Expect general election candidates to be pressed hard over the extractive model of our planning system – including the long-feared application to demolish Hobson Street Cinema
Image – Hideous Cambridge (2013) by Jones and Hall. If this application goes through they will need to produce a second volume!
This post stems from three recent planning-related items.
The first:
“Permission was granted to add three flats on top of Edeva Court, but the developer now wants to add four flats on top of the existing building”
That permission was granted on appeal to the developer by a national planning inspector, having been refused by Cambridge City Council’s planning committee. Banking that appeal, the developer now wants to extract ‘more value’ out of the site – to the detriment of existing tenants.
This mirrors the decision again by a national planning inspector (rubber-stamped by ministers) to enable the further ‘extraction of value’ with the Romsey Labour Club – currently lying in a semi-derelict state.
The second: The building on the other side of Coleridge Road to the Labour Club – the Salisbury (Conservative) club) is putting its dance hall up for sale – £half-a-million is the guide price. (I wouldn’t be surprised if an attempt ‘to maximise the financial value’ of the site was made by whoever buys it – whether flogging it with attached planning permission for rabbit-hutch student accommodation or apart-hotels, through to a random ‘Sci-Tech-Development Opportooonidee!’ Cynical? Moi!?!?
…and the third
Developers submit application to demolish Hobson Street Cinema
This follows on from my blogposts last year – the latest of which was here.
Above – me when I was a local election candidate back in Spring 2023
It’s grim and ‘orrible but the developer – as their consultants told me last year, wants to ‘maximise the financial value of the site’.
See https://applications.greatercambridgeplanning.org/online-applications/ Ref 24/01588/FUL
It’s a full comprehensive redevelopment
“What’s it being replaced by?”
Bland.
“Can we object to it?”
Yes – see Cambridge Past, Present, and Future here.
See also the guidance on commenting on planning applications by the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service here.
Alternatively you can email your city councillor via https://www.writetothem.com/
It will be interesting to see whether the MP-candidates for Cambridge submit views on this application. For Labour’s part, Angela Rayner mentioned “Design that pays attention to local history and identity” as being one of the criteria for the building of new towns. It will be interesting to see whether Daniel Zeichner will make good on this should he choose to comment as the City’s MP (which MPs are allowed to do) – mindful that he would have to link it to a valid planning reason for objecting to the application.
“Are they mitigating for anything?”
Small things – like saving or selling off trinkets from the Art Deco facade. See the heritage statements in the application documents. But in the grand scheme of things this is a cost-minimising, profit-maximising development that is the norm for Cambridge these days.
I’ll try and not lose too much sleep over this. It’s up to the people of Cambridge to decide whether they want to fight for this building and for the future of our city generally. Given the speculation currently buzzing around today about the date of the general election – which is more than usual of late, I wouldn’t be surprised if the developers pulled this application lest it become a political football (it will!) and resubmit it after the political turmoil associated with potential changes of government has settled.
Food for thought?
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Below – Greater Cambridge Shared Planning’s advice on commenting on applications
The Cambridge Town Owl 