Draft North East Cambridge Area Action Plan

Disagree

• The AAP boundary should include areas, such as Chesterton Fen and Milton Country Park, that will be significantly impacted by this development. • The AAP must be envisioned and delivered as a co-ordinated entity, not piecemeal. That will require creation of a single landowner and a development corporation in l authorities are majority shareholders.

Mostly yes

• Further improvements are needed to permeability for walking and cyling, and reductions in conflicts with motor vehicles at junctions, especially with Milton Rd. • The AAP must take responsibility for co-ordinating action with Network Rail and other stakeholders to replace road access to Chesterton Fen via Fen Rd level a new road bridge from Cowley Rd.

Mostly not

Cultural, sporting and leisure amenities would be best sited close to the railway station to widen car-free access from outside NEC. • The secondary school should be sited so as to ensure that it best provides car-free serves to its catchment population (e.g. in the Science Park, with access from the Busway and Mere Way cycleway, or Cambridge North station, with access by rail, the Chisholm Trail and Waterbeach Greenway). • Centres should incorporate more cultural, recreational and sporting facilities to serve local needs and address deficiencies (e.g. a swimming pool) in north Cambridge. • Industrial uses do not mix well with residential in terms of noise, air pollution and HGV traffic through the development.

Not at all

• In order to ensure new jobs at NEC do not increase demand for housing outside Greater Cambridge, the ratio of new jobs to new homes must be kept in balance (to date that has been approximately 1.3 jobs per home). • The build-out of office space and housing must also stick to this ratio in order to avoid temporary housing pressures. • If the ratio goes out of balance, then there will be more commuting from outside Greater Cambridge, much of which will be by car, increasing traffic congestion, air pollution and carbon emissions in the region. • Plans must take into account changing working patterns, including home-working, job-sharing and hot-desking. The number of FTE jobs per workplace is likely to rise significantly over coming years.

Mostly not

NEC should incorporate more cultural, recreational and sporting facilities to serve local needs and address deficiencies (e.g. a swimming pool) in north Cambridge.

Neutral

No Comments

Not at all

• There needs to be much more open and natural space provided within the development. • Any provision that will be outsourced must be supported by a credible plan to ensure that those areas (e.g. Milton Country Park, Chesterton Fen wetland nature reserve, the River Cam towpath, Ditton Meadows) will not become overcrowded, and that the ecology will not be damaged through overuse.

Neutral

No comment

Mostly not

• We support the proposed street hierarchy is good, provided it extends to the outer junctions of the development where, in the past, designs have tended to default to maximising capacity and priority for motor vehicles (e.g. Eddington and Darwin Green junctions with Huntingdon Rd and Madingley Rd). • The use of contemporary data on car parking requirements is largely irrelevant to planning a net-zero development, which will require very different styles of living. • 0.5 parking spaces per dwelling implies that private car ownership will continue to be the norm for 50% of resident families, couples and sole occupiers. It equates to approximately 4,000 additional cars in the city, sitting unused for, on average, 96.5% of the time. That is not efficient or sustainable. • Car clubs and pools make more efficient use of far fewer cars. The development should be designed around active, public and shared transport, not private car ownership. • How will a ‘car-barn’ (multi-storey car park) be kept safe and secure? • As both technology, social attitudes and employment practices are all changing rapidly, it is imperative that NEC travel needs and options are reviewed regularly through the development of the action, outline and detailed plans. • There need to be loading bays for deliveries, removals and private un/loading every 40–50m to ensure adequate availability and to eliminate obstructive parking in the carriageway, or on pavements or cycleways). • Provision of a consolidation hub within the development for business and home deliveries is essential. • Secure lockers, including refrigerated units, are needed within 100m of every front door to facilitate efficient and flexible home deliveries. • Though we applaud and support the ambition of the ‘trip budget’ approach to maintaining current traffic levels, we do not believe its viability has been demonstrated theoretically or practically. • Setting a ceiling of 4,185 parking spaces for around 32,000 workers (1 space per 7.6 workers) requires an action plan with teeth. Yet there appear to be no practical measures proposed for how to force existing sites to reduce parking provision and car trips, yet alone at a faster rate than new homes and offices create additional demand. • It would be wholly unacceptable for parking to be relocated, say, to an expanded Milton P&R, or some other location in the green belt. • None of the scenarios modelled in the Transport Evidence Base matches what is being proposed in the AAP (see Figure 10). Therefore, evidence is lacking that the ‘trip budget’ approach for redistributing road trip demand is viable in theory. FIGURE 23 SAVED AS ATTACHMENT • The “where possible” qualification in the strategy is potentially fatal. What happens if existing occupiers of the science and business parks find that removing parking spaces hurts their ability to recruit? If that gives rise to resistance to continuing the phase-out or, worse, a demand to reinstate parking, where does that leave the viability of the unbuilt parts of NEC? This process gives rise to a range of between 1 space per 84 sqm and 1 space per 128 sqm depending on the scenario, which sit within the range of standards implemented elsewhere, and thus considered an acceptable ceiling. Importantly, however, these implied standards should be considered as maxima, and not targets in their own right, with lower levels of provision adopted wherever possible so that NEC can move towards becoming a less car dominated new urban quarter for Cambridge. Overall this analysis suggests that site-wide employment parking should not exceed 4,185 spaces but that through good design, non-car accessibility, promotion of non-car transport, and active management a lower level should be sought. A site-wide approach to managing and allocating employment-based car parking within this ceiling should be implemented to, where possible, reduce building specific allocations and allow this to be balanced across the site.

Mostly not

• There should be no compromise in making this a net zero carbon development (counting embedded carbon). See Mikhail Riches architects’ plans for the City of York Council and Goldsmith Street, Norwich. • If delivery is left to developers, then commercial interests will trump environmental and social, leading to a compromised outcome, as we have witnessed at CB1.