COMMUNITY SERVICES
Tel: 03450 450 500
Contact via email:
Arts development officer (This link will open in a new window)
Community development officer (This link will open in a new window)
Community safety officer (This link will open in a new window)
Major developments team (This link will open in a new window)
Partnerships manager (This link will open in a new window)
Sports development officer (This link will open in a new window)
North West Cambridge
North West Cambridge can be split into three sites, Land between Madingley Road and Huntingdon Road (known as the University site), Land between Huntingdon Road and Histon Road (known as NIAB) and land to the north -west of NIAB (known as NIAB 2).
Land between Madingley Road and Huntingdon Road
The North West Cambridge Area Action Plan produced by South Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridge City Council (This link will open in a new window) identifies land to be released from the Cambridge Green Belt, to contribute towards meeting the development needs of Cambridge University. The University's development at North West Cambridge will take many years to complete and will come forward as and when the University can show a clear need for the land to be released.
The University's stated aspirations for development at North West Cambridge are for around 3,000 homes (of which 50% will be "key worker" housing for University and College Staff) plus 2,000 units of accommodation for postgraduate and undergraduate students, approximately 60,000m2 of higher education uses, including academic faculty development and a University Conference Centre and up to 40,000m2 of University-related research institutes and commercial research uses and associated community facilities and open space including a primary school.
The Area Action Plan requires all development to be built to the highest standards of environmental sustainability and designed to minimise carbon emissions. For example, the majority of new homes are required to be built to level 5 of the Code for Sustainable Homes, the highest level currently believed to have been required by a statutory planning policy.
Land between Huntingdon Road and Histon Road (the National Institute of Agricultural Botany site - NIAB)
Cambridge City Council has granted planning consent, subject to planning conditions, for an access road and 187 homes (including 30% affordable housing) on the NIAB 'frontage land' adjoining Huntingdon Road. Amendments to an existing outline application have been received for a further 1,593 homes on the NIAB site including 40% affordable housing, a new primary school, community facilities, local shops, roads, footpaths and cycleways. This application is likely to be considered by the Joint Development Control Committee in spring 2010.
In early 2008 independent Inspectors advised the South Cambridgeshire District Council that it had not identified sufficient land to meet its housing requirements of 20,000 new homes between 1999 and 2016. They concluded that the shortfall must be made up through new sites in the Council's Site Specific Policies Development Plan Document (DPD). The Council then put forward their preferred sites for making up this shortfall, having undertaken assessments and sustainability appraisal of site options as well as further public consultation. One of the sites that was identified to make up this shortfall was the NIAB extra site (land to the north-west of the NIAB site that is allocated for residential development in the City Local Plan).
The Site Specifics Policies DPD was adopted by the Council in January 2010 and it was confirmed that the NIAB extra site will be developed as part of a sustainable housing led urban extension of Cambridge. the site will accomodate approximately 1,100 dwellings. In February 2010, the Council as local planning authority advised the developers agent that the proposed development would constitute EIA development for which an Environmental Impact Assessment is required.
