Issue - meetings

The Committee received a presentation from the Special Projects Officer regarding the North East Cambridge Area Action Plan consultation.

The presentation outlined:

      i.         The council was currently in the middle of the consultation on the draft North East Cambridge Area Action Plan, there was just over a month left to run on the consultation as the consultation ended on the 5 October 2020.

    ii.         There had been a good response to the consultation so far, they had received several hundred responses.  They would encourage members and members of the public to continue to respond and spread the word about the consultation.

   iii.         The Planning Team had been doing some webinars and there were 3 webinars still to come on the 9, 15 and 21 September.

A member of the public made the following comment in response to the presentation:

    i.               There was a consultation, but there was a fundamental  problem with too many flats and offices in too small a space which wasn’t up for debate. The problems included:

a. Making the housing situation much worse  - If there were 20,000 office spaces, would say that with people who work from home half the time that is 40,000 workers. As half the population works that means 80,000 people. With 18,000 people being housed at North East Cambridge that means there needs to be housing for about 60,000 people in addition to that provided. This would mean increasing Cambridge’s population by 50%.

b. Density – The development was very dense and there was inadequate green space. He had heard the density was twice that of central London and questioned how that helped quality of life.

c. Traffic - With nearly 40,000 extra people in the area each day, which might not all be in cars, the plan claims this will mean no more traffic on Milton Road, which was a complete fantasy. This was a fundamental basis of the plan and was wrong. Milton Road didn’t need many more cars on it to make it gridlocked.

He asked councillors to question the fundamental issue of the scale and density of the development as this hadn’t been included within the consultation for members of the public to challenge.

The Senior Planning Policy Officer responded that:

i.               A higher density was being proposed and this reflected the accessibility of the site as it was located near the guided busway and north Cambridge train station and close access to the A14. The site was not constrained in terms of heritage assets and was therefore a prime brownfield location to meet the greater Cambridge housing needs.

ii.             The site would work post COVID-19, as everything was within a walking / cycling distance, the local amenities would be on the door step.

iii.            They were looking to increase employment floorspace to provide 20,000 jobs in the service industries as well as the office working environments. Dwellings will provide accommodation for a population of around 18,000.

iv.           They were working with County Council colleagues on the transport strategy for the area to ensure that the development did not result in adverse impacts on residents,

The member of the public noted the Officer stated that the development was self-contained, but it did not contain all amenities for example there was no secondary school so children would have to go to Darwin Green.  Healthcare beyond primary care level or a swimming pool were not being provided.

The member of the public and the Senior Planning Policy Officer would follow up outside of the meeting.

The Committee made the following comments in response to the presentation:

      i.         Noted that the original plans included a library / children’s / community centre but didn’t appear to include this anymore.  The development needed to include relevant infrastructure.

    ii.         Noted that the level of green areas didn’t meet the requirements of the local plan and asked if this needed to be addressed given that the Council was the developer.

The Special Projects Officer clarified that 3 primary schools (including early years provision) were proposed as part of the development as well as a library and community facilities. 

The Senior Planning Policy Officer confirmed that they had spoken with County Council colleagues who did school place planning, the indications from the child yield modelling was that there was sufficient capacity within the existing secondary school network to cope with the population growth.  The plan period covered a long period of time so over time the child yield modelling could change, provision had been made within the Area Action Plan for a secondary school if this was required in the future.

The Senior Planning Policy Officer confirmed that the level of open space being provided had been raised with the team already.  He highlighted the amount of strategic open space which was being provided, which totalled approximately 25 hectares.  This might be slightly below the requirement set out in the local plan, but noted the figures in the plan were aspirational.  He also commented that consideration needed to be given to not just the quantum of open space but the quality of open spare which was being provided to ensure that it met the needs of residents.