Draft Greater Cambridge Local Plan for consultation

Housing growth is becoming more dispersed while employment remains concentrated around Cambridge.
Dispersed growth will increase pressure on transport corridors and make sustainable travel harder

Theme 3: Density, car ownership and sustainable travel
Higher-density development can support sustainable travel, but only when it is paired with low car ownership and strong alternatives to driving. In Greater Cambridge, dense schemes are too often delivered alongside high levels of private parking, which consumes land, dominates streets and undermines walking and cycling. This also pushes up housing costs, forcing households without cars to subsidise parking through higher prices.

The Local Plan should explicitly link higher density development to lower car ownership, avoid assuming one car per home, and require parking to be optional, generally separated from housing, and transparently priced. Without this, density will continue to be experienced as a problem rather than an opportunity.

Supportive of protecting the existing trees
Due to the central nature of this site we think this development should be car free with new residents not having access to parking permits.

We support this policy, however would like to see it strengthened with a suggested length for the sustainability statement, and we would like to see householders also be required to demonstrate some level of engagement with the range of sustainability issues, particularly water management, climate change adaptation and zero carbon.
Transport is a major source of emissions and needs binding outcomes, not general support which it is given throughout.
Electric vehicles are not a type of sustainable travel and should be seen as a last resort.
Major developments should be required to meet measurable mode share targets

We think this is an essential policy and do not think this policy goes far enough and should be strengthened. We think that “benefit from cross ventilation where possible” will allow all projects to claim that it is not viable to deliver cross ventilation. It should seek to require demonstration of meeting future climate scenario weather files for major developments. What is meant by “passive, design-led approaches to reducing excess solar gain” should be made more explicit to set an expectation that measures to exclude solar gain externally are part of the design.
Reference to designing using urban heat island mitigation measures such as, shading, and ‘cool materials’ to reduce the urban heat island impact should also be incorporated.

We strongly support this policy, particularly that no new gas or fossil fuel connections are made. However it should be noted that it is not clear what the targets are exactly unless the modelling methodology is more clearly defined. For example – PHPP reports EUI differently than SAP or IES does unless a conversion is added. Please explicitly state the area metric required.
Passivhaus certification should be accepted as compliance with the policy without additional modelling to limit conflict and cost to developers.

Embodied carbon is a large source of carbon and will only be reduced through regulation. Policy should explicitly look for demonstrable lean design and require demonstration of optioneering having taken place during design.

We support this policy but think it should strengthened as an essential issue for Cambridge.
B for smaller residential developments suggest that 90-100 l/p/day is not strong enough. This is no different than <100 l/p/day.
D. We think that for too long many of the non-residential water users in the city have been able to use vast quantities of water with no requirement to do so efficiently. We support this policy but would like to see it to go further by requesting a response as part of the sustainability statement submitted, on any other relevant process water use within the building and how this has been designed for efficiency, particularly relevant for labs. This would allow the council to influence water efficiency for process loads that are specific to the uses of the building. For evidence some of the corporate water efficiency requirements from some of the larger corporate scientific organisations could be considered, e.g. Astra Zeneca
E. We think this is essential but should be strengthened by giving a methodology or target efficiency. It is unlikely that in most cases water recycling could be easily retrofitted to achieve 5 BREEAM credits, however referencing the methodology and a minimum number of credits will strengthen this requirement.

We strongly support this proposal but think it should be strengthened.
Point 1 should reference lean design - this is often the biggest opportunity for reducing embodied carbon - efficient structure, large embodied carbon elements - avoidance of basements and cantilevers
Intensity of landuse should be a consideration for demolition where it is likely to provide buildings that might otherwise be built on virgin soil (or peat outside of cities) (reference policy CC/CS).
Major Projects involving demolition should require a pre-demolition audit as part of their circular economy statement.
A pre-demolition audit should be required even if the building does not meet the threshold for size but the material on site has significant heritage value or unusual reuse potential.

We support this proposal, however we think it should be strengthened by requiring a soil management plan on larger allocation sites regardless of whether they contain peat.
In addition allocation sites that are identified on peat based soil locations should not be supported. In this case it would be preferable to demolish an existing building on brownfield site (reference policy CC/CE) and intensify density there.

We support this policy but believe it could be made stronger in the following areas. Firstly we suggest that the policy should explicitly state that 10% BNG is a minimum expectation, not the desired outcome, and require higher BNG in defined circumstances (large sites, strategic allocations, sensitive locations). Secondly we suggest a requirement for BNG to contribute toward ecological connectivity i.e. creation and enhancement of ecological networks including river corridors and habitat stepping stones as set out in the Cambridgeshire Nature Recovery Strategy. And finally we suggest that biodiversity enhancement should also contribute to climate change adaptation, nature-based solutions, flood resilience, and improved health and wellbeing.

We support this policy but would like to see it also cover improving tree canopy cover in existing residential areas as well as new developments. We also suggest that the policy explicitly consider equity given the well established link between affluence and tree cover.