News  »  North East Cambridge Area Action Plan consultation

Local Councils have drafted plans for a new city district in North East Cambridge – which could create 8,000 homes and provide space for 20,000 jobs over the next 20-plus years – and they now want to know what residents and businesses think of the draft plans.

The councils’ vision is for the area between the A14, the Guided Busway and Cambridge North station to be a walkable and lively mix of homes, workplaces, services, and green spaces that is inclusive and fully integrated with surrounding neighbourhoods.

The 20-year vision for the new district

• To be inclusive, with a lively mix of homes, workplaces, services, and social spaces that are fully integrated with surrounding neighbourhoods
• Meeting robust targets for energy use, water conservation and discouraging car use, with developers having to prove they can increase biodiversity
• With a 10-hectare network of new green spaces linking Milton Country Park to Chesterton Fen, and down to Nuffield Road, to encourage active and healthy lifestyles
• For people to be able to easily walk and cycle to work, school or college, local shops and leisure activities – a place where the car is not king, reducing car use and air pollution
• To include 8,000 new homes, with a target of 40 per cent affordable rented and shared ownership homes
• To have space for around 20,000 jobs
• Four new centres within the district for shops, restaurants, community and cultural facilities
• To include three new primary schools
• With 10 new and improved walking/cycling crossings to reduce current barriers to people getting around safely and quickly, such as the A14 and the railway line
• To be an innovative and forward-looking neighbourhood

The draft North East Cambridge Area Action Plan, a planning framework that will guide how development is designed and built, is being published after several years’ work with communities and partners by the Greater Cambridge Planning Service. The draft Area Action Plan draws on consultations in 2014 and 2019 and ongoing, detailed studies on everything from biodiversity to noise and transport, in order to ensure the draft plans can be practically achieved over 20 years.

Regeneration of the area requires the Anglian Water Cambridge Waste Water Treatment Plant to be relocated. The new, relocated facility will continue to provide vital services to Cambridge and the surrounding area in a modern, carbon efficient Waste Water Treatment Plant, which will be developed by Anglian Water in collaboration with the community. A site for the new Waste Water Treatment Plant has not yet been confirmed but this process is subject to its own consultation process currently running this summer, led by Anglian Water.

The Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service is now running a public consultation on the draft Area Action Plan, which is open until 5pm on Monday 5 October 2020. You can read the draft Plan and respond online via their website, by email or by post to Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service, Cambridge City Council, PO Box 700, Cambridge CB1 0JH.