Draft Greater Cambridge Local Plan for consultation

Object

Representation ID: 203092

Received: 29/01/2026

Respondent: Granta Land Ltd

Agent: Pegasus Group

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

The attachments of this submission are representations to Greater Cambridge's Regulation 18 Local Plan Consultation made on behalf of Granta Land Ltd.

Granta Land Ltd is promoting Land North of Mingle Lane and East of Hinton Way, Stapleford, Cambridgeshire. The site is recorded under HELAA Reference 40369 (Site ID: 115763) and HELAA Reference 200771 (Site ID: 115189) within the Greater Cambridge Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment (2025).

The following documents have been submitted, which contain further site details and comments regarding policies and the strategy in the draft Local Plan:
Representations Document
Appendix 1: Site Location Plan
Appendix 2: Access Strategy
Appendix 3: Concept Masterplan

Object

Representation ID: 209964

Received: 29/01/2026

Respondent: Granta Land Ltd

Agent: Pegasus Group

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

The general Vision for Greater Cambridge and the seven Strategic Priorities are supported.

Noted that the Government is clear in the importance of Cambridge internationally and to the UK economy (‘Case for Cambridge’ and Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor, the Cambridge Growth Company and the proposed establishment of a centrally led Development Corporation).

Noted that level of growth proposed by the Case for Cambridge is unprecedented and it is critical that the anticipated growth comes forward in a sustainable manner and delivers exemplar place-making, combining good design and sustainable transport with new employment and housing that benefits everyone. However, Development Strategy for achieving these goals seen as misguided, placing too much reliance on new settlements and complex major development sites, which are in turn reliant on significant infrastructure projects to serve these new places. GCLP considered as overly optimistic regarding the delivery timescales of many of the proposed draft allocations, and that there is a risk that Greater Cambridge will fail to deliver the homes it needs within the plan period to support its economic ambitions.

Suggestion that more balanced approach to the spatial distribution of growth is needed-recognising the role of established, sustainable settlements served by existing high-quality public transport infrastructure, and which reduces the reliance on the private car. Stapleford and Great Shelford highlighted as sustainable villages.

Object

Representation ID: 209965

Received: 29/01/2026

Respondent: Granta Land Ltd

Agent: Pegasus Group

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

New settlement at Grange Farm is specifically challenged on sustainability grounds (allocation is fundamentally car dependent and in an inherently unsustainable location) and not in alignment with the GCLP strategy to direct development to where active and public transport is the ‘natural choice’.

Proposed allocation entirely predicated on the Cambridge South East Transport (CSET) busway to make it sustainable as a location for a new settlement. However, in the event that CSET is approved, the planned route currently stops short of Grange Farm, terminating to the west of the A11 and would therefore necessitate a further extension of the busway and a new Transport Hub to the east of the A11 to serve the new settlement. Comment around uncertainty of timescales for the necessary planning approvals and construction of any route extension and, if CSET is delayed or scaled back, then Grange Farm will have no viable public transport alternative, leading to severe impacts on the local road network.

Suggestion (from experience) that reliance on bus-led public transport strategies alone rarely achieves the desired modal shifts required to make a new settlement of this scale sustainable.

Object

Representation ID: 209966

Received: 29/01/2026

Respondent: Granta Land Ltd

Agent: Pegasus Group

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

Proposed allocations are in locations where the required public transport does not currently exist and the delivery of which is outside the control of the Greater Cambridge authorities (e.g Cambourne North reliance on delivery East West Rail and Cambridge East reliance on the Cambridge Eastern Access busway and a potential new railway station). The Development Strategy is heavily reliant on bus-led public transport strategies to serve the proposed allocations, however emerging national planning policy is also clear that the priority should be to focus new development around train stations.

Proposed allocation of major sites within the Cambridge Urban Area is supported in principle given the inherent sustainability of these locations.

No objection in principle to the inclusion of Cambridge East and North East Cambridge but seek to highlight the inherent uncertainty associated with the presumed delivery rates for these major development sites which are heavily reliant on new public transport infrastructure provision to serve them; or are subject to unresolved viability constraints; or subject to factors outside the control of the planning system, all of which take time to resolve. View is that these draft allocations will undoubtedly take longer to deliver than anticipated and it is therefore essential for the GCLP to allocate additional suitable and sustainable sites to ensure identified housing needs are addressed now and to support the ambitious economic growth objectives for the Greater Cambridge area.

The GCLP is considered to be overly dependent on a limited number of large and complex sites to achieve its stated strategic objective of meeting identified development needs in the plan period.

Comment that representation demonstrates the uncertainties associated with the proposed Development Strategy and the need to allocate additional suitable and sustainable sites to make up the anticipated shortfall in housing delivery within the plan period.

Suggestion that a more balanced approach to development strategy would be that it recognises the role of existing sustainable locations, such as the villages along the existing railway corridors, which are already served by a choice of public transport modes.

Commented that Development Strategy is driven by the stated objective to protect the Green Belt, however this overlooks the recent changes in national planning policy and the introduction of ‘Grey Belt’ which explicitly seeks to bring forward suitable Green Belt land in sustainable
locations, which do not contribute strongly to Green Belt purposes. National planning policy states that Green Belt boundaries may be altered through the Local Plan-making process (para 145); where exceptional circumstances exist, including instances where an authority cannot meet its identified development needs (para 146); having examined fully all other reasonable options for meeting its identified needs (para 147); and the need to promote sustainable patterns of development (para 148). Whilst the GCLP suggests at para 2.64 that the identified development needs alone are not considered to provide the ‘exceptional circumstances’ required in national planning policy to justify removing land from the Green Belt, this is based on the presumption that the proposed allocations will deliver as anticipated. View that representations made by Granta Land Ltd cast significant doubt over the ability of the proposed allocations to deliver new homes within a timely manner and reasonably challenges the justification for the inclusion of Grange Farm within the Plan.

Exceptional circumstances stated to exist at a strategic level to justify amendments to the Green Belt and that directing appropriate growth towards sustainable villages which benefit from existing public transport provision, such as Stapleford and Great Shelford, aligns with the national planning policy objective to promote sustainable patterns of development.

View that GCLP is not planning positively to meet its identified needs as required by national planning policy (para 36) and has failed to consider all reasonable options for meeting its identified needs in a sustainable way, including directing growth to the villages along the existing railway corridors.

Object

Representation ID: 209967

Received: 29/01/2026

Respondent: Granta Land Ltd

Agent: Pegasus Group

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

Policy S/GB sets out the Green Belt policy for Cambridge. Whilst it is appropriate for local policies to interpret national policy in the local context, local policies must still be consistent with the purposes of the Green Belt as established at para 143 of the NPPF.

National planning policy confirms the second purpose of Green Belt as “b) to prevent neighbouring towns merging into one another”. However, the third purpose of GCLP Policy S/GB is stated at 1.c. as to “prevent communities in the environs of Cambridge from merging into one another and with the city”.

Purpose 1c is therefore inconsistent with the second purpose of Green Belt as set out in national planning policy as it refers to ‘communities’ and not ‘towns’. Reference to communities could have wider implications for the effective application of Green Belt and Grey Belt policy, inconsistent with the national policy objectives of delivering sustainable patterns of development.

Object

Representation ID: 209968

Received: 29/01/2026

Respondent: Granta Land Ltd

Agent: Pegasus Group

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

Requested Change – Allocation of Land North of Mingle Lane and East of Hinton Way, Stapleford. GCSP Note: Pages 11-End have been reviewed and considered as part of the HELAA process.

Representations set out to demonstrate that exceptional circumstances exist at a strategic level to justify amendments to the Green Belt by virtue of the need for the GCLP to identify additional suitable and sustainable sites for development to meet identified needs; and
that directing appropriate growth towards sustainable villages which benefit from existing public transport provision, such as Stapleford and Great Shelford, aligns with the national planning policy objective to promote sustainable patterns of development.

Object

Representation ID: 209969

Received: 29/01/2026

Respondent: Granta Land Ltd

Agent: Pegasus Group

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

Representation questions whether the assumptions in the GCLP for Cambridge East are realistic given recent announcements that Marshalls has cancelled its planned move from Cambridge Airport to Cranfield.

Noted understanding that Marshalls still aims to vacate the site by 2030 to enable the new neighbourhood at Cambridge East to come forward, and that this is predicated on now identifying and relocating to a new premises for its aerospace operations. The delivery trajectory for Cambridge East is considered to be uncertain due to length of time for such sensitive commercial negotiations.

Object

Representation ID: 209970

Received: 29/01/2026

Respondent: Granta Land Ltd

Agent: Pegasus Group

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

Noted that the GCLP recognises the challenges in delivering sites such as North East Cambridge in light of recent Government announcements that it will not be funding the relocation of the Cambridge Waste Water Treatment Plan (CWWTP) and that this has created significant uncertainty.

Noted that whilst North East Cambridge is retained as a potential allocation at this Regulation 18 stage, it is considered that should no alternative funding become available ahead of the Regulation 19 stage later in 2026, it would be unsound to continue to include the site for allocation in the Plan.

Object

Representation ID: 209971

Received: 29/01/2026

Respondent: Granta Land Ltd

Agent: Pegasus Group

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

The general ambition of Draft Policy S/JH/: New Jobs and Homes is supported.

Highlighted that the ‘Case for Cambridge’ envisaged growth scenarios of between 100,000-150,000 new homes for Cambridge by 2050 – potentially doubling or even tripling the number of homes currently being planned for in the GCLP. View that there is clearly a potential misalignment of the growth scenarios being planned for in GCLP and which would plainly trigger a need for an immediate review of the Plan but that until the Cambridge Growth Company’s plans are made public, the current approach of seeking to meet objectively assessed local housing needs in full and ensuring a buffer to overall housing provision is welcome to provide flexibility and
resilience in delivery.

Some of the sites relied upon to deliver new homes and the anticipated rate of housing delivery are challenged.

Noted that the supporting text to Draft Policy S/JH: New jobs and homes, provides housing requirements for neighbourhood areas as set out in Appendix D and identifies a need for just c.134 net new homes
for Stapleford and Great Shelford. The Local Plan supporting text also confirms that the Neighbourhood Plan areas can choose to meet or exceed the housing requirement but that the delivery of allocations already included in the GCLP cannot be used to meet the
housing requirement of a neighbourhood area. The Neighbourhood Plan covering the area does not include any allocations/ the level of anticipated growth (c.134 net new homes) is considered to significantly underplay the role of the villages and the potential these highly sustainable settlements can play towards delivering the Vision for Greater Cambridge.