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Strategic omission of post-16 education
The Greater Cambridge Local Plan is explicitly predicated on significant housing and employment growth driven by the area’s global reputation for innovation, research and high-skill industries. However, there is a striking lack of consideration given to the role of education infrastructure - particularly post-16 education - in sustaining that growth.
This omission creates an internal inconsistency within the Plan. The Local Plan relies on the continued attraction and retention of a highly skilled workforce, yet it does not adequately consider the education pathways that develop those skills locally or that influence where highly skilled families choose to live.
Education as a driver of sustainable growth, not a by-product
The people most likely to be drawn to Cambridge by new employment opportunities are those whose careers have been built on strong educational foundations. Evidence consistently shows that such families place a high value on the quality, availability, and diversity of education provision for their children, including post-16 options.
Post-16 education is therefore not a peripheral issue but a core component of achieving the sustainable economic growth on which the Local Plan is based. Without sufficient capacity, choice, and quality in 16-19 education, housing and employment growth risks becoming unbalanced, less inclusive, and ultimately less attractive to the very workforce the Local Plan seeks to support.
Post-16 education and planning policy
While responsibility for post-16 education does not sit directly with either planners or the Local Authority, this does not remove the need for Local Plan policies to explicitly recognise and plan for it. The Local Plan already takes a strategic view of infrastructure beyond its statutory scope, for example: transport, health, utilities, and digital connectivity. Education should be treated in exactly the same way.
Failure to do so risks undermining the Plan’s own objectives. Growth in the 16 -19 population is a predictable consequence of housing growth, and post-16 providers require long lead-in times, suitable sites, and proactive planning support to respond effectively.
Cambridge’s specialist post-16 system and capacity constraints
Greater Cambridge operates an unusual tertiary post-16 education system created originally in 1974. The Greater Cambridge area has a small number of school sixth forms, general FE Colleges and sixth form colleges providing academic and technical pathways for a much wider geography. This includes institutions such as Cambridge Regional College and Long Road Sixth Form College, which together offer a broad range of vocational, technical, and mixed programmes.
Within this system, Hills Road Sixth Form College plays a distinctive and nationally significant role as a high-performing academic sixth form college. It is consistently one of the highest-performing state sixth form colleges in the country, with outcomes that contribute directly to Cambridge’s reputation for educational excellence and progression to higher education. It is nationally renowned as the state school from which the highest number of students progress to Oxford and Cambridge universities, with typically around 70 students per year receiving an offer.
However, Hills Road Sixth Form College is already heavily oversubscribed and operating at or beyond the capacity of its existing site. This is not a theoretical future risk but a current constraint. Planned housing growth within Greater Cambridge will place further pressure on an already stretched post-16 system unless capacity is explicitly addressed as part of Local Plan infrastructure planning.
Post-16 education is a specialist tier because it sits at the point where students move from “broad schooling” to “purposeful pathways” that directly determine their next step into higher education, higher technical study, apprenticeships, or skilled work.
High-performing sixth forms and tertiary colleges typically deliver stronger outcomes than standard 11-18 provision because they are structurally designed to meet the educational needs of 16–18-year-olds. The large size of such institutions allows for both breadth and depth of study to support progression. Sixth form colleges are expert in teaching advanced level subjects, they offer specialist curriculum options, university style study spaces and approaches, and pastoral systems that are built for late-adolescent development (motivation, self-management, mental health, identity, and decision-making).
They also provide concentrated, expert support for high-stakes transitions - university selection, admissions testing, personal statements/interviews/portfolios, work experience, apprenticeships, and career guidance - at exactly the stage where small differences in attainment and advice translate into large differences in destination.
In system terms, post-16 capacity and quality don’t just produce good headline results; they shape higher education participation, the level and selectivity of HE destinations, retention and success once students arrive, and ultimately the local skills pipeline that Cambridge’s economy depends on.
Why this matters for the Local Plan
In a specialist tertiary system, capacity cannot be flexed quickly or informally. Expansion, relocation, or the creation of new provision requires thoughtful, mapped long-term planning, suitable sites, and early coordination with the Department for Education and existing providers. Without this, growth in the 16–19 population will not be matched by growth in high-quality post-16 places.
The Local Plan’s very limited focus on just 0–16 education risks misunderstanding how post-16 education actually operates in Greater Cambridge. Failure to plan for post-16 capacity will disproportionately affect academically focused provision, limit parental choice, increase travel distances, and weaken the coherence of Cambridge’s education ecosystem.
Implications for sustainable growth
If the Greater Cambridge Local Plan is serious about attracting and retaining highly skilled families, it must recognise that post-16 education is a decisive factor in location decisions. A system in which flagship institutions are already full, with no clear pathway for expansion, risks becoming a brake on growth rather than an enabler.
Explicit recognition of the specialist tertiary model, and the capacity constraints within it, should therefore form part of the evidence base and policy framework of the Local Plan.
A constructive role for the Local Plan
If the Greater Cambridge Local Plan is to enable successful and sustainable growth, it must explicitly acknowledge post-16 education as critical infrastructure. This could include:
• clear recognition of post-16 education within infrastructure and place-making policies
• safeguarding of suitable sites for future 16–19 provision or expansion
• investment in planning capacity to work proactively with post-16 providers and the Department for Education
• explicit expectations that growth locations consider post-16 accessibility and capacity, not solely 0–16 provision
Even where delivery sits with other bodies, the Local Plan has a vital coordinating and enabling role.
Conclusion
Cambridge’s success has always rested on the strength of its education ecosystem. A Local Plan that promotes growth on the basis of skills, innovation, and global competitiveness must take education seriously at every stage of the pipeline, and particularly in the critical 16-18 phase. Without this, the Plan risks being aspirational rather than deliverable.
