North West Cambridge Growth Area Forum

A second community forum event is going to be held on 20th July to discuss the 5,000 homes and 2,000 units of student accommodation planned for Cambridge's northwest fringe.

The event is a meeting concerning transport and how the developments might affect local communities and the way in which we travel in future.  There will be presentations covering different aspects of transport including, public transport, cycling, rights of way, policy and modelling.  Local Authority officers dealing with the planning applications will also be on hand for a questions and answer session.

All Cambridge residents interested in these developments are invited to attend the Community Forum Event on: Tuesday 20th July from 6pm - 8.30pm at Mayfield Primary School, Warwick Road, Cambridge, CB4 3HN.

Housing Targets Scrapped

Housing targets are now officially dead. Councillors have been written to:

"As you may be aware, the Secretary of State announced the revocation of Regional Strategies with immediate effect on 6th July. Essentially this means that the East of England Plan (Regional Spatial Strategy) no longer forms part of the Development Plan for Cambridge and therefore should no longer be referred to in the determination of planning applications."

This is fantastic news, Labour's target driven agenda has gone, and there will no longer be pressure put on local authorities to build arbitrary numbers of houses - local Councils will now have to work with residents to get their consent to build more housing. This is an opportunity that should be embraced - the Cambridge sub-region desperately needs more housing (the CEN reported yesterday that last year prices increased by 26%, to £290k on average in the City, well out of reach of many families working in typical jobs in the City). We need our Councillors and Councils to change their mindset from compulsion regardless of local opinion to actively making the positive case for more housing - and it is inevitable that how we develop new housing will need to change. 

New developments must bring transport improvements of all types to everyone (and not just more traffic and congestion charging, which was all that was on offer to Coleridge residents from the previous plans for development on the airport) - the mindset all too apparant at both the City and County Council that says all local transport problems can be solved by 'demand management' must be replaced by demands for more transport capacity. New housing must be much higher quality, and bring new high quality public open spaces and other facilities, such as post offices and pubs in communities that don't currently have them, and facilities such as an ice rink for the sub-region. Finally, existing residents need to benefit rather than be penalised by the increased council tax base. Some commentators have claimed the abolition of targets will stop house building in its tracks. This is nonsense - the targets of the last decade saw reductions in new house building at a time of booming house prices and availability of financing for residential housing that was lax beyond the point of recklessness for many of the financial institutions involved. This defies all economic logic, and can only be explained by the catastrophically unfit for purpose regulatory environment that was Labour's planning system. Put simply, the failure of planners and government to make sure new developments benefited local residents, meant there was always massive opposition to them, and quality family housing wasn't delivered.

I fear the planners have not yet understood this. With the regrettable postponement of the A14 upgrade, the current planning policies prohibit significant growth at Northstowe and the NIAB site in North West Cambridge. Even now, planners want to change the planning policies to allow these developments to go ahead even if the A14 isn't upgraded. That would be a major mistake - the urgent task is to get the A14 and other transport improvements back on the agenda as soon as possible, and only when these are being built, to consider building the houses. When we need to convince people that new developments will bring real benefits in areas like transport, the last thing we need is new developments that demonstrably fail this test.

Growth in North West Cambridge - public meeting.

There are a number of 'growth areas' for housing planned around Cambridge. The Southern Fringe around Trumpington Village has got furthest through the planning process, but plans are now also progressing for the North West of the city, including the NIAB site.

Its the opposite side of the City to Coleridge, but the local authorities have agreed to the establishment of the North West Cambridge Community Forum, which will be set up to discuss a wide range of issues that are of relevance to the whole of the North West Cambridge quadrant. Membership will include key community stakeholders, local authority officers, councillors and partner organisations.

The first Open Community Forum Event will be held on 19th June at the Meadows Centre, 1 St Catharine’s Road and will be open to all members of the public. Local authority officers will be in attendance, as well as developers, and this event is seen as the beginning of the longer term engagement process with local communities.

Tenants lose out in Digital Changeover

The City Council has previously maintained communal TV aerial for its tenants - and most private sector tenants would expect the same from their landlords as well.

But I think they have a mess on their hands with their plans for the digital changeover. The Council plan for communal digital aerials on City Homes residences that are 3 or more stories high (i.e. very few in Coleridge), and have basically told residents in building 2 storeys high they need to make their own arrangements, and unhelpfully added that they will probably need planning permission.

I've followed this up with the planning department, and the situation on planning permission for aerials is far from straightforward - to be more precise:

"Part 25 Class B deals with buildings less than 15m in height and limits the number of antennas that can be put up without the need for permission to 2, of which only one may exceed 60cm in length and neither of which may exceed 100cm in length.  Furthermore, any antenna

-       attached to a chimney must not exceed 60 cm in length and must not exceed the height of the chimney; and

-       must not have a cubic capacity in excess of 35 litres; and

-       no part of an antenna installed on a roof without a chimney shall exceed the highest part of the roof on which it is installed; and

-       an antenna installed on a roof with a chimney must not exceed the height of the chimney stack or 60cm above the highest ridge tile, whichever is lower.

The length of an antenna is measured in any linear direction and shall exclude any projecting feed element, reinforcing trim, mounting or brackets."

The Council just telling tenants they 'may need planning permission' and leaving them to get on with it when so many people are affected by this is not very helpful.

The Council needs to rethink its decision and arrange to make digital aerials available to all tenants - but at the very least where it would be better to have a smaller number of communal aerials on two storey buildings, City Homes should be making the arrangements and dealing with the planning complexities. The current policies are unacceptable.

Victory for Conservatives' Marshalls Campaign

Another key piece in the Labour Government's warped vision for Cambridge appears to have collapsed today, as Marshall's announced it had ruled out all the remaining options for relocating its aerospace business and was effectively staying put. Although Marshalls do keep their options open, saying:

"it is clear that relocation is not a feasible option at this time, but we do not rule out the possibility that circumstances may change again in the future, in which case we would be prepared to reconsider it."

their announcement today does sound like a very significant announcement that should put a stop to all planning for thousands of homes on the airport site. It is also a humiliation for the Lib Dems running Cambridge City, who have been the main voice in favour of airport redevelopment, and all the transport chaos that would inevitably result in east Cambridge wards like Coleridge.

As much as local Labour politicians may claim to support Marshall's, they also support the cause of the threat - Labour's top down housing targets that force our local Councils to come up with plans like building on Marshalls. It is a humiliation for Labour's plan for Cambridge - thousands of bland properties (yuppie flats and social housing is all the current system can manage), dumped in areas regardless of whether local residents want them there, or if the transport can cope. The other part of Labour's plan - to force congestion charging onto Cambridge instead of building proper transport networks disappeared last month as the 'Transport Investment Fund' process to bid for transport funds disappeared, along with its mandatory congestion charging so controversially supported by our local Labour Councillor.

We could be on the verge of a new Conservative government who have promised to sweep away Labour's top down planning system, that has utterly failed to deliver the quality new housing and transport we need. Coleridge Conservatives have for some time been urging all local parties to take on board the Conservative plans for housing and planning, and start the change of mindset that will be required from nanny government knows best on housing regardless of local opposition, to giving local residents genuine local choice, and start encouraging schemes for the new family housing we desperately need that can attract the support of local people, i.e.a high quality built environment, good quality open spaces, excellent transport links and genuinely sustainable communities.

Victory on Disabled Adaptation Charges

As previously report on this blog, the Council was already backtracking on plans to charge disabled tenants with special adaptations several hundreds of pounds a year for basic servicing and inspection, even where they were installed years ago and on the basis that these charges wouldn't be payable.

But following an energetic campaign from one particular Coleridge resident and disability action groups, I was pleased to support measures agreed at last night's housing management board that see a complete U turn for tenants with existing adaptations who will not now face these charges. A report will be taken back to the next housing management board to consider new disabled adaptations, and if servicing costs on these should in future be recharged or continue as now to be paid for from the overall housing revenue account.

Whilst I look forward to that report, the key issue to me is why it is so expensive to perform these checks. It is only with more transparency over the procurements of these services, that we can know if the services could be provided cheaper, or if, for example, we could carry out more checks at the same time to meet the same health and safety objectives at lower cost. The Council is spending a fortune on health and safety related inspections and remedial actions - gas safety, fire safety (a major scheme affecting Davy Rd and Fanshawe Road flats was also agreed last night to improve fire safety) and other safety checks and actions relating to new requirements under the 'decent homes' guidance. Ultimately these all have to be paid for, and as a Councillor I want to be sure that we aren't just adopting an open cheque book approach to any theoretical health and safety risk, but really question if the response to possible health and safety concerns is proportionate to the risks.

"Stalingrad flats" are out

Today's Daily Telegraph business section reports a house builder saying that UK homebuyers 'want to return to traditional housing'. The report shows that in 2000 15% of new builds were flats and 45% detached housing, while now 50% of new builds are flats and only 15% detached housing.

Redrow is claiming that "people did not want to live in the apartments and flats that have flooded the market." Quite right. Everybody knows that there have been far too many flats built but not enough of other kinds of housing. That is, everyone except the Labour government with their crazy housing targets that force this kind of development. And the local Lib Dems, who kicked out one of their own councillors for speaking the truth and who are desperate for 12000 rabbit hutches to be built on the airport site.

The good news is the Conservatives will scrap housing targets and push down power to local councils to decide on local development priorities. Then we just need to kick out the local Lib Dems and replace them with councillors who are more in tune with Cambridge residents!

Housing Targets Consultation Deadline

A consultation on the latest phase of the Government's plan to dump thousands of houses on the East of England closes today. This is Labour's regional planning process that is driving the pressure to force Marshall's off the airport, as Councils are forced to find locations for housing even if they aren't suitable, or local residents object.

The Conservatives have pledge to stop all this nonsense if they win the election next year, but in the mean time I have responded to the consultation. If you would like to respond as well, you can try the link from here - but I was struggling to get the online system working so just emailed.

Anyway, my response:

I oppose all 4 scenarios outlined in the consultation which will all result in high levels of housing growth being forced on the East of England, and indeed oppose the principle of centrally setting housing targets for local authority areas to deliver, for the following reasons:

Setting targets centrally, along with the highly prescriptive centrally planning policies effectively excludes local people from the choice of whether or not there will be significant new housing development in their area, and to a large extent what types of housing are built. An inevitable consequence of central government setting housing numbers by diktat is that the planning system doesn't feel it is necessary to respond to the reasons why local people are so averse to new housing, such as the poor quality and design of the buildings, the lack of supporting infrastructure for all modes of transport (especially for personal transportation such as cars and cycles), and the mix of housing that results, which is far too heavily weighted towards flats. The RSS/targets approach to housing does nothing for hard working families looking for reasonably priced family homes in the private sector, with gardens and car parking - in fact it makes it almost impossible for normal market mechanisms to respond to this demand and produce what is required, due to the extraordinary impositions made on the developers who could deliver this housing, and the central demands to deliver a certain number of 'housing units'.

I don't believe we have to force development on people for two reasons. Firstly I think we can trust people to support new housing, as long as the schemes proposed are high quality, sustainable in every sense of the word, and clearly in the interests of local residents - for example, if local authorities were able to retain the benefit locally of more Council tax payers.

Secondly, I challenge the assumptions that are behind the RSS that result in the supposed need to build so many more houses. Specifically, I do not accept that population growth of the levels predicted should be a given - it is not desirable or sustainable on environmental grounds. We should be adopting policies that do not suggest significant increases in population nationally, in particular looking at immigration policy, whose role in population growth can no longer be ignored.

Secondly, the continued fall in average household size is testament to a generation of failed social policies - if more encouragement was given to supporting family units, for example through the benefits system and in housing allocation policies, there would be less need for more housing.

Finally, the Conservatives could be in power nationally in under 6 months, and have pledged to abolish many regional bodies and the whole regional planning process, and hand democratic control back to local authorities that will result in local residents being genuinely empowered in decision making in this area. Any time, effort and public funds spend on the regional planning process now could well be wasted, and all activity in this area should be stopped pending the General Election.

I hope these comments will be taken into account in deciding how (or indeed if) to move this plan forward,

Conservative 'localism' promises renewed

A brief note from Manchester: I was pleased this morning to hear Theresa Villiers confirm again that the Conservatives do not support the government blackmail through TIF of tying road pricing to the vital infrastructure improvements that are needed in growth areas, while Grant Shapps confirmed that Conservatives would abolish regional spatial strategies.

Now rather than having housing targets forced upon them, the councils will be able to rewrite their plans, but rather than NIMBYism taking hold, will be able to build the sort of housing that is currently lacking, and will be incentivised to do so by being able to keep the extra council tax proceeds and more to enable adequate infrastructure provision.

Pictured: Richard Normington, Cambridge's Prospective Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for the general election and Coleridge Conservatives' Andy Bower in the conference foyer.

Government betrays Cambridgeshire over funds for growth

Yesterday's Cambridge News revealed that the Government will be cutting £6 million of funds that had been allocated to help Cambridgeshire deal with the housing growth being imposed centrally by the Government.

Cllr Ray Manning, the Conservative leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council put it perfectly when he said (my emphasis):

"Removing this crucial infrastructure funding will put us in a very difficult position and could put existing projects in jeopardy. I very much doubt, however, that the government will reduce housing targets accordingly.

"We want to see new homes and communities that we will be proud of – not developments without the schools, health services and community facilities necessary to make them work."

Hot on the heals of other scandals such as the negative housing subsidy to Cambridge (sounds a bit like a 'zero percent rise', doesn't it?) and under-funded 'free' concessionary bus fares, it rather looks as if the Government doesn't care about Cambridge.

Save City Homes South!

Plans are advancing for the services of City Homes South, which has a public office on Cherry Hinton Road, to be transferred to Cambridge City Council's Customer Service Centre at Mandela House on Regent Street. The latest step was confirmed on 16 June at a meeting of the council's Housing Management board.

While Coleridge Conservatives are pleased that the council is finding ways to save taxpayers' money, we do think that the access point that the City Homes South office provides for local residents is valuable. We would therefore like to see options considered to allow the office to be used in future as a general outpost for access to services provided by the Customer Service Centre.

Council Tenants deserve better

One of the results of the Gr-In group split last month was that I have just been appointed to the Housing Management Board at the City Council. I have long been interested in housing issues, and look forward to scrutinising why the Council is struggling to repair the Davy Road fences, or replace some ancient kitchens and bathrooms in the properties it owns.

Part of the problem is a particularly damaging way in which the Government treats tenants in Cambridge - it basically confiscates a large part of the rent paid in Cambridge, for no particularly good reason as far as I can tell. So I've decided to write to the newly appointed housing minister to ask him to look into this - I'll let you know when I get a response...

To  Rt Hon John Healey MP

Dear Mr Healey

Firstly many congratulations on your appointment as housing minister. This is a very important and often neglected area of policy that has a profound effect on everyone’s lives.

I am a Cambridge City Councillor and have just been appointed to the Housing Management Board – the committee that looks at the management of the Council’s own stock. 

The first meeting I will be attending next week reports the outturn of the housing revenue account budget for 08/09. Out of £27.1m of rents collected, there appears to be an expenditure of £11.9m classified as ‘negative subsidy’. 

As I understand it, this is simply the government stealing a very large part of the rents collected from Cambridge City Council’s tenants, so that it can’t be spent in Cambridge. How can this possibly be ‘fair’? Why do you think it is reasonable to take all this money? What do you do with the money taken from Cambridge Council tenants? Can you please use your powers as minister to stop this immediately? - I have numerous queries where works can’t be undertaken on properties or estates due to lack of money, and I dare say the huge sums being taken each year by the government aren't helping,

I look forward to your response,

Cllr Chris Howell

Labour's Regional Airport would wreck Coleridge

One of the more surprising comments to come out of last weeks full Council meeting was the admission from a Cherry Hinton Labour Councillor of a hidden agenda for Cambridge Airport. 

He confirmed that an Eastern Region Labour meeting had vowed to turn Marshall's into a regional airport, raising the prospect of many more passenger flights and even the likes of Easyjet flying to Cambridge.

We want to see Marshall's stay at the airfield site (and certainly don't want the high density housing/inadequate transport plan being forced on them by Labour's housing targets), but turning Marshall's into a regional airport will be a nightmare for local residents in Coleridge, with increased noise, traffic and risk. We will fight Labour's plans for the airport all the way.

UPDATE: Cambridge Labour Party are trying to dissociate themselves from Cllr Drydens comments - I'm happy to append the following comments received by email from the Leader of the Labour group:

"Rob as you know did make a comment but he definitely did NOT state at the Council meeting that eastern Region Labour Councillors had voted or had a meeting on this issue."

"Rob attended a non decision making meeting with regional trade union representatives where the unions supported the retention of Cambridge airport, and Marshalls, and supported Cambridge Labour Party's consistent opposition to the 12000 houses proposed there.

I have represented the party in Cambridge at all regional meetings of eastern region Labour Councillors since 2006 and on the East of England Regional Assembly, and there has been no such discussion by eastern Region Labour Councillors, never mind decision on this issue as you suggest.

Labour Councillor regional policy, followed through in meetings developing the Regional Spatial Strategy, is to support only two regional airports - Stansted and Luton."

I welcome Labour's commitment locally (if not nationally) to trying to save Marshall's in Cambridge - it is a battle I have been fighting since around 1999 after Labour's national policy moves on housing targets, and before Labour locally woke up to the issue. However the fact remains that a Labour Councillor made it clear in an open meeting of full Council that a grouping of Eastern Region Labour supporters/Councillors (of whatever constitution - I'm not familiar with the internal machinations of the Labour party) were calling for Marshalls to become a regional airport, something that is very worrying indeed and we will continue to oppose these plans. If Labour have any more clarification of Cllr Drydens remarks, we will be more than happy to publish them in the comments (not anonyously would be preferred!)

Fix the Fence

About two years ago a section of fence around the Davy Road flats, owned by the City Council blew down. I've been moaning at the Council for ages (since May 2007!) to look after their property and get this fencing re-instated properly, as it is causing problems for local residents.

After many requests to officers, I had to resort to putting an oral question down for last weeks Full Council meeting to the Executive Councillor for Housing, and finally there seems to be some progress - I've been promised some action by March 2009, and an on-site meeting is being arranged for next week.

Next on the list for embarrassing the Council into action is the dangerous pavements that City Homes are responsible for off Tiverton Way - still no action after months and months:

I know the Government is at least partially responsible for these problems - they steal half the rental payments from Cambridge council tenants that could be spent on maintenance and ship the money off to other parts of the Country, but the response from the Council is still very poor.

What types of housing do we really need?

An appeal against refused planning permission for an extension on Chalmers Rd has just been turned down by the planning inspector. The application was for a two storey front, first floor rear and single storey rear (conservatory) extension, and was refused on the grounds of its appearance on the property and loss of light and outlook for the neighbours.

I can't recall this specific property, but this sounds like a good decision. I think there is a problem in this part of Coleridge ward with overdevelopment of sites, and consequently too many properties becoming shared use houses. The result is problems like those causing this application being turned down, plus the continual pressure on parking spaces leading to problems with verge parking etc.

By my estimates, well over 10% of the population of Coleridge live in shared houses. Whilst at one level this reflects the huge demand for housing as a whole maximising use of living space, the balance of properties is now leaving many groups seriously disadvantaged, mainly families with children on low or even average incomes needing to rent in the private sector. In Coleridge, as I found to my cost when looking earlier in the Summer, if you want a small room in a densely packed shared house, or an expensive yuppie flat, you have some choice. Finding a family type house with reasonable living areas is an entirely different matter.

Current housing and planning policies involve massive levels of central state control through strategic planning, housing targets and planning policy guidance. Despite a decade long housing boom, these policies have failed spectacularly to provide the types of housing people desperately need and actually want to live in. The problem is that Government thinks it can (literally) bulldoze through housing targets without the consent of local people, so funnily enough the plans that emerge leave neighbouring local residents aghast. The challenge is how to change these policies to work in the much more challenging market conditions we are in now.

The BBC showed a light entertainment style program last night Cheap Homes for Sale that covered a number of serious housing issues, where current policy is desperately failing. But the bit that made my blood boil was the sections on the Pathfinder program in Liverpool. I was aware of this before the program, but essentially this is an appalling social engineering experiment, that will cover several cities in the north of England, and will see thousands of beautiful Victorian houses needlessly demolished. The results will doubtless be every bit as disastrous as previous government housing mistakes involving constructing huge concrete tower blocks in the 60s. I would have many criticisms of New Labour over the last 10 years - it is going to be a long and painful process to fix their disastrous mismanagement of the economy - but their destruction of these houses is in the much smaller list of things they have done or want to do that are totally unforgivable.

I've digressed quite a long way now - full details of the planning inspectors decision on Chalmers Road can be found here.

Property Prices down 47% in Cambridgeshire?

I have a vested interest in house prices falling - I sold up a couple of years ago, and cannot imagine what has been supporting the prices people have been prepared to pay to buy houses since.

With the average 2 year fixed rate mortgage interest hitting 7%, the financing costs alone of a £200,000 property are £14,000 a year, or £1,166 a month. (Even if you don't have a 100% mortgage, you are still forgoing interest on the deposit put down...). Added to this the additional costs of being a homeowner (redecoration, insurance, depreciation of the kitchen, bathroom, boiler, roof, windows etc), and the transaction costs of buying and selling. Then consider that property currently 'valued' at about £200k in Cambridge could probably be rented for about £700-£900 per month. In other words, unless there is a huge _rise_ in house prices to compensate owners for the additional costs, it is much much cheaper to rent, and landlords are subsidising tenants for each month they are living in a property. As tragic as it is for those who find themselves in a property worth less than they paid for it, and unable to pay the mortgage, either rents are going to rise significantly (unlikely in the current climate), or I can only conclude there are sharp falls still to come in house values.

One problem with a falling house market needing sharp correction is it becomes unclear how much a house is worth - i.e. when the bottom has been hit, but clues can probably be found by looking at auction results, and I came across a property up for auction last week - a flat in Cambourne High Street. Despite a reserve of only £85k, the flat failed to sell, attracting a highest bid of £82k. So looking at http://www.nethouseprices.co.uk/, I found out how much the flat last sold for. It's a bit unclear what happened here, because there are two transactions recorded for the property both on 14th December 2006, one at £115k, and one at an incredible £155k, but on the face of it the value of this property could have fallen 47% in only 18 months from £155k to £82k

If house prices do fall anything like this (and I think they are still overvalued by about 25-30% in Cambridge), there is going to be serious consequences for many people. But there will also be serious question marks over Government and the Council's housing policy - despite a decade of the biggest boom in house prices ever, policies designed to dramatically increase the desperately needed supply of housing have simply failed to deliver. On major sites around Cambridge, the big housebuilders are already downing tools - the Council has blown it. The reason - ever greater demands on developers to gift land to Housing Associations for homes to be let to the chosen few on subsidised rents (so called affordable housing), and to sign Section 106 agreements handing over millions of pounds to fund the Council's shopping list of projects in the local area, some with only tenous connections to the development in question. Because taxpayers don't pick up the bill directly, what is effectively millions of pounds of taxation has been sought locally with the minimum of democratic scrutiny, paid for by the unnecessarily inflated cost of new homes in the private sector, and most disadvantaging those in the middle - the hard working families with low paid private sector jobs, priced out of the private sector housing market, and not qualifying for the so-called 'key-worker' housing whatever that means. This is chronically unjust.

As the truth dawns on local Councils that their housing policies have failed, developers will just say no even to existing s106 agreements, and a major rethink will be necessary to allow the housing that people desperately need to be developed in a way that people will accept.

Planning the Future of Cambridge

One of my key election pledges was to fight to put quality of design and transport infrastructure at the heart of our planning system. The test I am proposing is to ask ourselves if future generations will look back on the new development being planned and built now and say 'yes, that was a good way to expand the City', and not to say, 'what on earth were they thinking when they built that'. We should trust local people, existing residents, much more over decisions like if and how new developments are allowed, because I think we are much more likely to get things right if we do.


So this week, I have attended several planning related meetings to get up to speed on the issues.

On Monday, I met with officers and other Councillors to discuss plans for an area of land owned by the City Council that is now part of the Clay Farm/Showground area earmarked for development. The Council is considering selling its land for below its full market value in return for conditions to be imposed on the buyer such as increasing the level of so-called 'affordable' housing from the planners usual 40% to 50%, and to built exemplar environmentally friendly housing. Its fair to say I have some concerns about the Council's plans here, not least in relation to my other election pledge to stand up for the interests of the general council taxpayer, who could end up paying a heavy price out of all proportion to the policy benefits from a lower sale price.


On Wednesday I sat through (the first three hours!) of a joint City/South Cambs/County development control committee. For the large applications spanning the City boundary, a joint committee has been setup to approve planning applications under a common policy framework, to avoid two applications being required for the same site, possibly under different local planning policies. I suspect under the surface there are likely to be significant disagreements in principle between the prevailing political groups on the City and South Cambs, I hope to meet some of my South Cambs colleagues to find out how these have been resolved to make this committee work.

And last night I met the head of environment and planning at the City Council to discuss the main areas of development, and where we are in the decision making process. In total, these are expected to increase the size of Cambridge by over 40% between now and about 2020.

The main areas are as follows:


Southern Fringe: Mostly in Trumpington and Queen Ediths wards, about 4-5,000 new homes are planned. After Wednesday's meeting, outline applications have now been agreed for just about all the sites, giving permission for the general layout of the sites, including planning conditions on the developments. After negotiation of so-called section 106 agreements (where the Council tries to get as much cash or benefit as possible out of the developers to fund various projects notionally related to the developments), there will follow individual applications with detailed design and then the building can begin. So the Southern fringe is full steam ahead - unless as I strongly suspect will happen, the developers take fright at the current chaos in the housing market. But the Addenbrokes southern relief road and guided bus are already well under construction!


North West Area: Mostly University owned land in Castle ward, around Huntingdon Road. This timetable is somewhat behind the Southern fringe - the Council is currently consulting on an Area Action Plan.

Northern Fringe East: This covers the Chesterton sidings area. Only 900 homes were earmarked for here, along with a railway station in Chesterton (which would be a good thing!), and plans are currently up in the air after proposals to move the sewage works were rejected.

East Cambridge - the airport: This is the big one, and the most controversial - over 10,000 new homes earmarked in a major urban extension. Obviously Marshall's need to find a new home, but the biggest problem is the transport situation - the Cambridge East Transport study presents a picture that is both fantasy and horror story in equal measure for Coleridge residents. The fantasy is that in a development 3 miles from the City Centre, over 60% of journeys will be non-car, a level not achieved anywhere in the UK outside central London, with its massive tube, train and bus network. The horror story is the assumption that we will have congestion charging forced on existing residents, the use of Coldhams Common for a new Guided Bus route, and complete chaos on local roads, with the duelling of Perne Road, buses down Davy Road, and significant new congestion. I think development on Cambridge East may be made to work to existing residents satisfaction, but we will need massive investment in public transport (like tunnels under Cambridge perhaps), and a huge new outer ring road for cars, probably linking the A14 to the M11 via the site. On the site itself, we will need to build fewer dwellings at lower density. More of the dwellings would need to be family houses, more free-market housing available to all, built to high quality, and we would need to build a real East Cambridge community, which isn't based around a supermarket car park or an 'estate pub', but does include significant private enterprise and private employment. Can the Council deliver this - I doubt it, I don't think it has the right planning policies to make this happen, and in the meantime I am resolutely opposed to what is planned for East Cambridge.

There are a few other big developments to consider. The government is trying to force even more housing on the Cambridge sub-region, which needs to be resisted at all costs. And Ashwells have resubmitted a planning application for the Station Area after their first attempt was rejected by planners by a Cambridge record 23 reasons. This will be a massive application requiring careful scrutiny of the plans for potential over development and transport considerations - its not clear when it will go to the planning committee yet, but residents and interested parties need to get their comments back to the planners as soon as possible.





I have many comments and concerns about these plans to be raised over the next few months. One thing is for sure, if even a small part of this happens, Cambridge will be a very different place.

Hanley Grange

As part of our stalinist top-down planning system, the Government has been busy looking for sites to dump more houses in the Cambridge area as ludicrously named 'Eco-towns', despite our Councils' planning departments already being rushed off their feet looking at sites previously forced on us for housing like Northstowe and Cambridge Airport.

All the local Councils, Cambridge City, South Cambridgeshire District and Cambridgeshire County have united in opposition to the plans for Hanley Grange. Despite the fine words on the developers website, this has all the makings of another Cambourne, i.e. a dormitary town, built around a supermarket car park, and completely reliant on car usage.

You can let the relevant government department know what you think about Hanley Grange by writing to:
Eco-towns Team
Housing and Growth Programmes
Department for Communities and Local Government
2/H9 Eland House
Bressenden Place
London
SW1E 5DU

or email: ecotowns@communities.gsi.gov.uk

I've just signed the petition at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/stophanleygrange/