Greater Cambridge Local Plan Issues & Options 2020

Bad idea in West Cambridge and North West Cambridge where great densification has been taken place and still further densification is proposed/planned for. Remaining open green space particularly protected open space or environmental or recreational value should be protected.

Dispersal: New Settlements, Dispersal: Villages, Edge of Cambridge: Outside Green Belt, Public Transport Corridors, Edge of Cambridge: Green Belt, Densification of existing urban areas

Densification of existing urban areas 6/ Edge of Cambridge: Outside Green Belt3 / Edge of Cambridge: Green Belt 5/ Dispersal: New Settlements 1/ Dispersal: Villages 2/ Public Transport Corridors 4

Nothing chosen

We should require developers to create infrastructure before building houses. In the case of larger scale non-housing developments obligations which developers take to mitigate the effects of such developments must take account of and mitigate the effect of such developments on the broader environment and need to be robustly policed to ensure that such obligations are fulfilled.

No

We oppose removing land from the Green Belt. Cambridge is a compact city with scope for development on brown field sites, excluding existing green spaces of environmental and or recreational value.. To extend Cambridge into the green belt would create a conurbation of Cambridge and its surrounding villages. On the West of Cambridge the University is already intensely developing the North West Cambridge (previously released from the Green Belt) and West Cambridge sites. There is an urgent need to preserve the remaining Green Belt and green spaces to provide a green balance to the significant urbanisation of green spaces that is already occurring under the current plan. Summary of Comments: We oppose removing Land from the Green Belt.

We support the general principle of the current plan that concentrates on the development of infrastructure to support public transport, cycling and walking. This infrastructure needs to be by means of dedicated facilities for these modes of transport separated from the existing road infrastructure. ? In order to deal with issues of affordability we should Improve bus travel by council controlling licensing and subsidising routes where necessary.

It is necessary that developers be required to make appropriate contribution to the infrastructure needed as a result of their developments. We have observed in the context of the major current developments in North West Cambridge and particularly West Cambridge that the Section 106 obligations can be easily evaded and the necessary infrastructure developments being funded by the ratepayers. There needs to be a much more robust and accountable approach to ensuring that developers pay towards infrastructure developments.

30We recognise that, as a historic town with an impressive architectural heritage Cambridge will be an attraction for tourists. But in the last 20 years the throng of tourists has reached an unacceptably high level. As a consequence of this many colleges have restricted access to their sites either by excluding visitors or by charging them. Certain parts of the town, ‘the historic centre’, most notably Kings Parade and Garrett Hostel Lane/Bridge, have become so congested with tourism that it interferes significantly with the normal life of the town. The next local plan needs to develop policy which will constrain tourist numbers. Possible options could include a Visitor tax which would generate additional revenue and restricting the number of tourist coaches entering the city by, for example, requiring all tourist coaches to disgorge passengers at Park and Ride sites. Summary of Comments: We believe that the new plan needs to have specific measures to manage the volume of tourism which has reached the point where it represents a problem

It would benefit the area as a whole if employment space and related jobs were more dispersed rather than seeking to focus on Cambridge itself where the existing infrastructure organised around a medieval city struggles to cope. This would spread the economic benefits of good employment opportunities to the wider area, rather than focussing such development in the City of Cambridge and its immediate surroundings. With the volume of new housing in Cambourne Northstowe and Waterbeach etc., more employment space and work opportunities should be provided in the neighbourhood of such developments and any other new settlements in the interests of sustainability and reducing carbon footprint etc., where it is easier for new adequate infrastructure to be created. Summary of Comments: We believe that it is of great improtance to try and co-locate employemnt and new housing developments in new settlements.

The focus of the majority of the questions is on new development, with an underlying assumption in favour of development. It may be that National Planning Policy Framework requires this. However the next Local Plan should also contain robust policies for the protection of open spaces in public and private ownership, Cambridge’s historic centre, landscape setting, and vistas and views, green corridors. Whilst biodiversity and sites of wild life importance should be protected, the Plan should also include policies which acknowledge the importance of green spaces or lungs, even if not accessible to the general public, e.g. college playing fields, and domestic gardens the visual enjoyment of which improves quality of life...

We strongly support existing Policy 67 in the current plan with its intention to provide for ‘the protection of Open Space of environmental and or recreational value from development.’ The principle of this policy should be retained.However we are very concerned that the validity of Policy 67 is being challenged by a would-be developer of Protected Open Space relying on a QC’s Opinion claiming the Policy is unworkable, with reference to requirement for relocation of Protected Open Space of recreational value to with 400m of the existing Protected Open Space. The Policy should be so worded, including amendment if necessary to effectively maintain Protected Open Space of environmental and or recreational value..