Another report in the consultation annexes on the future of Cambridge / Greater Cambridge Emerging Local Plan for you to look at
It’s in the document library – scroll down until you get to the Infrastructure subheading as below.
Above – it’ll be the document just below the bottom row illustrated here. (And if the hyperlink is still working, it’ll be here)
Inevitably as time passes, the hyperlinks change – especially those of the documents themselves as they get moved to new folders with different file paths.
The top lines
- Transport
- Power
- Waste
- Digital
- Social
- General Open (incl Green, children, teenagers)
- Allotments
- Formal Open – outdoor sports
I’m going to leave the heavy stuff (Transport, Power, Waste, Digital) for others to focus on – mainly because they fall under the remit of non-local providers and institutions. Eg utility firms and their regulators.
The Cambridge Waste Water Treatment Works
The scenarios matter.
What makes things more complicated is the status of the old Hartree development due to the Waste Water Treatment Plant move not going ahead having been vetoed by Treasury due to huge cost increases. The differences in outcomes are huge:
- Under Hartree (scenario 1) results in: 18,915 net new jobs, and circa 8,000 homes (around 16,000 new residents).
- Under the WWTP staying put (scenario 3) results in 60,000 net new jobs, and only 90 homes (due to the Milton Pong / stench from the sewage works!)
So either way it’s a lot of commuting workers who will need amenities, or a lot of new residents and a fair number of commuting workers too.
Cambridge’s Governance Issues – who is responsible for what?
Many of these come back to governance issues which I wrote about here following the Healthy Cambridge Report, looking at who is responsible for / asking questions about each of the report’s recommendations. Note the actions of Anglian Water are now an issue that is sitting on ministers’ desks, Peter Freeman having escalated it.
Hence sticking closer to the people-facing things
Rob Cowan’s diagram should apply here.
Above – Cowan (2021) Essential Urban Design – at the most local of levels there should be the equivalent of a village green or small park within 200 metres of every house / home / flat / dwelling.
It’s a splendid and wonderfully-illustrated book – and for those of you looking to ask lots of questions of the planners, developers and architects on the future of our city and county, it also provides you with some of the language and terminology behind the illustrations to unpick any of the negative things they try to ‘value-engineer out’.
Cambridge Station anyone? From Cowan (2021) Essential Urban Design p139
(My point being that Cambridge Station could and should have become something far, far better than it is).
North East Cambridge Area Action Plan
Back in January 2022 the city council discussed and approved the North East Cambridge Area Action Plan (NECAAP). It was a *monster* of a briefing pack for the meeting.
Above – from Appendix D of the meeting papers where Cambridge City Councillors assessed the North East Cambridge Area Action Plan.
The North East Cambridge Infrastructure Delivery Plan refers to a number of previous reports
As it should do.
They didn’t get everything right
Which is why so many of these consultants’ reports need to be ‘local resident-proofed’.
The Infrastructure Delivery Plan includes the map in the LDA Design report of 2019 which labels educational institutions.
Above – LDA Design (2019) – Community & Cultural Facilities Audit – Educational Establishments, p100
Inevitably some things have changed since 2019, but some were incorrectly labelled at the time.
- No. 26 is a private college aimed at international students – not a ‘further education college’ providing for the local residents
- No.4 is a Cambridge college boathouse, and 15, & 16 are Cambridge colleges (Cambridge University) so again, hardly for local provision
- No.9 – CATS is a private college targeting the international market
- No.28 La Dante in Cambridge closed in 2024
While it needs a refresh, the conclusions from 2019 make for interesting reading – scroll to p113. It’s worth asking which if any of these have been completed.
Further education in and around North Cambridge
The Infrastructure Delivery Plan for NE Cambridge states:
“Despite the broad variety of provision in the 16+ space, the review concluded that with new provision at Alconbury Weald,Cambourne and Northstowe, and other plans put forward by the Sector, there would be sufficient provision – and sufficient flexibility – to accommodate additional demand arising through planned growth”
Which also means relying on Huntingdonshire next door – and/or whichever unitary council area takes it over, to deliver on provision there. They quoted a Cambridgeshire County Council report from 2023 – the Cambs Education Organisation Plan 2023-24 which will almost certainly need a refresh when Peter Freeman and the Cambridge Growth Company publish their first report. Furthermore, the national policy that the 2023-24 report is based on, is inevitably going to change with the reforms from the Education Secretary.
A swimming pool for North East Cambridge?
I first wrote about this in 2022 here, and followed that up with this vlogpost a year later next to the location of where I think it should be built (and calling on the Cambridge Science Park to put some funding behind it – noting how their tenants would benefit)
“The [Interim Sports Report] supports the scale of need for new swimming pool provision across GreaterCambridge and the strategic sense of providing a 50m pool in a location which serves the north, northeast and east of the city. Co-locating a significant amount of water space in one location would benefit from co-location with other sports facilities of a similar regional scale. This provides a sustainable, accessible offer for communities, as well as being the most effective operationally.”
It remains to be seen who puts forward what for much-needed new swimming pool facilities.
Open green space
See Natural England’s hierarchy table here
“The people coming into Cambridge for work or to visit will also add further pressure to the publicly accessible open spaces within the city boundary, which cannot be met solely by providing open space according to the local plan standards, as these consider residents only.”
So provision for tourists and visitors need to be incorporated. One of the reasons why I think we need a new civic and urban centre which, on the airport site would incorporate the ‘Green Lung’ cutting across the site which could incorporate a very large regional-tier urban country park.
“Informal Open Space and Provision for Children and Teenager (Play Space) Requirements”
The same report also says that almost 26 Hectares of open space – 21 informal, just under five as formal play space.
Which is why as a city and county we need to start talking about the needs of children, teenagers and young adults – and involving them in these very early stages in a continuous, routine and structured manner so that as the proposals progress, they don’t need it all re-taught to them and can continue to influence what the final buildings, communities, and environments will be like. Because otherwise the future looks very bland and boxy. Which might make some developers, speculators and landowners a lot of money, but will risk leaving the city with a liability. Maybe they need new principles as Humanise suggest?
Above – what Commercial Estates Group wants to build on the south-eastern edge of Cambridge around the Babraham Road Park and Ride.
Above – Humanise from a blogpost about being disconnected from a city I live in
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