Cambridge Airport and North East Cambridge are two major brownfield sites that are proposed for new low-carbon neighbourhoods in the First Proposals for the new Greater Cambridge Local Plan. The current adopted local plans for South Cambridgeshire and Cambridge City identifies the two sites for longer term development beyond 2031.
Historical Context for Cambridge Airport
The Cambridge Airport site is also referred to as Cambridge East. It is one of the sites on the “Edge of Cambridge” of Cambridge. Policy S/6 of the South Cambridgeshire Local Plan 2018 confirms the Area Action Plan for it remains part of the local plan. The Cambridge City local plan 2018 also contains a similar policy.
Details of this allocation are in pages 55 to 57 in Chapter 3 of the South Cambridegshire Local Plan. To save time, see below for a snapshot of part of the policy content
In summary, Cambridge Airport was taken out of the Green Belt in 2006. Furthermore safeguarding was put in place in the 2018 local plan. Developing the site could only happen after the current users/owners Marshall can confirm it will be available.
Current Context for Cambridge Airport
The First Proposals now identifies Cambridge Airport as Cambridge East allocation in the proposed new Local Plan. This follows assurances from the land owners Marshalls of their definite plan to relocate. Marshalls propose to move to Cranfield and vacate the Cambridge site by 2030.
Policy S/CE: Cambridge East that refers to this site is on pages 80 to 84 of the First Proposals Committee Stage document. I direct the reader to page 82 which I reproduce here to help save time.
The planning analysis shows that this site will help set the vision for placemaking in the area. The 2018 Local Plans identified 7000 homes and 9000 jobs for this site. This Local plan is proposing 2,900 of those to be built during the plan period to 2041 and the rest beyond that.
Conclusion
This site is on the Edge of Cambridge and is on the safeguarding list from the current adopted Local Plans of 2018. Prior to that, it was removed from the Green Belt in 2006 specifically for expanding the City. The site fits in well with the strategy to reduce carbon footprint of future developments in the Greater Cambridge Area.
All the documents for the First Proposal are in the document library on the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning website. Please refer to them as the source, rather than rely totally on commentary from third parties.