Greater Cambridge Local Plan: Proposed Submission

Object

Representation ID: 213561

Received: 25/09/2026

Respondent: Whippet Coaches Limited

Legally compliant? Yes

Sound? No

I represent Ascendal Cambridge BMCO Limited, the freehold owner of 2 Rowles Way, Buckingway Business Park, and Whippet Coaches Limited, which operates a bus and coach depot there. Whippet, a Cambridgeshire bus operator since 1919, has been based in Swavesey since 2009, running local services including the University of Cambridge's Universal route. The depot, employing around 90 staff and housing 40 vehicles, is our sole operating base. We endorse the Plan's focus on growth supported by high-quality public transport and seek two targeted amendments to ensure it accommodates the operational land needs of bus services, detailed in the attached documents.

Object

Representation ID: 213893

Received: 25/09/2026

Respondent: Whippet Coaches Limited

Legally compliant? Yes

Sound? No

2.1 We support the continued identification of Buckingway Business Park as an Established Employment Area in the countryside (Policy J/NE part 6(i)), where employment development of an appropriate scale and character will be permitted.
2.2 However, paragraph 8.10 defines employment uses as Classes E(g), B2 and B8, plus sui generis uses that share a significant number of their characteristics, naming only medical research institutes. Bus and coach depots are sui generis. They combine the storage of vehicles (akin to Class B8) with vehicle maintenance and repair (akin to Class B2), and provide skilled local jobs for drivers, engineers and control staff. Because the definition is silent on depots, it is unclear whether Policy J/NE part 5 supports the expansion of an existing depot within an Established Employment Area. That uncertainty makes the policy less effective and could frustrate the provision of operational land on which the Plan’s transport strategy depends (see Representation 2).
2.3 We have checked the Established Employment Area boundary shown on the Proposed Submission Policies Map. It includes the whole of 2 Rowles Way as registered under title CB204521, including the land to the north west of the depot fence line. We support that boundary and ask that it be retained without amendment. We note that the site boundary used for the 2009 change of use application stopped at an internal fence line and covered less land than the registered title. That historic application boundary should not be treated as limiting the extent of the Established Employment Area.

Object

Representation ID: 213894

Received: 25/09/2026

Respondent: Whippet Coaches Limited

Legally compliant? Yes

Sound? No

3.1 The development strategy relies heavily on public transport. Policy I/ST expects major development to provide access to high-quality public transport within 400 metres of a bus stop, anticipates a vehicular “trip budget” for strategic sites, and asks proposals to have regard to the Combined Authority’s Local Transport and Connectivity Plan and Bus Strategy.
3.2 Buses need land to be parked, maintained, cleaned and, increasingly, charged. The Plan contains no policy supporting the retention, expansion or provision of bus depots. Without one, operators and the Combined Authority face uncertainty over the operational capacity needed to deliver the service levels the Plan assumes.
3.3 This is a live and immediate issue. The Combined Authority’s bus franchising consultation material of September 2026 sets out its proposed depot strategy. It proposes to build and own a new depot in Peterborough for the North West Area, and to provide depot facilities in the Cambridge area for the East Area. For the Central Area, which is built around the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, it states that operators bidding for the contract will be required to provide their own depot facilities, on the basis that suitable existing depot facilities are considered to be available in the market. The same requirement applies to every smaller contract across all three areas.
3.4 That assumption depends directly on the planning system. Private depot capacity on the Busway corridor can only be available if planning policy allows existing depots to be retained and expanded. The Plan is silent on the point, so it does not support the delivery of the very transport network it relies upon. Depot capacity close to the routes it serves also reduces empty running between depot and route, cutting operating cost, congestion and emissions.
3.5 Electrification makes this a land use issue, not only a transport one. The Plan’s climate change policies and its transport policies both assume a shift to zero-emission vehicles. In practice, converting a bus depot to electric operation consumes depot land. Charging equipment, cable runs, substation and switchgear, and the clear access required around each charging bay all occupy space previously used for parking, and during the transition a depot must accommodate a mixed fleet. At the Swavesey depot, installing eight charging bays in 2023 required the loss of two parking bays in order to maintain the clearance of 750 millimetres required between parked vehicles. Each further stage of electrification will reduce parking capacity again. More land is therefore needed to operate the same number of vehicles.
3.6 We make this point from direct operating experience. Whippet operates the Universal service in Cambridge under contract to the University of Cambridge, which the University describes as the only privately operated and funded fully electric bus service in the United Kingdom. That fleet is charged at the Swavesey depot. A Plan that expects the bus fleet to decarbonise, while containing no policy enabling depots to expand to accommodate the land take that decarbonisation requires, is not effective and is not positively prepared. 3.7 National policy on promoting sustainable transport (NPPF chapter 9) expects planning policies to identify and protect, where there is robust evidence, sites which could be critical in developing infrastructure to widen transport choice. The Plan does not do this for bus operational land.