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 - 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continued increases in build costs may render the viability evidence which underpins the affordable housing requirement out-of-date relatively quickly.
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 manifesting 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.