Draft Greater Cambridge Local Plan for consultation

On behalf of Little Wilbraham and Six Mile Bottom Parish Council:

In general we support the thrust of the proposals in the Plan concerning biodiversity and green spaces and have promoted the essence of these proposals in our own parish, for some time.

Our parish is home to Little Wilbraham Fen, an SSSI. We are concerned that this should be protected at all times from any encroachment or any adjacent development that might threaten the bio-security of this area.

At the same time, any potential to further protect and support this area as a means of increasing biodiversity and enabling biosecure access, should be explored. This could be done in the context of development of Cambridge East which will about the site: protect while promoting is essential.

Without meaningful opportunities for further housing, rural jobs are at risk.
Declining and/or aging populations do not provide sufficient inhabitants to keep schools, shops or pubs running without patronage from outside. We wish to hold on to our successful school and pub without encouraging too much car traffic: to do this we need to ensure the local population does not decrease.

Too great an increase in housing in some adjacent areas of our locality risks putting undue pressure on services such as GP and dentist surgeries. Little Wilbraham is reliant on the GP surgery in Bottisham (East Cambs) and we note that housing (including retirement housing) proposals in Bottisham do not appear to be accompanied by commensurate increase in surgery capacity. Development must be complemented by meaningful planning gain.
We have several concerns on utilities:
o Water: we understand that it will be at least 10 years before new reservoirs serving Greater Cambridge will be functioning. We have also reviewed with disquiet the recent frustration of proposals to relocate the water treatment centre at Cowley Road and future proof treatment capacity. Without securing both increased water supply and treatment, further development in Greater Cambridge will be piecemeal not strategic. Further information is essential.
 We support enhanced efforts to make grey water capture the norm
 We are concerned that development without addressing both water supply and treatment risks damaging the important chalk streams in our parish.
o Electricity: recent planning issues with the proposed Kingsway solar development at West Wratting have brought to light the limitations of the National Grid infrastructure in our subregion. We are concerned that strategic development will not be possible until national power supply issues have been addressed.
o We support making compulsory for developers on major sites to install ground-source heating arrangements and for developers on smaller sites to install either ground-source or air-source heating.

Both Little Wilbraham and Six Mile Bottom, the two villages in our parish, are close to selected sites for significant future development at Cambridge East.
o The Plan sets out in detail how these and other new, larger development sites will benefit from additional housing and services. However, comparable changes for smaller communities, such as those in our Parish, could either benefit from or be disadvantaged by these developments. We want the Plan to ensure for the former.
o We are concerned more generally that our parish, and other similar communities, will not benefit from the advantages of further development in Greater Cambridge. Our villages are outside new developments and so miss out on improvements in public transport and other infrastructure enhancement.
o Further development in adjacent parishes will likely increase traffic in Little Wilbraham, where haulage has increased to already disruptive levels in recent years.
o Six Mile Bottom in particular is currently almost devoid of any public transport. While we support the high-level aim of achieving net zero and hence the goal of reducing private car usage, such a policy without a fundamental reassessment of public transport to un/under-served villages is unfair, irrational and inconsistent with the legitimate expectations of parishioners.
• We note that both Little Wilbraham and Six Mile Bottom are considered mainly as sites for ‘infill development’. We support the preference for resisting ‘ribbon development’ where possible. However:
o Given how the boundary lines are drawn for each village, opportunities for any meaningful expansion are severely limited. [See also our statement on the Cambridge Green Belt above]
o In both Little Wilbraham and Six Mile Bottom, we support the case for Rural Exception and First Homes sites to facilitate the creation of both homes for young families and specialist homes, such as retirement housing, to take account of an ageing population profile.
o For that part of Six Mile Bottom in South Cambs especially, we consider that without an increase in housing the village proper, with a population of some 150 is condemned to further decline over the medium term. Six Mile Bottom currently has no amenities other than one shop; and without an increase in population (which means an increase in housing), there will be little to sustain the existing settlement.
Should our neighbouring parish of Great Wilbraham wish for further housing to enable local people to be able to continue living within the parish, we would support for such proposals were they to come forward
• Proposal to create a new rail station “Cambridge East”:
o We are concerned that no adequate provision is being made connecting the proposed new station with its rural hinterland by public transport.
o We are also concerned that as happened at Cambridge North, provision for parking to enable the site to be a “parkway” will soon be whittled down to accommodate commercial development. Given the paucity of public transport, reasonable provision for parking is essential for the net zero objectives not to become a tool of irrational policy discriminating against a significant minority of the population in outlying rural communities such as ours.

The purpose of the Cambridge Green Belt as defined in the document is to provide a green buffer round the city, to allow the city and villages mutual green ‘breathing space’ and to avoid versions of urban sprawl. However, there is a danger that in some places the green belt is drawn too tightly around the edges of some villages and thus prevents small-scale appropriate developments that would enhance the environment and provide long-term rural resilience. This is the case in our own local village communities. A sensible, measured engagement should take place over the role of the green belt in relation to smaller village developments.