Experts recommend Cambridge City Council Planning Committee rejects the proposal from RailPEN and consultants over concerns on over-development of the site, as campaigners call for a ‘Better Beehive’.
Back in August 2023 I invited people to scrutinise in detail the proposals to redevelop The Beehive Centre / Graveyard of the Cambridge & District Co-operative Society – the latter of which would make for a great college extended project subject. Earlier on Siobhan Middleton in the Cambridge News picked up on the Beehive Centre proposals and noted ths significant opposition to the planning application.
You can read the Urban Design Report that summarises the comments from, & significant issues raised by the Greater Cambridge Design Review Panel of 24 Nov 2023 via the planning portal, typing in Ref 23/03204/OUT into the box in the simple search drop-down, and click on the Urban Design Document 24 Nov 2023
“The fundamental issues identified within these comments demonstrate that the proposed intensity of use for the site cannot be accommodated and represents overdevelopment.”
https://applications.greatercambridgeplanning.org/online-applications/ Ref 23/03204/OUT – Urban Design Document 24 Nov 2023
Above: Cambridge City Council’s Urban Design Officer: ” The Greater Cambridge Design Review Panel (GCDRP) …raised the proposed amount, scale and massing as a significant problem”
Given the number of planning policies highlighted by the panel that the application contravenes, it is highly unlikely that the present application will go through unamended. I would be astonished if the developers decided to proceed to planning committee with the application as it currently stands.
“The amount proposed is simply too great for what the site and the context can support, which is manifesting in unacceptable harm on the skyline of the City, local townscape and immediate neighbours of many existing residential properties that back onto the site.”
The comments by the panel have been noticed by the Better Beehive Group of campaigners which is also seeking significant changes to the planning application – see their full response here.
Above – a different sort of BBC? The campaign on FB – noting the height of the Victorian-era homes in Petersfield ward in green vs the proposed heights of the redeveloped Beehive.
The design panel’s conclusions is striking in how it contrasts with the case made by the consultants acting for RaiPEN
“The Greater Cambridge Design Review Panel (GCDRP) also raised the proposed amount, scale and massing as a significant problem. Spatially, the proposed structure lacks coherence, with a confused internal movement network and poor integration of open space. The proposal fails to recognise the current inadequacy of Coldham’s Lane roundabout perpetuating highway dominance, and an inconvenient and uncomfortable experience for pedestrians and cyclists at an important gateway”
Above – one of the things that put off customers from the old Beehive supermarket 50 years ago was the single road entrance into and out of the site – I’m old enough to remember being taken there as a child. With Sainsbury’s and Tesco establishing supermarkets along the main routes into the Beehive Centre on Coldham’s Lane/Brooks Road, and Newmarket Road respectively, the Co-op had its work cut out – resulting in the national group taking over the loss-making Cambridge society in the very late 1980s and ultimately disposing of its supermarket and department store holdings nationwide over the next couple of decades.
Above – consultants’ reports including the proposed benefits by LDA
You can read the proposed benefits documents below:
Cambridge Past, Present, and Future objects over lack of high quality transport
The society stated:
“We wish to reiterate our objection to the redevelopment of this site for wholly office and laboratory use. The development and expansion of business space in the City is directed by Adopted Policy 40 and this proposal is contrary to this strategic approach to employment in Cambridge. This site is located in an off-centre suburban location remote from high quality public transport. It is not a sustainable location for a high-density employment centre and is more appropriate for a residential-led mixed use development at a density that respects its immediate context and will help balance the housing growth with the economic growth.”
CPPF to Greater Cambridge Shared Planning – in Comments tab
You can read Cambridge PPF’s full response on their website here (and if that doesn’t open, see here and scroll down/keyword search for ‘Beehive’)
***Hang on*** – isn’t there a railway line running next to it?
There is – but the developers and Network Rail do not appear to have had the conversations I strongly recommended. Furthermore, Cambridgeshire County Council has submitted a holding objection.
Above – The Local Highways Authority (CambsCC) having issues with the development.
You can read their full comments here
Above – from July 2023. I warned them both in writing and face-to-face at their public consultations
There is a potential solution and it’s one that candidates at the General Election *must* debate during the campaign: It is the processes by which towns and cities can tax large firms and land owners (the ultimate beneficiaries of) to pay for much-needed infrastructure that they will ultimately benefit from in the form of a land value uplift. i.e. the construction of new very high quality public transport infrastructure at taxpayers’ expense making their land and property assets worth far more than without. Hence if they sell the asset and try to bank that uplift (as we see so often with sites granted planning permission), that uplift should be taxed. Heavily. Because it is an ***unearned benefit*** that is not the result of any investment or actions by the owners.
Given that there are several sci-tech-park developments between Cambridge Station and Newmarket, there’s a huge case for Transport Ministers to force developers to sit down with Network Rail and thrash things out – as I mentioned here. If only there was a local Member of Parliament who was also a minister at the Department for Transport who could nudge Network Rail to do this. Oh. South Cambridgeshire residents, this one’s for you – email your MP and ask him to get Network Rail to meet with developers of sci/tech parks in/around Cambridge and negotiate contributions towards upgrading the Cambridge-Newmarket line.
Above – my concept for a rail/light rail station at The Beehive Centre, co-funded by landowners and business from my blogpost here.
An ‘X’-shaped station around Coldham’s Lane bridge would serve The Beehive Centre, the Cambridge Retail Park (that RailPEN also own, the Coldham’s Road Industrial Estate, and the North West Romsey residents.
The Urban Heat Island Effect
A concept I first came across in A-level geography, this is something picked up by the Friends of St Matthew’s Piece here.
Above – submission from the Friends of St Matthew’s Piece – hence the calls for more green roofs and much more green space and tree cover.
Cambridge’s Water Crisis – Environment Agency also object
It’s almost as if the Agency has finally found its teeth!
“The Environment Agency object to the proposed development, on the grounds that it
Environment Agency (Updated Response) to Greater Cambridge Shared Planning, 21 Nov 2023
may individually, and/or in combination with other proposed development in Greater
Cambridge, increase abstraction and risk deterioration to water bodies in the Greater
Cambridge area because of the additional demand for potable water use. It has not
been demonstrated by Cambridge Water Company that potable water can be
sustainably supplied to the development”
It will be interesting to see what moves the developers make – because the cumulative impact of all of these objections means even an appeal to the Secretary of State is no guarantee of approval.
Food for thought?
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Below – from Unite the Union – I’d love to see a similar graphic but for Cambridge.
The Cambridge Town Owl 