, or refer to the area between Fen Ditton and Horningsea known as Honey Hill despite the fact that building a commercial development there extends the building capacity of North East Cambridge as described in the proposed North East Cambridge Area Action Plan.
Object also that the LP also states that where planned developments, such as new settlements, have reached sufficient certainty regarding their exact boundaries, new settlement boundaries will be drawn. This does not allow for a finite point at which that certainty is assessed and allows for “mission creep”. More careful wording is needed for this policy to prevent description of boundaries becoming vague. While the LP proposes that no development would be permitted outside settlement boundaries with exception, these exceptions include development supported by other policies in the plan. This would allow incursion in the Green Belt if it became expedient to enlarge a development that already covered by other policies, such as Policy S/NEC: North East Cambridge.