Greater Cambridge Local Plan Issues & Options 2020

The Plan needs to allocate sufficient housing land across Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire to help settlements at all levels of the hierarchy to become more sustainable while safeguarding the Plan against inevitable delays and uncertainty in the delivery of large projects such as Cambridge East. Allocation on the edge of villages with some service provision, adjacent to existing employment opportunities, such as the land off Comberton Road, Toft should be considered favourably.

Yes, strongly agree

It is imperative that the Plan allows for more than the minimum housing requirement in order to safeguard delivery, help meet demand and keep prices more affordable. It is almost inevitable that there will be delays associated with the delivery of larger proposals such as Cambridge East and therefore to ensure supply is maintained and the local markets are not flooded the Plan should allocate small-scale development to all settlements. Allocation such as the five dwellings proposed on the land off Comberton Road, Toft will deliver much needed housing across the Plan area supporting local communities and existing services and facilities as well as hopefully moving towards a critical mass that would encourage new services, facilities and employment to invest in the location rather than creating simple outlying commuter settlements for Cambridge and London. The allocation of more than the minimum required level of housing helps to ensure that the Local Planning Authorities maintain control over where development is brought forward rather than being open to planning applications for housing that are in conflict with policies in the Local Plan if there are delays for whatever reason on larger allocations.

A mixture of sizes, styles and tenures of housing is required in order to meet the aims of creating socially inclusive communities. Care must be taken to ensure that sufficient housing is provided and that some of it remains affordable so as not to create social disintegration and the ghettoization of some areas.

In order to ensure high standards of housing, care must be taken at the planning stage to consider proposals, designs and materials. It is essential that decisions made at planning are then supported by proper enforcement of the planning permissions and building regulation system to ensure that the proposals are not watered down or value engineered to such a degree that the quality of the design or finishes is lost as part of the construction process.

The technical information submitted with applications such as transportation assessments and drainage statements provide the necessary information to highlight the on-site and to some degree the off-site infrastructure requirements for a particular development and the delivery of or contribution towards these infrastructure requirements should be secured by planning obligations under Section 106 of the Planning Act. Greater focus should be given to delivering development in sustainable locations with developer contributions towards pedestrian and cycle links. Wider funding, potentially secured through the Combined Authority, should be sought for major infrastructure investment, particularly in respect of public transport.

In order to encourage a modal shift away from the private car to more sustainable modes of transport, development needs to be located in close proximity of employment, services and facilities with good pedestrian links, such as that linking the land off Comberton Road, Toft to both Comberton and Toft.

Good public transport connections from the villages to the major settlements to help reduce non-sustainable modes of transport.

Highly flexible

The Plan must recognise that the sustainability of smaller settlements and their long term future is predicated on their ability to provide homes, employment opportunities, services and facilities in the one settlement. It is therefore essential that the Plan is sufficiently flexible to allow windfall developments on the edge of villages as well as making specific allocations such as the Land off Comberton Road, Toft, surrounded as it is on three sides (one residential and two employment), for development. Such flexibility will help existing settlements to diversify their population, provide local people the opportunity to live within their communities and help to create a critical mass of population sufficient to attract and sustain business and services.

Highly flexible

The size of developments should be a factor of the site’s physical constraints and not an arbitrary figure set by policy. It is essential that land within settlement boundaries and on the edge of settlements is use efficiently as it is a finite resource.

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

No answer given