Lots of people ask why they should bother responding to a Council consultation. After all, it doesn’t make any difference, does it? All those bureaucrats have already made up their minds, and they’ll just steam ahead regardless. I understand the sentiment which is based on past experience with previous local plans. But this time, it is different.
It is different because a few years ago, I was on the opposite side of the plan making, and I felt the same way. I felt that we were not being listened to, that we were not being given sufficient information and it was all too techy! That is why we in this LibDem administration are doing things very differently indeed.
This article by Hana Loftus, our Planning Engagement and Communications Lead published in the Cambridge Independent tells it plainly and clearly.
Well, at the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service, we hate to crush the conspiracy theories, but that’s certainly not the case. There’s so much to gain by listening to what our communities have to tell us, and we make real – and big – changes to our plans as a result. We publish all the responses to our consultations, and we report back on them thoroughly so you can see how they’ve been taken into account. We take your feedback very seriously indeed.
There are plenty of examples of how your feedback and local knowledge, are already shaping the new Local Plan. At our first consultation last year, it was clear from responses that addressing climate change was your top priority for the Plan – and that gave us a lot of confidence to pursue bold new approaches to minimising carbon. We commissioned ground-breaking carbon modelling so we could understand what policy interventions will be most effective at minimising our climate impacts, and we shaped our plan through that evidence. You told us we should be doing more to increase biodiversity and tree planting. We have included policy proposals that demand higher levels of biodiversity improvement than national standards, and which require the planting of new trees.
We have asked Parish Councils and Residents Associations to contribute their local knowledge to our assessment of potential development sites. This gave us a more rounded picture, in some cases reassuring us that we had already made the right call, in other cases challenging our assessments. We also asked local groups to contribute to mapping green spaces with us – literally, drawing the map with us and contributing fine-grain detail to our understanding of the area. We also heard the concerns in your responses to the draft North East Cambridge Area Action Plan consultation last year, about the importance of accessibility to green space and the pressure on Milton Country Park. As a result we have proposed a major new green space initiative to the north of Cambridge, working with Natural England and the Wildlife Trust.
Do you think we’ve got it right? When you see what we think a low-carbon plan looks like – is it what you expected? Would our suggested policies really work, when they come up against habits that are hard to shift? What do we need to do in order to persuade you to cycle instead of drive to work? Would you be happy to live in a spacious flat with a shared garden, instead of a house and garden to yourself, if that was more carbon efficient? Through your feedback, you can give us insights that will help us make better policies, that can be more easily enforced, and are more effective in making great places for all our communities.
Yes, there are parts of planning that are highly technical, and where feedback we get from our community may be outweighed by national policy or other evidence that we must take into account. We’ve proposed what we think about where, and how much, development should take place. But at its most basic, planning is about creating an environment that’s great to live in, and places to live that are also great for the environment. To do this, we need to know what you think a great place really is. What homes, business space, facilities, green spaces should there be at Cambridge East, on the site of the current airport? How should Cambourne develop once it has a train station – what kind of character should it have? This is where your feedback can make a real difference to shaping the way we build for decades to come.
Last week a couple of us planners spent our evening talking to teenagers at a youth club about the future of their area. They were absolutely fantastic – full of ideas, keen to start their own businesses, to learn and travel, to move out of home and into places of their own that they could afford. They wanted affordable business space and better shops but also valued the mental space that comes from having the countryside close at hand. We came away buzzing with ideas – many of them really practical and that could make it into policies very easily – as well as some knotty questions that we need to explore further.
Those young people will be in their 40s – perhaps parents, perhaps successful entrepreneurs – by the time that the development we’re planning now has come to fruition. This Plan is for them and for all of you – so read our First Proposals and tell us if we’ve got them right. We promise to listen carefully.
So, we are looking forward to hearing from you. You will find all you need on the First Proposals pages on our website.
The consultation closes at 5PM on Monday 13th December 2021.