Greater Cambridge Local Plan: Proposed Submission

The site should be removed from the plan and funding found for the original site at Cowley road.

This development is the wrong on many levels:
+ Transport links proposed are poor and congested already
+ The site is on a hill and boarders the Roman road and will be visible for miles around
+ This site sits on the chalk aquifer who knows what it will do to the water source
It seems to me that this site is only being proposed because the timescales required of the Local Plan and the dropping out of the Cowley road site. Not because this site was selected through an objective process

Remove Grange Farm as an allocation in the Local Plan as its inclusion has not followed due process.

Hildersham Parish Council has reviewed Policy S/GF: Land adjacent to A11 and A1307 at Grange Farm and wish to register our objection to the inclusion of Grange Farm as a proposed location for a new settlement within the Local Plan. It is the view of the Council that the site is fundamentally unsuitable for development of this scale and should therefore be removed from consideration.

The identification of a new settlement should arise from a transparent, evidence based process involving collaboration between planning authorities, statutory bodies, and local communities. It must be supported by a comprehensive Masterplan that evaluates a range of alternative sites—both within and beyond the Green Belt—against environmental, social, and infrastructure criteria.

It is apparent that the selection of Grange Farm followed the withdrawal of Cowley Road as an option and represents a reactive decision rather than a strategic one. The site’s promotion by the landowner and the time pressures of the Local Plan process appear to have driven its inclusion. This approach undermines the credibility of the plan and fails to meet the tests of soundness required by national planning policy.

LANDSCAPE IMPACT

The HELAA Site Assessment (GCLP, December 2025) rated Grange Farm RED, concluding that development would cause “significant negative impact which cannot be mitigated” and “irreversible harm to the setting of Little Abington.”

The site occupies an elevated chalk ridge rising to approximately 76 metres above sea level—an uncharacteristic position for settlement in South Cambridgeshire, where villages are typically located within valleys or on lower ground. The topography means that any large scale development would be highly visible from surrounding viewpoints, including the Roman Road and public rights of way. No amount of landscaping or buffering could realistically conceal a town of this magnitude.

It is inconsistent that South Cambridgeshire District Council recently refused a 100 home scheme in Linton on grounds of landscape harm, yet now promotes a site hundreds of times larger on higher terrain. The contradiction is striking and undermines confidence in the Council’s decision making.

WATER RESOURCES

The chalk aquifer beneath Grange Farm supplies over 95% of potable water for Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire. Locating a new town directly above this fragile resource poses unacceptable risks.

The Local Plan acknowledges regional water scarcity and proposes phased housing delivery aligned with supply availability. However, the Grange Farm proposal would impose unprecedented demand on the aquifer and threaten the integrity of nearby chalk streams, including those feeding the River Granta and River Cam.

The cumulative impact of construction, wastewater discharge, and surface runoff on these ecosystems is unknown and potentially irreversible. Reliance on future infrastructure such as the proposed Fenland reservoir is speculative; there is no guarantee that capacity will be available to support this development. The precautionary principle must apply.

TRANSPORT AND ACCESS

The Cambridge South East Transport (CSET) scheme was conceived to address congestion at the A11/A505/A1307 junction before Grange Farm was proposed. Funding for CSET remains uncertain, and the current plan offers no credible solution for integrating the new town with this network.

Grange Farm would rely on two closely spaced access points onto the already congested A1307—an arrangement that is unsafe and inadequate for a settlement of this scale. Comparable villages such as Sawston have multiple distributed access routes; Grange Farm’s design fails to meet basic transport planning principles.

Without guaranteed funding for CSET and its extension, the site is not deliverable. The expectation that developers will finance the full infrastructure package, including contributions to the main CSET hub, is unrealistic and jeopardises viability.

SOCIAL AND COMMUNITY IMPACT

Beyond the physical constraints, the proposal would have profound consequences for the social fabric of neighbouring villages—particularly Hildersham, Abington and Linton.

The introduction of a large new settlement immediately adjacent to the Abington’s and Hildersham would create a large single urban area. The influx of residents and traffic would erode the identity of the villages, strain local services, and diminish the sense of belonging that defines the area. This is not the creation of a separate, self contained town—it is the absorption and dilution of existing communities.

CONCLUSION

The decision to include Grange Farm within the Local Plan is unsound. The site fails on grounds of landscape sensitivity, water sustainability, transport deliverability, and social cohesion.

A development of this magnitude demands a transparent, comparative assessment of all potential locations, free from landownership bias and short term expediency. Grange Farm does not meet these criteria and should therefore be excluded from the Local Plan.