Draft Greater Cambridge Local Plan for consultation

Point 2.c should be amended to read “c. secure appropriate public realm and utilities improvements, where necessary, to ensure the safe operation of street trader activities and maintain public access; and to positively enhance shoppers and traders experience and promote the vitality of the market.”
Point 2.d should be amended to read “d. are designed to enable flexible usage for a range of other community and cultural activities only if it can be demonstrated this will not adversely affect the vitality of the market.”

As an additional point under “11. Proposals for new or extended tourist facilities and visitor attractions (excluding accommodation) in the countryside will be supported where it can be demonstrated that:”, we recommend adding “f. The site should be accessible by public or active transport.”

Greater Cambridge faces a deepening housing affordability crisis. This comes alongside an already severe and worsening water crisis, with Anglian Water reporting that two water supply areas in our region will not have fully recovered by the end of March this year. (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/drought-prospects-for-spring-2026/3-public-water-supply-drought-risks-impacts-and-actions-drought-prospects-for-spring-2026). In view of these twin crises, the Homes theme should prioritise increasing the supply of social housing, and water sustainability should be given greater prominence when assessing the feasibility of proposed housing developments.
We recommend several specific improvements to the ‘Homes’ theme, which are outlined in our comments on the various policies in this theme. In this introductory overview, we recommend the following changes:
Given the urgent need for social housing and the rise in homelessness, we recommend renaming the policy on “affordable housing” to “affordable and social housing” since these are two very different types of housing that cater to people in different states of housing need. Supporting information for this request is detailed in our response to Policy A/AH: Affordable Housing.
The first bullet point under ‘What our Homes policies do’ should be amended to read “Require 25% of housing on all development schemes to be delivered as Affordable Housing and an additional 25% of housing on all development schemes to be delivered as Social Housing.” (Supporting information as to why this is vital in Greater Cambridge is given in our response to Policy A/AH Affordable Housing below).
The following bullet points should be added under ‘What our Homes polices do’:
- “Prioritise the re-use of long-term empty homes;
- Support the delivery of mixed-use developments which locally integrate housing, employment and services.”
The point about long-term empty homes is particularly important as Cambridge has 3,200 Empty Homes (5.3% of all homes) and South Cambridgeshire has 2,900 Empty Homes (3.9% of all homes). The average for the East of England is 3.9%, so Cambridge has significantly more Empty Homes than other parts of the region. (https://www.actiononemptyhomes.org/facts-and-figures)
We also recommend that the supporting information for these policies should include more detailed summaries of current and projected housing need, broken down where relevant by dwelling size and type.
Finally, the ‘Homes’ theme should include either a dedicated policy or a subsection of the introduction covering compliance and transparency in housing development schemes. For large public-private partnership schemes costing more than £50 million, an independent officer not otherwise involved in the scheme should oversee compliance to ensure accountability and public trust.

We recommend that this policy be renamed “Affordable and Social Housing” and that every mention of “affordable housing” in the policy’s introduction be amended to “affordable and social housing.” A blanket focus on “affordable housing” obscures the acute needs of those who can only afford social rent, including low-income households and families facing homelessness.
Many households in Greater Cambridge have waited unacceptably long for social housing, and under these currently drafted Local Plan provisions, many will be unlikely to be housed within their lifetimes. Evidence from Cambridge City Council shows that of 1,049 council homes planned over the next decade, only 226 will be council-rented at social rent, with just four for rough sleeper accommodation (https://democracy.cambridge.gov.uk/documents/s66810/Update%20on%20New%20Build%20Council%20Housing%20Delivery.pdf). Meanwhile, housing waiting lists exceed 1,800 households in Cambridge and 1,900 in South Cambridgeshire (https://lginform.local.gov.uk/reports/lgastandard?mod-metric=105&mod-area=E07000008&mod-group=AllDistrictInRegion_East&mod-type=namedComparisonGroup&mod-period=1). At current delivery rates, meeting existing social housing need would take over 60 years, exacerbating inequality and homelessness.
For these reasons, point 1 should be amended to read “provide at least 50% of the new homes on site as Affordable and Social Housing with 25% designated as affordable housing and 25% designated as social rent housing.” This means that for a proposed new 100-house development, at least 50 homes must be provided as social and affordable housing, and at least 25 of those must be social rent homes. In Table 00, for 10-14 dwellings, “75% social and affordable rent homes” should be changed to “50% social rent homes and 25% affordable rent”. For 15 dwellings or more, the figures should be amended to “50% social rent homes, 30% affordable rent homes, and 20% shared ownership homes or other affordable.” Increasing the supply of social housing is essential to ensure that this policy addresses the significant need in Greater Cambridge and fulfils the council’s vital safety-net role.
After point 1, we recommend adding a new sentence to state “This requirement applies only to new builds. Where a development includes the re-use of long-term empty buildings (for example through conversion, refurbishment or subdivision of existing buildings), any units brought back into use in this way will be disregarded for the purpose of calculating the development’s affordable and social housing requirement. However, if re-used units within a development are provided as affordable or social homes, they can still count towards meeting the requirement.” This incentivises the creative re-use of empty buildings, which is more efficient and sustainable than building new homes. It means that a 100-home development which comprises 90 new builds and ten converted or refurbished empty buildings will only be required to deliver 45 social and affordable homes across the development, rather than 50.
Point 4 should be amended to read “Any new developments for housing that are on land within the Green Belt will provide at least 55% of the new homes on the site as affordable and social housing, in accordance with the Golden Rules set out in national planning policy and guidance. At least 25% of the total new homes on the site will be provided as social housing and an additional 30% will be provided as affordable rent, shared ownership or other affordable housing.”
In points 5 to 10, we recommend amending every reference to “affordable homes” to “affordable homes and social rent homes” and every reference to “affordable housing” should be amended to “affordable and social housing.” We also recommend amending 40% in points 8 and 9 to 50%
Finally, at the end of the first paragraph in the supporting information, we recommend adding the sentence “The combination of apartment housing and denser forms of development with self-contained dwellings is also an important strategy for increasing affordable and social housing production.” This reflects the fact that denser, apartment-led development makes the delivery of affordable housing more viable, efficient and sustainable, directly supporting the policy’s stated aim of maximising supply.

We recommend adding a new sentence at the end of clause 2 to state “Delivery by community-led housing initiatives, including community land trusts, co-housing and co-operatives, will be prioritised for exception sites where feasible.” Community-led housing schemes not only address local housing needs and increase affordability but also promote local control and empowerment and should therefore be given explicit policy prioritisation.
We also recommend adding a new clause 5.d to state “the proposed market housing shall be limited to a maximum of 20% of the total new dwellings in the development.” This is to ensure that exception sites remain primarily for affordable and social housing and to prevent them being used as a loophole for market development.

We recommend adding a new point to this policy to state “Proposals which are predominantly low-density, single-family, market-rate housing will be expected to demonstrate why a higher-density development or a mixed-use scheme integrating housing with employment and services is not appropriate to the location and character of the area. Conversely, where residential development proposals form part of a mixed-use scheme or deliver a proportion of social rented housing above the minimum policy requirement in Policy H/AH, higher-density development that exceeds local prevailing densities will be supported.” This will incentivise the development of new social rent housing and more efficient land use.
We also recommend amending point 4 to read “Development proposals will be supported where (a) a mix of housing types (e.g. houses, flats and bungalows) are provided proportionally across all market and affordable tenures, taking account of local character, built form and up-to-date evidence of housing need; and (b) where feasible, the proposals have prioritised higher-density and mixed-use forms that integrate housing with employment, services and facilities.” This will help to encourage more efficient use of land in high-demand areas and reduce car dependence.

In the first sentence of point 4, we recommend lowering the threshold at which unallocated strategic sites become required to provide specialist housing from “1,000 dwellings or more” to “700 dwellings or more.” This will better ensure that specialist housing need is met across Greater Cambridge, not only in the very largest schemes.
Immediately after the first sentence of point 4, a new sentence should be added to state “Where multiple developments are proposed in close proximity, and their combined total number of dwellings would exceed this threshold, each of these developments will also be expected to provide at least 10% of homes as specialist housing.” This ensures that developers cannot circumvent the specialist housing requirement by building multiple 600-home developments right next to each other.
In the supporting information, we recommend adding a sentence at the end of the third paragraph to state “the Councils will prepare and publish a regularly updated assessment of specialist housing needs, including analysis of current and projected need by type of specialist housing and the overlap between specialist housing need and social housing need.” This would address the potential problem of the evidence base underlying the Local Plan becoming outdated over time.

We recommend amending the first sentence of clause 1.d to read “The private units will provide a mix of suitable functional private living spaces and layouts, which may range from en-suite studios to larger private units suitable for households or families, and must not be self-contained homes or capable of being used as self-contained homes.” This will strengthen expectations around inclusive design and expands the policy beyond single-person studios.
We also recommend amending clause 1.h to read “The Co-living development must be under a single management structure, which may include a resident-led management body, Community Land Trust, co-operative, other non-profit ownership and governance model, or a commercial operator, and have an agreed Management Plan.” This will make the policy more explicitly supportive of resident-owned and democratically governed co-living models, promoting greater community control.

In the supporting information, we recommend clarifying the timing, type and location of the identified need for student housing. The statement “Our evidence demonstrates that there is a continued identified need for the development of new student accommodation and staff accommodation” implies that more student and staff housing is needed. On the other hand, the statement “For student accommodation, existing permissions and allocations (including strategic sites) are anticipated to deliver an over provision against the identified need” implies that the need is already being met or even exceeded. Editing and rewording is needed to resolve this apparent contradiction.

We recommend adding to the end of Point 1a “taking into account the needs and preferences of the proposed residents.” If a proposed resident wishes to live in close proximity to family members, denying a site on the grounds that another was available in the entire area covered by the Local Plan is not reasonable.
We also recommend adding to the end of Point 1g “to be considered in each of these regards with the same thresholds as a proposal for standard settled accommodation (e.g. built houses)”. This will prevent a site being denied for any reason, for example, traffic. The same conditions should be applied as those that are applied when making decisions about a built environment.
Finally, we recommend adding a new Point 4, reading: “4. Strategic sites must identify locations suitable for negotiated stopping, to enable this to be negotiated with the local authority in the future, recognising that Gypsy and Traveller families have a right to travel and require safe and healthy places to stop. Strategic sites must also identify land suitable for use as transit sites and offer this to an appropriate body capable of managing such provision.” This provides a planned, humane and proactive approach to meeting the needs of Gypsy and Traveller families.