Greater Cambridge Local Plan: Proposed Submission

The Greensand Trust is an independent environmental charity dedicated to promoting and enhancing the wildlife, heritage, and landscape of the Greensand Ridge and surrounding area. We recognise the need for and are supportive of good quality development that meaningfully improves nature recovery, sense of place, and sustainability. We are supportive of how the local plan process, with other spatial planning, can deliver these goals.
We strongly believe that the Greensand Ridge warrants both special recognition and protection within the local plan process. The area contributes strongly to its sense of place and unique identity within South Cambridgeshire. We strongly advocate for specific local landscape protection policy (similar to the former Central Bedfordshire ‘Areas of Great Landscape Value’ or Milton Keynes new Local Plan ‘Special Landscape Areas’). Specific landscape policy for the Greensand Ridge would provide planners with a useful and easy to interpret tool to assess the impact on landscape character, allowing development to positively contribute to landscape character and sense of place. There is already a strong evidence base built up over the past 10 years to support the implementation of this policy. This would also support how landscape can be recognised and better integrated into future strategic authority areas.

Looking at specific spatial allocations, mixed use new development in and around Cambourne will result in increased recreational pressure on the Greensand Ridge and its mosaic of delicate heathland, woodland, and parkland habitats. This will likely be more pronounced once East-West Rail delivers greater connectivity between Cambourne and Tempsford. We wish to highlight the importance of new development directly supporting and mitigating these pressures through the provision of suitable accessible green space, taking a landscape-led approach that conserves and enhances the landscape character of the Greensand Ridge.

We welcome the inclusion of how local plan policy should alleviate recreational pressure on existing Green Infrastructure. We do wish to highlight how wide an impact this recreational pressure could be, particularly given increased connectivity created by East-West Rail. It is therefore imperative that development acknowledges the cross-boundary recreational impact that it may have, particularly on sensitive landscapes such as the Greensand Ridge that do not have a strategic visitor gateway in the eastern most section to absorb and control recreational pressures.

We are supportive of this policy that includes the importance of good design in new development, incorporating vernacular styles, materials, and methodologies to support the preservation and enhancement of settlement and landscape character.

We welcome the inclusion of Important Countryside Frontages to prevent the coalescence of settlement ‘ends’ and neighbouring settlements. We are supportive of the ICF proposed for Station Road, Gamlingay, but would strongly urge additional ICFs to be proposed in Gamlingay to conserve the open countryside that contributes strongly to the landscape character of the Greensand Ridge. ICFs should be allocated along Dutter End and Long Lane to preserve long-distance views towards Gamlingay Wood. The contrast created between the dense historic village core of Church Street/End, the dense woodland, and open agricultural fields creates a distinctive sense of place as part of the Greensand Ridge landscape. We would also support further sections of ICF along Dennis Green and Heath Road. Both of these would preserve the open characteristic of the landscape, particularly important for the setting of Gamlingay Registered Park and Garden, again contributing strongly to the landscape character of the Greensand Ridge through its dense coverage of historic parkland.
We are also supportive that individual landscape features are specifically mentioned in policy, the loss of which can have a cumulative impact on landscape character.
We strongly believe that the Greensand Ridge warrants both special recognition and protection within the local plan process. The area contributes strongly to its sense of place and unique identity within South Cambridgeshire. We strongly advocate for specific local landscape protection policy (similar to the former Central Bedfordshire ‘Areas of Great Landscape Value’ or Milton Keynes new Local Plan ‘Special Landscape Areas’). Specific landscape policy for the Greensand Ridge would provide planners with a useful and easy to interpret tool to assess the impact on landscape character, allowing development to positively contribute to landscape character and sense of place. There is already a strong evidence base built up over the past 10 years to support the implementation of this policy. This would also support how landscape can be recognised and better integrated into future strategic authority areas.

We are supportive of local plan policy that identifies and encourages the conservation and enhancement of non-designated heritage assets through a local listing process. Non-designated designed landscapes contribute strongly to Greater Cambridge’s sense of place, and thus must be equally represented in policy alongside buildings We therefore would strongly advise that 7.78 is modified to specifically include ‘designed landscapes’ alongside ‘building’ and ‘structure’.