On Thursday 27th June 2013, South Cambridgeshire District Council cabinet approved further public consultation on the draft local development plan that proposes to build up to 3500 homes in a new village at Bourn airfield, 1500 more homes in Cambourne and a new town of 8000 houses in Waterbeach. The consultation is planned to take place over the next few weeks.
As I have written in a previous article, Bourn Airfield was a surprising choice of development site considering the reservations expressed by councillors at Member workshops about the site, and the lack of appetite to create a concrete jungle along the A428 corridor.
This point was made quite robustly to the Cabinet by Cllr Robin Page representing Haslingfield, saying that Bourn had come from highly unlikely to a serious contender in the blink of an eye and against local views, that the plans were against the councils own policies of sustainability and would have a serious effect on the drainage issues of the region particularly his own ward which is downstream of Bourn brook.
In my address to the cabinet, I acknowledged all the hard work that had gone in to putting the plans together, recognising that no matter how much we might not like the content, it still took a lot of time, effort and resources to create such a detailed plan. I registered the collective dismay of Caldecote residents and their objection to the proposal to dump a new village right on their doorstep, flying in the face of the results of the public consultation that took place last summer. To illustrate the point, I read out a comment written by a resident on my blog article, which encapsulated the general feeling in the village. I also asked the cabinet what SCDC would do if the result of the forth coming consultation showed a high level of objection to the proposal at Bourn Airfield. The question was intended to probe just how seriously we should take the often quoted statement of “it is not a done deal”!
Cllr Pippa Corney, the Planning Policy and Localism Portfolio Holder responded by saying that it was too soon to say what the council would do if the result showed overwhelming objection to the proposal.
The Leader, Cllr Ray Manning commented that “I’ve lived in Willingham all my life and have seen a lot of changes take place, it is called progress”, in what I can only call a sarcastic parody of part of the comments I had just read out to the meeting. I felt such a response was insensitive and showed a disdain for local feelings.
There was a lot of discussion about Waterbeach, including representations from its local councillors, with concerns expressed about the choice of site, the low lying nature of it and potential to flooding, the negative impact on the village of not developing the old barracks site earlier in the plan period. There is serious concern that the development of Waterbeach will undermine the build out of Northstowe.
Sawston, which is scheduled to take a lot of new development, also saw representations from Cllrs David Bard and Tony Orgee, both of whom felt that the village was being asked to take on too much new development.
One comment that seems to sum up what residents should expect of the public consultation was made by Deputy Leader Cllr Simon Edwards when he said “we are a listening council, we do listen to residents but don’t always agree with them”. Apparently we feel we are not listened to when we don’t get the outcome that we want. There in lies the rub!
With no assurances given that residents views from the consultation would be taken into account or agreed with, the cabinet voted in favour of allowing the draft plan to go to public consultation. Cllr Nick Wright who has friends in the farming community that would benefit from the plan, was allowed to take part in the vote.
The public consultation on the draft local development plan will now take place from Friday 19th July 2013 to 5pm on Monday 30th September 2013. There will be a series of public exhibitions across the district during the 10-week consultation period.
For more information and to make comments on the proposal, please visit www.scambs.gov.uk/ldf/localplan or email your comments to ldf@scambs.gov.uk or call 03450 450 500.
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