District Housing plan is agreed - goes to Inspector for review

The district council has been working for the last three years to produce a housing plan that indicates where houses can be built over the next twenty years or so. Although land was put forward for development around Heathfield, Whittlesford and part of Thriplow, none of these potential development areas has made it through to the final version of the local plan. I have argued consistently for larger developments such as the ones at Northstowe as the answer to housing need rather than adding significantly to lots of the villages, on the basis that we do not have the infrastructure.

 This is what I said at the full Council meeting at South Cambs today where the Local Plan was agreed:

"This plan is a hard choice - for many members and their communities it is a harder choice than for me and the villages that I represent. And those councillors are doing the democratic duty, as we all are. 

When I moved to Cambridge in the late eighties, this was, still, a very quiet, academic city with a lot of sleepy villages surrounding it. You could still buy a top hat in Kings Parade, and still get your car filled up by a petrol attendant on the A10 to Ely. 

Fast forward a quarter of a century, and this part of Cambridgeshire  has changed enormously. 

And for the good - the career choices facing our young people - should they choose to live and work here - are significantly better because of our successful economy. I want young people in Cambridgeshire to continue to have those choices. The economic strength in Cambridge and  Cambridgeshire - driven by new industries such as the bio-tech sector - is generating a demand for housing. At the moment, houses sell like cakes during a run on a bakery because demand exceeds supply. 

It seems to me we either leave housing to the market to meet the demand -  and take the consequences of developments springing up without any control. Or we need to plan - and this process - which has taken years, and much expert officer time to bring it to this stage, is the plan. I do think the proposals for new towns offer great opportunities for building sustainable communities." 

And this is what I said about the proposed development between Sawston and Babraham:

"Nowadays Sawston is a large village - it grew hugely in the 60s and 70s - and it provides many of the services on which smaller villages nearby depend - a medical practice, a diverse and useful high street of shops, a library and so on. The good people of Sawston accept the expansion proposed in this plan to take advantage of a brownfield site, but they strongly object to additional sites H1B and H1C that are proposed. 

These additional sites would further erode the green belt gap between Sawston and the nearby village of Babraham. Such additional houses would place a heavy load on the infrastructure of Sawston village, on which many other smaller villages depend."