Draft Greater Cambridge Local Plan for consultation

Object

Representation ID: 209066

Received: 30/01/2026

Respondent: Camcycle

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

The Plan rightly places a strong emphasis on climate change and net zero. The climate change chapter is detailed and ambitious in relation to buildings, energy, water and materials. However, the overall approach treats climate change primarily as a technological challenge, rather than a behavioural and spatial one shaped by how places are planned and how people travel.

Net zero standards within the Plan focus heavily on buildings, but largely ignore the carbon impacts of car-dependent land use patterns. A highly efficient building located in a place that requires daily car use for work, education and services will still generate high transport emissions over its lifetime. Given the plans stated ambitions on carbon reduction, it seems a significant oversight not to put greater emphasis on lifetime emissions, which risks locking in car dependency, and thus exacerbating the climate crisis.

Object

Representation ID: 209067

Received: 30/01/2026

Respondent: Camcycle

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

The issue is not that Cambridge is accommodating too much growth, but that growth is being planned in a way that assumes medium- or long-distance travel into the city as the norm.

This matters because the capacity of transport corridors into and within Cambridge is fundamentally constrained. The city cannot create new road space at scale. The capacity of Cambridge’s road network to accommodate private cars is finite, and long journey times for motor vehicles at peak periods show that it is already heavily stressed.

By contrast, the capacity to accommodate people walking, wheeling and cycling can be significantly expanded within both new and existing corridors. Growth in and around Cambridge can therefore be accommodated sustainably, but only if it is planned predominantly around walking and cycling as the capacity of these modes can be scaled to meet development needs.

Object

Representation ID: 209068

Received: 30/01/2026

Respondent: Camcycle

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

Much of the Plan’s transport discussion, and wider transport debate, is framed around commuting into Cambridge. This commuter-led framing creates two problems.

First, transport systems designed primarily around peak commuting struggle to deliver viable and attractive services.

Second, it overlooks the fact that the majority of trips are not made for work, but for everyday activities such as shopping, education, healthcare and social life. Access to local amenities plays a far greater role in shaping travel behaviour than access to distant employment alone, yet this is not sufficiently reflected in the spatial strategy.

Object

Representation ID: 209069

Received: 30/01/2026

Respondent: Camcycle

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

The allocation of Grange Farm near the A1307 and A11 raises serious strategic concerns. This site appears in the Plan largely as a response to constraints elsewhere, particularly the removal of the Hartree site. However, Grange Farm is not a suitable substitute for an urban development. It is located between settlements rather than forming a coherent extension of an existing place, has limited access to everyday amenities, and relies heavily on the A11. Walking and cycling access to meaningful destinations is weak, and public transport provision is speculative and uncommitted. In Camcycle’s view, the site fails to meet the core requirements of a genuinely sustainable community and should not proceed.

The cumulative effect of these choices is to embed car dependency at a strategic level, before individual site layouts are even considered. While the Plan recognises the importance of sustainable travel in principle, its spatial strategy does not yet align with that ambition. A sustainable plan must either rebalance the distribution of jobs and homes or deliver a step change in direct, safe and continuous active travel connectivity at a regional scale. At present, the Plan does neither with sufficient force, leaving the future transport strategy to address problems that have already been locked in through land use decisions.

Object

Representation ID: 209070

Received: 30/01/2026

Respondent: Camcycle

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

While the Local Plan addresses density primarily through considerations of character, form and visual impact, this approach does not resolve the central question of movement. High-density development and high levels of car ownership are fundamentally in tension. Parking, servicing and vehicle access consume large amounts of space, dominate ground-level conditions and undermine the quality of streets and public realm. Where this tension is not actively resolved through policy, dense places quickly become uncomfortable, hostile and constrained environments. Too often, discussions become dominated by how to accommodate just one more parking space rather than envisioning a different transport future.

Cambridge has repeatedly attempted to deliver dense development while retaining high levels of private car parking, and the results are consistently poor. In several recent schemes, including sites in Barnwell, Fanshawe Road and Darwin Green, land given over to cars approaches or even matches the footprint of the homes themselves. Streetscapes are dominated by parked vehicles, walking and cycling space is compromised, and the lived experience of density becomes negative. These outcomes are not design failures. They are the predictable result of permissive parking assumptions embedded within
policy.

Object

Representation ID: 209071

Received: 30/01/2026

Respondent: Camcycle

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

Given the analysis raised in the accompanying attachments, Camcycle considers it essential that the Local Plan explicitly links high-density development to low car ownership if density is to deliver its intended benefits. High-density schemes should not assume private car parking and should go well below the one car per household level.

Where parking is provided, it should be optional, generally separated from housing, and priced transparently so that the cost of car ownership is borne by those who choose it. Without this shift, density will continue to be experienced as a problem rather than as an opportunity for sustainable growth.

Object

Representation ID: 209072

Received: 30/01/2026

Respondent: Camcycle

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

The draft Plan’s approach to cycle parking contains good principles, including that cycle parking should be as convenient as car parking, step-free, well-lit and easy to use. However, the supporting expectations risk being undermined by an overly simplistic focus on the quantities of parking and by allowing very high proportions of two-tier stands.

In current practice, commercial schemes routinely provide around 80% of spaces in two-tier racks, and the draft approach could unintentionally push this towards 90%. 80% is already too high in many developments, because it reduces usability for everyday cycling and creates an accessibility barrier.

As a guideline, the proportion of two-tier spaces should not normally exceed 50% at initial implementation. Additional two-tier provision can be introduced later if required up to 80%.

Object

Representation ID: 209073

Received: 30/01/2026

Respondent: Camcycle

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

The requirement for 5 to 10% non-standard cycle parking is also unclear because it bundles together different needs. Many people ride standard cycles but cannot use two-tier stands, for example due to disability, age, strength, balance, injury, pregnancy, or because they are carrying a child seat and need a stable, simple manoeuvre. These users need accessible parking, not necessarily oversized parking.

Object

Representation ID: 209074

Received: 30/01/2026

Respondent: Camcycle

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

Oversized parking is also essential, for example for cargo cycles, cycles with trailers, adapted cycles, and longer or wider cycles. These are distinct categories and should be planned for separately. On smaller sites they may reasonably be combined, but on larger sites it is often better to provide them as distinct provision with clear layout and legibility.

Object

Representation ID: 209075

Received: 30/01/2026

Respondent: Camcycle

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

Camcycle is also concerned about the growing use of mobility hubs to group cycle parking in one place within larger developments, away from the individual buildings which users are seeking to access.

This approach devalues the cycle experience by removing the door-to-door convenience that makes cycling attractive, particularly where hubs are detached or remote from entrances. In the vast majority of cases, secure cycle parking must be integrated into, or directly adjacent to, buildings and entrances.