Update 19th January 2026
Dear All
Update 19th January 2026
Local Plan: Recording of Presentation (13th Jan) by senior planners with comments from Stephen Kelly Director of Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service
Presentation on the draft Local Plan for Residents’ Associations_13 Jan 2026.
Stephen Kelly who joined the presentation towards the end, strongly recommends you submit comments on the draft Local Plan. Many of you have told FeCRA you are concerned that some of the areas of green belt not allocated for development, will be included by the Cambridge Growth Company as development land in the minister-approved plans.
Blogger Antony Carpen comments ‘The site most likely for inclusion in the Cambridge Growth Company plans that are *not included* for development in the current draft local plan proposals is the land north of Cambridge Science Park. I wrote about the Science Park’s submission to the Greater Cambridge Local Plan call for sites here.
Stephen Kelly said the Local Plan doesn’t give the Growth Company a free hand – they have to work with the same evidence bases that the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service is collecting and which is listed in the document library.
Which is why it is really important to submit comments and scrutinise the consultants’ reports in the Local Plan.
Stephen Kelly referred to this being the last time that there will be an opportunity like this.
Remaining Local Plan Drop In Events
- Monday 19 January, 4:15pm to 5:30pm: Drop-in session in Girton, The Pavilion Girton Recreation Ground, CB3 0FH
- Tuesday 20 January, 4:30pm to 7pm: Drop-in session at Gamlingay Eco Hub, Stocks Lane, SG19 3JR
- Thursday 22 January, 4:30pm to 6pm: Drop-in session at Cherry Hinton Village Leisure Centre, Colville Rd, CB1 9EJ
- Thursday 22 January, 5pm to 7pm: Drop-in session at The Wing, Brown’s Field Community Centre, 31A Green End Rd, CB4 1RU
- Friday 23 January, 11:30am to 1pm: Lichfield Hall, Coleridge, CB1 3SJ
Antony Carpen has also organised two public events in Cambridge: on the Local Plan
- Sat 24 Jan 2026 at Rock Road Library from 11.30am – looking at arts, leisure, and sporting facilities
- Sat 31 Jan 2026 at Cambridge Central Library Conference Room from 11.30am – looking at the provisions for a new concert hall on the airport site, also mentioned in the Cambridge Local Growth Plan from the Combined Authority.
Other Useful Local Plan information
Podcasts on the Local Plan via Cambridge 105
Cambridge Challenges – Can Greater Cambridge deliver sustainable growth?
Lewis Herbert looks at the big housing and jobs plans for the area, and how the Growth Company intends to work alongside the councils’ Joint Local Plan to 2045. With Peter Freeman (Chair, Cambridge Growth Company), Cllr Dr Tumi Hawkins (Planning Lead, South Cambridgeshire District Council) and John Latham (Federation of Cambridge Residents Associations and Chair of Hobson’s Conduit Trust). Link to recording below
https://cambridge105.co.uk/challenges-11-01-2026/
Cambridge Challenges – the Local Plan
Lewis Herbert explores the new Local Plan with Cllr Katie Thornburrow and Cambridge Past, Present and Future CEO James Littlewood. Link below
https://cambridge105.co.uk/challenges-14-12-2025/
Please let us know your views. There is a round table meeting with Council leaders this Wednesday. Is there anything you want FeCRA to raise?
Advice from Friends of St Matthew’s Piece on how to comment on Local Plan.
“FoSMP has figured out how to respond to the Draft Greater Cambridge Local Plan – the ‘Rule Book’ for every planning application for the next 10ish years – and are busy sharing this with local residents. Great care went into the 10-step process, first sent in our 27.12.25 Update.
The Comment deadline is in less than 2 weeks: 5pm on 30 Jan, so the 10-steps are repeated (below… scroll down):
- showing how to beginto comment on the Draft Local Plan;
- helpingprotect St Matthew’s Piece in the long-term;
- enabling you then to also comment on anyDraft Local Plan Policy or Site.
More: FoSMP has also written brief Comments (ready for submission & all below) on 6 Draft Local Plan Policies. These are important for St Matthew’s Piece & across Cambridge. The brief Comments include both criticisms and endorsement for parts of these 6 Draft Policies, to both strengthen what’s weak, and to secure the best bits.
So it would be brilliant if you could:
- follow the 10-step process, to Comment on Site 115524 – to defend St Matthew’s Piece (if you haven’t done so already);
- consider also submitting any (or all!) of FoSMP’s 6 Policy Comments – using the exact same procedure;
- please also share this email with your networks.
FIRST, REGISTER (even if you already have a Planning Dept account):
1) https://consultations.greatercambridgeplanning.org/draft-greater-cambridge-local-plan-consultation
2) Click on ‘Log in’ in upper right hand corner
3) Create a new account (needed to log in, log out & re-log in – all in the normal way)
SECOND, PROTECT St MATTHEW’S PIECE, BY GOING TO:
5) Scroll down to ‘Comment’ (at the bottom of that page)
6) Please paste the following exact 82-word text into the ‘Comment’ box:
115524 would be a disaster for this community. Site 115524 was given an Overall Score of ‘Red’. The exclusion of Site 115524 must be permanently enforced. That will protect our vital, extremely limited and increasingly pressurised local amenity space – noting St Matthew’s Piece as the only public park in North Petersfield. Unambiguous evidence of this need lies in the sequence of five Planning Refusals since 2021 (none appealed), each pertaining to this area: 25/0432/TTPO, 24/0413/TTPO, 23/0119/TTPO, 22/0271/TTPO, and (most significantly) 20/04514/FUL.
7) Click on ‘Next‘ & then, click ‘Next‘ again (no need to add anything else at all!)
8) Click ‘No‘ on the next screen & type in the ‘Comment’ space “I did not participate” (unless you did!)
9) Click on ‘Next‘
10) Finally, click on Submit
If this has worked, you will receive a Confirmation email <if this doesn’t arrive… please try again?>
FINALLY, TO COMMENT ON ANY DRAFT LOCAL PLAN ‘POLICY’:
- Use the same linkas in (#4), above button
- Click on the Show document contents button
- See a list of allDraft Policies & Selected Sites
- Choose the Policy you want, noting its drop-down text & comment by…
- Using Steps #5–#10, swapping the Step #6 text to Comment on thatPolicy
- Here are FoSMP’s comments on 6 of the draft Policies….
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Comments from FoSMP on 6 Local Plan Policies:
…ready for copy-pasting using the above Steps #4–#10 (always by swapping the following Comments for the ‘purple text’, at Step #6)
<Yes: the ❌ and ✅ symbols can be ‘pasted’ into the Comment box on the Council’s Consultation website. Phew! 😓>
You do not need to include the yellow-highlighted ‘title’ line with each Comment.
Policy CC/DC: Designing for a changing climate (91 words)
❌Throughout this Policy AND the whole Local Plan: replace “changing climate” with “climate crisis”.
❌Point 1: Design solutions must “respond proportionately and actively to the emerging climate crisis” (not “positively respond to our changing climate”).
❌Point 2: must explicitly address the impact of any development not only on future edifices but (more importantly) on surrounding townscape and biosphere.
❌Point 2: all applications must include credible design solutions that first formally evaluate, second actively and effectively reduce existing and/or any future Urban Heat Island Effect.
❌Point 3: delete the words “where possible”.
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Policy BG/TC: Improving tree canopy cover and the tree population (84 words)
✅Point 1: + 30% minimum is supported, with adequate monitoring and enforcement.
❌Point 2: If less than 30% is agreed on site, then compensatory canopy increase must be agreed offsite (the farther, the greater the compensatory provision)
❌Point 3a: hedgerows should meet Wildlife Trust size standards
✅Point 3b support protecting “space below ground”
❌Point 4a change text to “climate crisis” THROUGHOUT
✅Point 4b support “long lived trees”
✅Point 6 strongly support
❌Point 7: define ancient and woodland trees explicitly as by the Woodland Trust
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Policy BG/PO: Protecting open spaces (83 words)
✅Point 1: Inclusion of “undesignated areas” – strongly support.
❌Point 1 (Add): Any ‘Open Space’ with a new development must be automatically “protected” from the start.
❌Point 1 (Add): Add every opportunity must be taken to restore lost historic protected open space.
✅Point 2a: “suitable distance” – strongly support.
✅Point 2b: “before” – strongly support.
❌Point 3 needs strengthening; development should not be permitted if it impairs community access to and use of protected open space.
✅Points 4 & 5: – strongly support
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Policy BG/EO Providing and enhancing open spaces (90 words)
❌Point 1 (Add): The provision of open space in a new development must take additional and compensatory account of the level of existing provision in the setting, particularly when this is poor.
❌Point 2: “The Councils are exploring the potential to require” is unacceptable. Replace by “All development must meet” and delete “major”.
✅Point 3 – very strongly support.
❌Point 5 (Add): New development must not use pesticides or herbicides in management of green space or buildings/infrastructure.
❌Point 5 (Add): Any tree guards must be conditioned and enforced as temporary.
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Policy GP/ST: Skyline and tall buildings (85 words)
❌Point a (Add): Mandatory protection for domestic-scale building heights, particularly in Conservation Areas.
✅Point b “For Cambridge…. relevant viewpoints” – support.
✅Point d – strongly support.
❌Point e: the use of of “adequate” is too weak and undefined, particularly for surrounding properties or spaces. Must be clarified, strengthened and improved.
❌On “microclimate”, Point e is far too weak. It must also require that the effect of any development should prove that, at minimum, it will not increase (and, ideally, decrease) the Urban Heat Island Effect.
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Policy GP/LC: Protection and enhancement of landscape character (16 words)
✅Point 1a & e – support
✅Points 1b, c & d & Point 3- strongly support
Best wishes,
Wendy
Wendy Blythe,
Chair, FeCRA
Wendy Blythe
Chair, FeCRA
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