Water supply for the plan consultation on idea of 48,000 new households during building and completion after estimated 20 years:
a)Water to supply such a project is unsustainable. We are already in a place of deficit - the flow of the river Cam is substantially reduced due to increase in the area’s population.
. Anglia Water is driven to plan new sewage works on green belt land which was promised to not be touched - ie Green Belt.
. Any plans to “create green spaces and nature reserves in the area” would need water for plant/tree life, currently this is hard to sustain and we know drought in summer will only increase.
. Any idea that we take water from other areas of the UK is magical thinking - they will also be suffering water shortages.
. Building reservoirs in the Fens is way out as with climate crisis it is envisaged they will be flooded with salt water.

b)Ecological issues regarding development around the Biomedical Site/Addenbrookes/SCBC/A Nine wells etc - will have a negative impact on bio-diversity that will be difficult to mitigate. More loss on insect, plant & wild life bring a further loss to falling farm bird populations. It’ll be hard to irrigate the plantations.
. We need every bit of land to grow our food in order to be secure when markets for our food importation might change. We import more than 50 per cent of our needs. The area around nine-wells Trumpington etc was historically excellent for agriculture. I have knowledge of south Cambridgeshire villages and the land is a major farming area for grain.

c) We already have a need for housing for key workers and we are not organised enough to achieve this. Developers and planning is not on top of this problem. Hopefully residential development opportunity at Marshals Airport will help but that brings up the transport problem.

d) Travel south up Babraham Rd and up on the Gogs, look back on Cambridge and often one sees a grey fog - Cambridge is in a dip which one reason for pollution being so high here. We are top in the nation for traffic jams, these are pollution machines, even electric cars produce toxic emissions. We need some of the measures proposed to dissuade car use in the area. Yes, I would agree to road charges that bring a noticeable reduction in car use. There could be a badge scheme for vans that have to carry tools and equipment.

To sum up: Such growth for the sake of the economy is not what we should be looking at in this way at this time. The climate crisis, covid and other pandemics that will follow is changing our work and travel pattern. It is changing our needs regarding water and land use and "levelling up”. Also consider AI as a big factor , many of the implications are unknown.

The area is too complicatedly organised by local government divisions with no satisfactory overview. We need to work on the many existing problems (some mentioned above) first before we totally fall for the Government’s hopeful plans for the south East and the Arc that are not regarding the complications realistically.