You may be aware that the Greater Cambridge Planners are in the process of developing a new Local Plan for the City and South Cambs. This will inform long term strategic policies on planning, housing, employment and infrastructure out until 2041. The plan projects a maximum need for 26,300 homes. Across the entire City and South Cambs area.The local authorities are developing a new Local Plan for the City and South Cambs. This will inform long term strategic decisions on planning, housing, employment and infrastructure out until 2041 and take account of climate change, water supply, social inclusion, transport infrastructure, effect on the environment and, crucially, will avoid undue concentration. A strategy will be developed for consultation in the second half of next year.
The local authorities are developing a new Greater Cambridge Local Plan for the City and South Cambs. This is a long and painstaking process that will inform strategic decisions on planning, housing, employment and infrastructure out until 2041, taking account of economic and population growth, climate change, water supply, social inclusion, transport infrastructure and, crucially, will avoid undue negative impact on the local environment. There will be a public consultation on the preferred options in the summer or autumn of 2021. There will be further consultations on the draft Plan in summer of 2022 and again on the Submission Plan in 2023. Approval and adoption are expected in 2024. We will all have our chances to contribute in accordance with the local democratic processes.
I dwell on this long and careful process for reasons that will become apparent. Nobody wants development but new housing stock is necessary if rents and house prices are to become affordable to many of those on whom the local economy depends. If you have to develop, do it in a way that is democratic, transparent and, as far as possible, sensitive and respectful of the character of the areas concerned.
The plan anticipates a maximum need for 26,300 homes across the entire City and South Cambs area by 2041. As part of this process, 650 sites were submitted in September, which is more than will be needed. Sites will be evaluated against the various strategies and criteria agreed in the final plan.
All of which brings me to the proposal by Messrs Thakeham of West Sussex to build a 25,000 home new town to be sited in and around nine villages. Yes, 25,000. This equates to 95% of the entire area’s maximum housing needs for the next 20 years.
Perhaps more staggering, the development is entirely sited in a confined rural setting that simply will not survive such urbanisation. By way of perspective, some details of the nine villages:
| Population | Households | |
| Barrington | 1,083 | 420 |
| Bassingbourn | 2,902 | 1,286 |
| Foxton | 1,276 | 483 |
| Melbourn | 4,772 | 1,978 |
| Meldreth | 1,947 | 705 |
| Orwell | 1,046 | 443 |
| Shepreth | 778 | 306 |
| Whaddon | 661 | 204 |
| Wimpole | 301 | 111 |
| Total | 14,766 | 5,936 |
| Source: Cambridge Insight |
Messrs Thakeham of West Sussex thus intend to more than quadruple the number of houses in the green spaces around these villages.
I look again at the Greater Cambridge draft plan of November 2020 and its four overarching themes:
• Climate change – how the plan should contribute to achieving net zero carbon, and the mitigation and adaptation measures that should be required through developments
• Biodiversity and green spaces – how the plan can contribute to our ‘doubling nature’ vision, the improvement of existing, and the creation of new, green spaces
• Wellbeing and social inclusion – how the plan can help spread the benefits of growth, helping to create healthy and inclusive communities
• Great places – how the plan can protect what is already great about the area, and design new developments to create special places and spaces (my emphasis)
and, initially at least, eight different strategies to balance how and where development should occur. These are:
• Densification of existing urban areas
• Edge of Cambridge – outside the Green Belt
• Edge of Cambridge – Green Belt
• Dispersal – new settlements
• Dispersal – villages
• Public transport corridors
• High-tech corridor (southern cluster)
• Growth area around transport nodes (western cluster)
Interestingly, the accompanying research shows the village option to offer by far the worst carbon footprint, as the carbon cost of transport far outweighs any construction benefit.
Be that as it may, and there will be separate occasions to make our opinions of the plan known in the various rounds of consultation, one has to accept that this is a transparent, democratic and evidence-based approach with appropriate public involvement. If you have to develop, this is probably the way to do it.
Which brings me back to Messrs Thakeham of West Sussex, who seem to have chosen not to submit their project along with all the other developers, despite allegedly working on it for two years. The local authorities are apparently expecting a late submission, which, annoyingly, will nonetheless have to be considered to protect the integrity of the planning process.
You have to wonder why Messrs Thakeham of West Sussex have chosen not to play by the rules that applied to everyone else: contempt for the local democratic process based on a belief that they can bypass South Cambs District Council (SCDC) and deal direct with Westminster? The website boasts of the firm’s political connections. It was certainly a relief when Anthony Browne MP and the Ministry confirmed that SCDC will remain in control of the process (although they could lose on appeal). That said, there is also a planning white paper before Parliament that seems to facilitate development and weaken the voice of the local authority. A long game involving the Westminster card should perhaps not be ignored.
I looked at the website:
https://www.southwestcambridgeshire.com
A reading of the commitments of Messrs Thakeham of West Sussex to engaging with the local community is particularly humorous. These are as follows:
1. Engaging and working collaboratively with all parts of the local community.
Surprising the local authority with a project that replaces rather than complements the 20-year plan is an odd way of engaging. SCDC’s Lead Cabinet Member for Planning, Cllr Dr. Tumi Hawkins, is quoted as saying: “I want to emphasise that this suggested site will be treated just like any other site put forward. But for that to happen, we need Thakeham to do more than announce an aspiration. If they want us to consider their specific proposals through the Local Plan process it would be helpful for them to provide all the site information we need” (my emphases).
2. Presenting the proposals clearly and honestly.
Where do you start with this? Where’s the map of the site? 15,000 people are blighted until such time as Messrs Thakeham of West Sussex see fit to enlighten us. Where’s the fit with East-West Rail now it has taken the northern option, and the other proposed infrastructure links, such as the A428? How can this be carbon neutral, given that most will commute by car? Where is the water coming from? “We don’t have all the answers to your questions right now”, says the website, so run along and we’ll let you know when we are ready. A disgraceful absence of clarity at a public launch.
3. Adopting an inclusive approach to consultation, using a variety of channels to engage with the community.
For this read a rather vacuous website that plays the Cambridge/ science/ green cards, whilst avoiding any detail or useful information.
4. Listening and responding to feedback at each key stage of the consultation programme.
Whose programme? Where were Messrs Thakeham of West Sussex in the call for sites, a key stage in the local plan process? The launch wasn’t exactly a consultative process either.
5. Being clear about what aspects of the proposals can or cannot be changed as part of the consultation and why.
Am I alone in thinking that this is rather sinister? Is this saying that Messrs Thakeham of West Sussex will tell SCDC, the responsible planning authority, what they can or cannot do? Not my idea of an inclusive approach to consultation (what consultation?) and local democracy.
6. Ensuring the proposals deliver genuine social value for new and existing communities.
How can the destruction of our rural environment possibly bring value to the existing community? I think we know where the value is going here. Mainly to West Sussex.
Readers will have gathered that I am grumpier about this than most things. Both the substance of this project and the manner of its delivery are woeful. On the one hand, we have a long term democratic and strategic process, transparent, evidence-based, subject to repeated rounds of public consultation and backed by over 1,200 pages of research and analysis: 208 pages on how to deliver so many houses over the twenty year period; 155 pages on sustainability; and 42 pages concluding there is a water problem, acknowledging the need for new reservoirs or pipelines.
On the other hand, we have a vague aspiration and a website consisting of platitudes and unsupported assertions.
I know which horse I’d back. Watch this space.
Nick Downer, writing in a strictly personal capacity, January 2021.
The Grumpy Emeritus Bursar 