Ministers have responded to MPs who have raised the Forest City Concept with them.
The Combined Authority Mayor for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Paul Bristow was also asked about it at his public questions event at Cambridge Guildhall on 25 June 2026 (see my previous blogpost) and he was dismissive of both the concept and of any questions seeking a firmer opinion. ‘You may as well be asking me about building a light rail on the moon – it’s not going to happen’ he said.
“Who, what, when, where, how? Forest City? What’s that?”
You can:
- see the developer’s website at https://www.forestcity.uk/
- see the opponents’ website at https://www.stopforestcity.co.uk/
…and judge for yourselves
I first wrote about it in October 2025, and went to their first public workshop in Cambridge a couple of months later
See the blogpost for the latter here
“What did the Ministers say?”
The question that MPs opposing Forest City wanted to know was whether the Government was for, or against the concept.
“But ministers cannot comment on such things lest they find they have to determine whether a planning application for developments associated with it can go ahead or be refused”
Exactly – a long-established ministerial position in planning law. (One early example dates from the Town and Country Planning Act 1962 (S22). If I’m correct, the current powers that ministers can exercise if they want to decide on a particularly large or controversial planning application are under Section 77 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 as amended. And both of those were introduced by and enacted under Conservative Governments.
Accordingly, this was the point that the Minister for Housing and Planning, Matthew Pennycook MP made in the closing/winding up speech.
“Setting aside the detailed criticism made of the proposals in question, the core argument the hon. Gentleman has advanced is that the Government have to date refused to “say no” to it, which I think were his words. I want to respond to this charge head-on at the outset, because as he knows full well, it is not the role of the Government to opine on every development proposal that materialises across the country. For good or ill, depending on one’s viewpoint, we have a discretionary planning system in which schemes of various sizes are judged on their site-specific merits by individual local planning authorities.”
“What we do not do—indeed, we are obliged not to do it, given the quasi-judicial role of Housing, Communities and Local Government Ministers in the planning system—is to publicly pass judgment on every unsolicited proposal that the Department receives. The hon. Gentleman looks somewhat confused by that notion, but that is how the planning system operates.”
This was the same under Conservative and Coalition Governments when MPs inevitably raised controversial planning applications and asking ministers to intervene. For anyone wanting more details, see the House of Commons Library’s briefing on planning applications here.
Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrat MPs write to ministers
The MP for Ely and East Cambridgeshire, Charlotte Cane MP (Lib-Dems) published the response from Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, the Lords Minister at the Ministry of Housing.
Above – Detail from the Minister’s letter to MPs Charlotte Cane, (Ely & East Cambs), Ian Sollom (St Neots & East Cambs), and Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire), from Ms Cane’s FB page here
You can see the full details on Ms Cane’s page here – essentially given the legal restrictions mentioned above, the strongest line the Minister could give is to state that Forest City was not part of any of the Government’s policies, and name-checking them. Again, this is because passing comment on the merits or otherwise of any concept that could form part of a planning application leaves them open to the charge of pre-judging an application, which brings the risk of a legal challenge.
Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner highlights the Cambridge Airport/Cambridge East development
That was before this exchange between the MP for Bury St Edmunds followed by the response from the MP for West Suffolk.
Hansard Vol 788 col 302, then 303, 23 June 2026
Again, judge for yourselves.
The intervention from the MP for Cambridge was as follows:
“On that point about speculative building, I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is probably not a fan of big, bold projects of this kind, but does he agree that there is a very good example just down the road in Cambridge? The recent sale of Cambridge City airport to Homes England is an exciting initiative that will genuinely provide the homes and businesses we need.”
Above – Daniel Zeichner MP (Labour – Cambridge), Hansard Vol 788 col 303, then 304, 23 June 2026
The MP for West Suffolk linked this to the impact of Cambridge’s out-of-control demand for housing (See Sam Davies from November 2022 here on why the demand is insatiable).
“Haverhill has doubled in size in only 30 years. Given our proximity to Cambridge, this is understandable. As I said in my maiden speech, we should “embrace the opportunities, not just fear the risks”,” of housing demand connected to Cambridge. That is why I have never been an anti-housing campaigner, but the solution to the demand created by the innovation and enterprise of Cambridge is not Forest City.
“The solution is the densification of Cambridge itself, the development of land adjacent to the city, and the construction of transport connections to the towns and villages within a commutable distance. Haverhill, for example, provides Cambridge with workers, including many at Addenbrooke’s hospital. It needs a rail link and not just the often single-lane A1307. The line between Newmarket and Cambridge should be dualled, and there need to be more services through Newmarket and Brandon.”
Above – Nick Timothy MP (Conservative, West Suffolk), Hansard Vol 788 col 302, then 303, 23 June 2026
“So why didn’t his party do it in government?”
Good question.
“MP for West Suffolk Matt Hancock will meet with Cllr James Palmer, Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authorities, local MPs, councillors and other interested parties on Wednesday, July 12 in the House of Commons to discuss the feasibility of the proposed transport.” [Hancock was a Minister of State at DCMS at the time, so should have had some influence in government]
Above – Jasmine Watkiss for the Cambridge News, 11 July 2017
There’s a postgraduate research project for someone to find out why that meeting and campaign attempts to get Rail Haverhill rebuilt came to nothing. From my viewpoint it wasn’t the fault of the campaigners who worked their socks off. Because they had been campaigning for decades up to that point. I only found out about it relatively recently.
#IAgreeWithPuffles
Over a decade ago on Birdsite the above hashtag popped up every so often. In 2014 I caught a bus with my Twitter avatar Puffles to see what Rail Haverhill was all about – getting to experience the joys of the A1307 by bus. It wasn’t pleasant despite the weather!
12 years later and the line still has not been reopened, but the population of Cambridge has grown probably by about 20,000 people in the meantime. Which also reflects why the CPCA Mayor Paul Bristow was absolutely scathing of the Greater Cambridge Partnership’s delivery record of big infrastructure projects. Can’t blame me – here’s a video of me back in March 2017 at the Old Shire Hall calling out the GCP for not supporting Rail Haverhill’s campaign by unpicking the assumptions and constraints they put on the case for rail.
In less than nine months time it’ll be a decade since I put that question to the Greater Cambridge Partnership. The pressure on the Haverhill to Cambridge transport links has not gone away.
See their Haverhill-related publications and presentations here
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