Draft Cambridge Biomedical Campus Supplementary Planning Document

Comment

Representation ID: 200410

Received: 24/01/2025

Respondent: Hobson's Conduit Trust

Paragraph 3.14: We note the wording:
‘The SPD ensures that new development reduces its environmental impact by minimising carbon emissions, flood risk, pollution and pressure on resources such as water, as well as helping to protect and enhance biodiversity.'

Comment

Representation ID: 200411

Received: 24/01/2025

Respondent: Hobson's Conduit Trust

Paragraph 4.10 - We do not consider the wording to be sufficient. Nine Wells LNR needs to be expanded to include areas currently in agricultural use around it in order to absorb greater footfall, as well as to safeguard the fragile environment around the springheads. We have set this out in our Nine Wells Vision document, currently being updated, a copy of which follows this letter. However, although s106 funds were previously assembled for this purpose, the expansion of Nine Wells LNR did not proceed. It is of great importance given the nature of the work that takes place at the hospitals and on the Biomedical Campus, that staff have access to green space nearby where they can find tranquility and decompress. Nine Wells offers this, complementing Hobson’s Park. In this context, please also see, for example, ‘The Nature of Cambridge,’ ISBN 978-1-87435707-5 pages 262 et seq., and https://johnmeed.net/ecology/nine-wells/

Comment

Representation ID: 200412

Received: 24/01/2025

Respondent: Hobson's Conduit Trust

We note that Chapter Five ‘sets out a list of questions that developers should consider when preparing a planning application in order to positively plan for wider impacts and mitigation measures beyond the boundary of the individual site.’ We believe that there are various points in Chapter 5 where reference should be made to Nine Wells and Hobson’s Brook, and to Hobson’s Park.

Comment

Representation ID: 200562

Received: 24/01/2025

Respondent: Hobson's Conduit Trust

The Hobson's Conduit Trust have been responsible for the protection and maintenance of Hobson's Brook and Conduit. The Trust have entered a legal agreement with Cambridge University Hospitals and the CBC regarding surface water in and around the Campus that the SPD should refer to.

Trustees are alarmed by the paucity of references in the SPD to the Trust, to Nine Wells, and to the Brook, and to the legal structure surrounding surface water in and around the Biomedical Campus. We believe that this SPD needs to state and to underpin the extreme importance that the Trust places on the maintenance of water quality and the natural environment and habitats along the green corridor from Nine Wells to the City centre formed around Hobson’s Brook and Conduit.

Comment

Representation ID: 200706

Received: 24/01/2025

Respondent: Hobson's Conduit Trust

The Trust carries out regular monitoring of flows and water quality, with the assistance of professional consultants, and using the latest technology. We therefore have a strong view that it is only through the Trust’s early involvement in the planning process for new developments and constant vigilance that we can discharge our responsibilities.

Comment

Representation ID: 200707

Received: 24/01/2025

Respondent: Hobson's Conduit Trust

The effects of any pollution of the watercourse or deterioration in water quality in the Brook and Conduit would be widely seen and felt, including in the River Cam through the City, and at the Cambridge University Botanic Garden and Emmanuel and Christ’s Colleges, the lakes and water features in whose Listed gardens are fed by the Conduit, and where there are significant habitat concerns.

The replacement of salt for de-icing roads and pavements on the hospital and CBC sites with less noxious proprietary Sodium or Potassium Formate de-icing compounds that we know will be used at Cambridge South station. This requirement could usefully be included in the SPD.

Comment

Representation ID: 200708

Received: 24/01/2025

Respondent: Hobson's Conduit Trust

Paragraph 3.24: We are disappointed to find no reference to Nine Wells, White Hill and the Gog Magogs. The relationship of the built environment of Addenbrookes and the CBC with all of these surrounding landscape features such as the Magog Down is very important. The scale and impact of the whole of the mass of hospital and CBC buildings, their height and increasingly dense and industrial texture is very significant and of high sensitivity, and needs to be given appropriate weighting in the SPD which is currently completely missing.

Comment

Representation ID: 200709

Received: 24/01/2025

Respondent: Hobson's Conduit Trust

Paragraph 3.26 highlights the importance of ensuring that Nine Wells is properly and comprehensively safeguarded, and remains readily accessible and its footprint is expanded sufficiently to absorb greater numbers of people working at the CBC. It also emphasises the important role that Hobson’s Park can play, and the potential value of walking routes in the Park including beside Hobson’s Brook. The Trustees are currently aiming to complete a continuous walking route from the City Centre to Nine Wells, part of which would provide an excellent and attractive circular walking route from CBC.

Comment

Representation ID: 200710

Received: 24/01/2025

Respondent: Hobson's Conduit Trust

The incinerator chimney’s height has made it a recognised landmark for 60 years, but this should not be used as an excuse for a generalised uplift in building height beyond that of the main hospital building. We therefore believe that the SPD should be much more explicit about limitations on maximum building heights, and much more specifically than what is set out in Policy 60 quoted on page 52. This is particularly important in relation to our point 2 above, especially in relation to views from Magog Down over the CBC and Addenbrook’s site towards the city, and to the northern skyline as seen from Nine Wells. This is also relevant to Clay Farm and other Trumpington and Shelford residents, and visitors to Hobson’s Park.

Comment

Representation ID: 200711

Received: 24/01/2025

Respondent: Hobson's Conduit Trust

4a.2.1 (p31) We would expect to see some recognition of the way in which existing water features and the extensive surface water SUDs arrangements are integrated with Hobson’s Brook.