Transcript

Joint Development Control Committee taking place on Wednesday the 23rd of April starting at 10 o'clock. Good morning everyone. My name is Councillor Simon Smith. I am the chair of this committee. I'd like to welcome you to the Joint Development Control Committee meeting taking place at 10am on Wednesday the 23rd of April 2025. Other members of the committee are councillors Flaubert, yes, Paura, present chair, Smart, he's here, and Thornborough, present chair. Representing South Canberts District Council, Councillor Kahn, present chair, Councillor Fain, present, Councillor Garvey, present, and Councillor Richard Williams. We may have, thank you. We may have some late arrivals. I'll introduce them when they arrive. If we start item four and then still not present, they will not be able to participate in that, in the consideration of that planning application. Chair, can I just say I'm standing in for Richard Stobart. So, apologies from Richard Stobart. Thank you. And Councillor Garvey, you are attending as his alternate. Are there any other apologies? Councillor Bajan sent his apologies. Is that recorded? Okay. So, the officers permanently at the table for this meeting are Strategic Sites Manager, Philippa Kelly. Good morning. Legal Advisor, Keith Barber. Good morning. And Producer, Sarah Steed. Committee Manager is also delayed in the traffic. Copies of the agenda can be found on the City Council's website under Committee Meetings, Minutes, and Agendas. Moving on to Agenda Item 2, please, could councillors advise if they have any declarations of interest, and also identify which agenda item their declarations relate to. Councillor Richard Williams. Thank you, Chair. It's 2. On application 4, it's a non-pecuniary interest. I just wanted to note to the committee that a colleague of mine does live in a house place. I've not spoken to him about this application or about anything in the recent past, and obviously I approached this with a completely open mind, but on consultation with the planning lot, I did just want to note that. And then on application 5, even though it's a pre-developer briefing, I assume it's by the university, so I should just note my employment on that one. Any other declarations? I will not be chairing item 4 because I will be making representations. For that, we will need to appoint a chair for that item. So, if you have a nomination, please, for the chair. So, Katie Thornburgh is nominated. Is that acceptable to the committee? I'm sorry to make myself unpopular, Chair, but can I just check, for the purposes of making sure the decision is entirely sound, that that is in accordance with the terms of reference? Because 1.2 does say that if the chair or vice chair are not here, we can appoint somebody else, but if the chair or vice chair are present in the meeting, then they would chair the meeting. So, we're appointing a chair who's not the vice chair. I'm just wanting to clarify that it's compatible with 1.2 of our terms of reference standing orders. Chair, it's my understanding that you're recusing yourself from participating, so we don't have a chair or vice chair that's present to be able to chair the meeting, because Councillor Bradham is not present at the meeting at the moment. Councillor Smith is stepping back. Yeah, sorry, just to clarify. So, I appreciate that. The chair's recusing self, the vice chair isn't here, but presumably we're going to appoint a vice chair as well, and normally what happens is if the chair can't chair, the vice chair chairs. So, if we appoint a vice chair, but we've also appointed a substitute chair who's not the vice chair, that seems a bit uneasily with the standing orders to me. So, there needs to be a representative from South Cam's and from Cambridge City, so if there's any matters arising from the decision, there needs to be a representative from City and South Cam's, so there needs to be representatives from both authorities. Yeah, but it's just, I mean, it's a technical point, and it's the lawyer's advice maybe, it's just that this is compatible with 1.2, as I say, because the standing orders do say if the chair can't chair, the vice chair chairs, and if we've got a vice chair who's not chairing, it just seems to sit oddly with the standing orders to me, but I don't want to cause trouble, but I just want to check it's all defensible and procedurally proper. Yeah, just to come back to Councillor Williams, when the chair stands down, as he's going to do, recuse from item 4, will at that point be without a chair and without a vice chair, because the current vice chair who would take the chair is stuck in traffic and not here. So we do need to appoint a chair and a vice chair purposely for this meeting and this meeting alone. Otherwise, we would need to adjourn the meeting until either the vice chair turns up or fix it for another day, and I would suggest that we appoint a chair for the purpose of this meeting only, so that we don't need to adjourn committee. So that's the standing orders. No, I brought it. Yeah. Yes, we just looked at paragraph 1.2, and it's very clear that we're following the correct procedure. Can we proceed and voice invite a chair for the item 4, please? So does someone have to second that? Katie, is that agreed? As long as the lawyer's happy, I'm happy. So, yes, agreed. That's a very wise position to adopt. Okay. Thank you for your confidence, Councillor. Okay. So, procedurally, once we've done item 3, Councillor Poehler will take the chair. Thorneborough. Thorneborough. Thorneborough. Okay. Councillor Thorneborough will take the chair, and she will then seek a nomination for the vice chair. Okay. All right. In the event of Councillor Bradman, well, she can't really take the chair then, can she? She won't be able to take the chair, but she comes in halfway through. So, Councillor Thorneborough will chair that entire agenda item. Okay. Thank you. So, just to end agenda item 3, the 26th of February 2025 and 19th of March 2025 minutes have been submitted to this meeting for approval. Can those minutes be signed as a correct record? Thank you. I would abstain because I wasn't at the meeting. Thank you. Okay. So, um. Hello, committee. I'm, uh, Councillor Katie Thorneborough, um, acting chair for this item. The first thing we need to do before we start this item is to select a vice chair for, for this item. Uh, I'm a Labour councillor, so we, we should find, uh, South Cambridgeshire district councillor to be vice chair. Do we have any nominations? Chair, can I nominate Councillor Martin Kahn to be vice chair? Do we, do we have a seconder for Councillor Kahn? Um, thank you councillor, um, thank you councillor Williams, um, thank you councillor Kahn for, um, taking this position. So, now could, um, John Shuttlewood, the case officer, please introduce this report. My help, thank you very much, Chair. Good morning, everybody. Uh, John Shuttlewood, principal planning officer here at the Greater Cambridge Share Planning Service. Uh, this application, uh, for you today, is 2304643 Outline, former National Institute of Agricultural Botany Sites, Huntington Road in Cambridge. The application originally, uh, was submitted in December 2023. Since then, we, in this room, has had two closed, uh, member briefings. We have had, last week, uh, a member site visit, uh, made. Uh, there is one report before you and, uh, one drawing pack as well. And, as well as my presentation, which I will keep brief today, I promise. Uh, there's also, uh, public speakers, members, you will hear from today, uh, the applicants. You will also hear from, uh, a representative on the residence of House Place. And, you would also hear from representations from awards councillor as well. Can we just adjourn for a minute? I think councillor Toomey Hawkins has arrived, um, and we've only literally had a very brief introduction from the case officer, but, uh, but for you to be able to take part in the, this item, we'll ask the case officer to start again. Thank you. Apologies, chair. Traffic on my daily rights was awful. Uh, for you, chair, thank you very much, and once again, good morning, everybody, and a special warm welcome to Toomey Hawkins, councillor, thank you very much for being here, and taking that extra special, um, uh, effort to get through the traffic, and just giving you just some time to get yourself ready there. So, this, uh, application came in December 2023. Uh, we have had two closed member briefings regarding this application, a site visit last week, one report in front of you. Uh, drawing pack, uh, we've got public speakers today from the applicants, the residents of Howell's Place, and a representation from a ward councillor. For proposal, an outline application for layout, scale, and access, for the demolition of all site buildings, bar chapter house, an erection of buildings for a lab office campus space, class E and G, and associated facilities, a cafe associated, associated access, and car and cycle parking, and then also revised access, and refuge storage for retained chapter house, with some matters reserved except for scale layouts and access, so the reserved matters are appearance and landscaping, which come forward in due course. Let's have a look at location, let's have a look at location, but we know so well, that is, uh, the north thing there, and this is, uh, the site, uh, it's the former NIAB site, it is in Castle Ward, within the Cambridge City Boundaries. Let's give a bit more information and have a look at different scale, here is the site location we have, as you can see, the site is bordered around by the residential development of the larger Darwin Green, one site around it on Lawrence Weaver Road, uh, uh, Yetton Thalmuth Avenue and Thalmuth Close, you have, uh, another NIAB site, which they, uh, moved out, which they moved into, and have since moved out of, uh, just to the west, and you also have the conservation area of House Place, and, uh, you'll also be aware that the conservation area also goes into the site, and includes the listed building of interest, which is just obtained. Here's a site photo, so for the benefit of the people who are members who were not at the site visit last week, this gives you a flavour of what views you missed out on, so this is not a fish eye lens, just for a clarity, this is actually three photos put together, just to try and give you an opinion. This is looking from Lawrence Weaver Road towards House Place, so you can have the 1950s office building on the right-hand side of the photo for demolition, there are then a couple of properties relating to House Place at number 14 and 15 that are due for demolition, with a loss of two residential properties, you then have, uh, an avenue of bleach lime trees, which is a feature of the conservation area, you can see the rooftops in the right-hand side of the photo, so you can see how, uh, the site dips down towards the north, and towards where Darwin Green's site is. That's a closer look towards Darwin Green, and that's again looking towards House Place. Now, the site is, uh, Northern Scrubland in part, and, uh, it's part of the mixed-use residential allocation, uh, but it's outside the Darwin Green, uh, application, so it's not held to any design parameters that belong to that planning application. The southern side is on the Brownfield Register and holds Chapter House, which is currently used as private rented accommodation, uh, we also have the aforementioned 1950s office building proposed for demolition, and you can also keep, you see, car parks, parking, and the two residential properties there. The land slopes down towards the north, as I've said, uh, towards the island green, or depends on your orientation, up towards Huntingdon Road. Let's have a look at House Place. This is the conservation area. Uh, there was a question arose last week asking to confirm whether Chapter House is within the conservation area. Well, this map is from the approach, from the appraisal, uh, and you can see the conservation area highlighted in green. Chapter House is the, uh, building there, uh, on the bottom left-hand picture of the conservation area. And there is a photo of House Green, uh, House Place Green, showing some, uh, of the trees that you have there. Uh, this is a view from Google, the most recent one. There's quite few online, going back to 2016. Uh, that shows you the, uh, one of the key features is the avenues of Cleach Lime Trees, and the road junction with Huntingdon Road, and the bus stop that serves the city centre to look. Okay, we'll just have a quick look at the proposal and the proposed site plan. So it's the demolition of the 1950s building, the erection of four buildings for lab and office space, toasting approximately new thirty-one and a half thousand square meter of office space. We're going to call these as a four blocks, blocks A, B, C, and D. We're in block D there's associated cafe facilities. Uh, there's also, uh, the application for access car and cycle parking. We also have revised access and parking for chapter house. And remember today we're only looking for access scale and layout. Appearance and landscape has the opportunity to be achieved at reserve matters in the future. Cycle connections. This is something that came out from, uh, the planning history. Obviously we have, uh, the prior approval of chapter house, uh, for the, uh, prior, for the rented accommodation. Uh, at that point there was a condition put on whereby considering how Darwin Green to the north and west is going to be developed. Uh, the consultees asked for more cycle, uh, entrances into the site. Uh, as such, uh, there are now five points of entry proposed from Lawrence Weaver Road to conserve, serve the commercial elements. Blocks A to D in relation to this scheme. Let's remind ourselves of typical floor plans for blocks. This is block A. This is, uh, square and boxy. And, uh, you can see, uh, basement parking. And then you have ground floor to allow for access. First and second floors for lab space. And then a recessed fourth floor containing plant, uh, and various other facilities. Block B is slightly different from A, C and D. In fact, it is rectangular in nature. And you can also on the ground floor, you can then see, uh, on the left hand side that there is, uh, area where it is holds the cafe. Moving on to block A elevations, uh, typical elevations here. These plans give an idea of scale and shape with full appearance details to be captured at reserve matter stage along with landscaping. Uh, unlike the previous application for the approved, uh, apart hotel and built-to-rent residential scheme. There has not been any pre-application discussion with consultees such as urban design. And this is mentioned in the design section of the reports. There's what B, C and D elevations there. Onto the street scene and sections. And sections. These show uniform scale and shape and massing of the four buildings alongside chapter house. Uh, the residential nature of Lawrence Weaver Road. The Darwin Green development properties to north and south. And house place. Now, before we just go on to, uh, the comparative, uh, slides for you to have a look at. Um, due to the, uh, timing of the committee over recently, there unfortunately wasn't a opportunity to submit a formal amendment sheet. There have been some comments that have come in, uh, and, uh, these have been agreed to be captured by me leaving them out. Uh, now, uh, so first of all, some, uh, just brief comments, uh, from the applicants. Who said having read the report, uh, they would like following to be confirmed in paragraph 4.4 of your reports. Um, but they would say that the amendments, uh, made during the course of the application include the stepping back of the upper stories. The blocks B, C and D to address comments provided by residents of house place. Uh, in paragraph 8.2 regarding the second bullet point. Um, they say that this should include the comment from residents of house place. That the proposed reduction in scale of mass in the block A is welcomed when compared to the consented to part hotel building. And then paragraph 8.4. This should include reference to support from Cambridge past, future, and present. Who notes support through the revised application for the redevelopment of the site. In that it proposes buildings which are lower and provide more space to adjacent neighbours, for the extent permission. And then paragraph 13.24. We would suggest that it can be noted here that the separation distance between building D and the northern boundary has increased on average 1.7 metres further from the boundary compared to the extent extent consent. And the extent consent is of course the fallback position. Uh, that is a material consideration in this application. So the extent consent is the apart hotel and bill to rent residential scheme. That has been previously approved here by this committee. Okay, and then I'll just move on in fairness to the comments that have been received by the residents of house place. Uh, which I understand will be able to the attention to committee shortly by Neil Gillian. And they point out that correction to details within paragraph 2.2, which should read the former NIAB headquarters building, has been converted into 68 new dwelling units under the prior approval scheme rather than 94 units. And I'm happy to make that correction and clarification. And then paragraphs 2.5 and 15.3 refer to individual TPO trees in house place, whereby the only TPO tree is actually the mulby tree on the green, which we saw last week during the member visit. This incidentally was planted by Queen Mary in 1921. Okay, we have also had a final separate representation from the resident and found as close, objecting to the location of two additional substations. Uh, now this has actually been addressed through conditions 12 and 41 that relate to noise and locations of these, uh, stations. I would just state that, um, in my opinion, having read through condition 41 proposed wording, but, uh, it needs some clarification and a rejigging of the word slightly to, uh, to include location. Uh, and this, I believe, could be, uh, secured by approval of chair and vice chair in future, if the matter so was required. Okay, thank you very much for just going through those. Uh, just let you know that we do have some comparative site plans with the extent, extent consent 21-03-6-09, uh, which was for the apart hotel and, uh, for the residential properties. Uh, and obviously these were of a different site design, if you remembered. Uh, and they were set out differently. And, uh, what has basically happened is that the buildings which are nearer to the residential properties, which is, uh, to House Place and to Falmouth Close and Blymouth Close have aptly rejigged. So what you'll now have the four commercial lab space blocks, uh, set further back, uh, in parts, and they are also considered to be within the height scale of the original application, which is the full back permission. This is a scale here provided that is available on the public, uh, portal submitted by the applicants that show the comparison between the proposal and between, uh, the extent consent and what has already been granted. Just to show, so the extent consent, remember, basically sets the parameters of the standard, but what has previously been approved at this committee we must consider. And here is a comparative elevations facing House Place of the extent application and then the proposal and then, uh, a meshing of the two together so you get an idea of the differences between the two schemes being brought forward. Uh, finally, onto the planning balance. So this is the judgment. It's a tight one. So the officer recommendation is for approval. Uh, on the plus side, there are moderate economic benefits from the construction jobs being created and the post-occupation of the lab and office space. And also from the section 106 planning obligation contributions towards bus service improvements serving the site. There are also moderate social benefits considered from the cafe that will be located on site. And there are moderate environmental benefits from the development of the brownfield site that we currently have with a potential propensity for future sustainability measures and ecological enhancements. Uh, on the, uh, refusal side, you could look at the, uh, what we have considered to be the less than substantial harm to the house place conservation area character and appearance, including the local building of interest, uh, chapter house. And there also, we have the loss of two residential properties as well, which would normally, uh, be, uh, against, uh, policy free, I believe, of the Cambridge local plan. Uh, however, um, it is also balanced against, uh, the 31,000, uh, potential square, uh, lab space that will be created from that. Okay. For the moment, that is, uh, the end of my presentation. Very, thank you very much chair. Thank you very much, John. Uh, we now turn to public speakers. We have, uh, one objector to speak, um, Neil Jenyon. Would you like to come to the seat over there? If you can turn your mic on and make sure it's working. It's the right hand button. Yeah. Okay. Mr. Jenyon, you have three minutes to, if you continue at that point, I'll, I'll interrupt you. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, chair. Uh, good morning, everybody. And before I, before I start, uh, the representations, I'd just like to confirm that I'm making these representations on behalf of the residents of house place. In our letter to you all on the 13th of April, we provided photographs, which illustrate and support these representations. House place and the former NIAB building, now known as chapter house, are within the designated house place conservation area. The proposed use of the development site as an office and laboratory campus is preferred by residents of house place when compared to the uses provided under the extent planning permission. The proposed use is consistent with the previous use of the site by NIAB. We note, however, from the officer's report that the proposed development would cause less than substantial harm to the house place conservation area. So in other words, not substantial harm, but still harm. In the event that you are minded to approve this planning application. The residents of house place have proposed the inclusion of two additional planning conditions, which would go some way to ameliorating this harm and to significantly improving highway safety. The first planning condition would require Lawrence Weaver Road to be established as the main access to chapter house, and require the access to chapter house from house place to be reverted back to its former use by pedestrians and emergency vehicles only. The access from house place was established as the main entrance to chapter house as part of the permitted development completed in 2022 to convert the former NIAB office building into 68 residential dwellings. This resulted in harm to the special Arcadian character and amenity of the house place conservation area through the unilateral introduction of unsympathetic features, such as palisade fencing along house place, mock cobbles up to the house place carriageway, and parcel and post lockers for use by chapter house residents. Moreover, the establishment of house place as the main entrance to chapter house increased the number of residential dwellings being accessed from house place by over 350%, and resulted in a significant increase in the use of house place by parcel delivery vans, supermarket delivery vehicles, taxis, food delivery two-wheelers, et cetera, et cetera. House place is unsuitable for high volumes of vehicle and cycle movements, due to it being narrow, unlit, poorly constructed, and an unadopted highway. The second planning condition would require the removal of the redundant access points between house place and the development site, the introduction of clear and continuous segregation between house place and the development site, and the provision of infill planting of bleach lime trees, hedges, and grass verges along house place in a manner consistent with the formal landscaping of house place. So to sum up, the planning application being reviewed by you today provides directly from Lawrence Weaver Road sufficient and safe access and egress for vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians accessing chapter house, together with sufficient car parking and cycle parking for all chapter house residents and visitors. In the event that you are minded to approve this planning application, we implore you to include the two additional planning conditions proposed by the residents of house place, in the interests of preserving and enhancing the special Arcadian character and amenity of the house place conservation area, and significantly improving highway safety. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jenny. We now have two represent, the applicant's representative, Mr. Paul Harney, and also Paul Watson, the agent. Now you to share three minutes, but you have, because the last speaker went on a bit, you'll have an additional 46 seconds. So. Thank you, Jack. I think I'm going to speak to Mr. Arley here. And if you have a comment or not, is it a further item? Whatever you're most comfortable with. Yeah, thank you. So you need to turn your microphone on. thank you thank you so good morning chair and members of the committee for over a hundred years this part of Cambridge and the site itself has been at the center of world-leading plant science research and development this application proposes new state-of-the-art facilities that would further support and complement these existing uses NIAB and the Crop Science Centre lie opposite also on Lawrence Weaver Road which as members of the committee may be aware was named after it's Lawrence Weaver the founder of NIAB both organizations were included in the applicants initial stakeholder consultation and have confirmed that they would benefit from working in collaboration with future occupiers of this site and from the plant science and agritech cluster that would be created it is a strategic objective of the council has set out in policy two of the local plan to build on existing strengths in knowledge-based activities this application responds directly to that objective the site lies in a highly sustainable location in the existing urban area and within a reasonable walk or very easy cycle of the town center city center I should say the use would provide good quality jobs close to an existing and expanding residential population increasing the potential for people to live close to where they work and so minimize unnecessary car journeys the proposal would complement the uses and facilities already being delivered elsewhere within the wider Darwin green and Eddington communities the council's urban design team have raised some concerns commenting that the proposed buildings would appear boxy a preference has been expressed for a finer grain design similar in appearance to the previously approved and extend part hotel and build to rent residential scheme at the site this is however a rather not however a residential proposal the buildings need to accommodate the use in an efficient and sustainable manner the interiors must be sufficiently flexible to cater for the differing needs of this and the size of future occupiers that does not of course mean the building should be of a poor design quality the proposed external appearance and landscape in the buildings are matters that are reserved for future consideration the applicant intends to work closely with the officers to develop facade designs that will include variation in depth and utilize high quality materials appropriate for the location and the intended use the proposal has been amended during the course of the application responding to comments received from statutory consultees and local residents and as you've heard from the previous speaker this morning comments provided from neighbors have been very balanced however a clear preference has been expressed for this proposal over the extent to part hotel and build to rent scheme as it reduces the apparent scale and massing the buildings in views from house place so in overall summary we do hope the committee will feel able to support the office's recommendation of approval and of course if you do have any questions myself and mr harney are happy to try and answer them thank you um thank you mr watson uh thank you for your offer of to answer questions but we don't normally um allow that but i'd just like to thank mr harney for coming to the meeting thank you now we have uh two ward councillors first we have uh councillor cheney payne who is unable to be here but there is a statement to be read out on her behalf this letter is to state my position regarding the application i offer my apologies for not being able to attend this meeting in person my employment as a secondary school teacher makes this impossible my thanks to the chair for allowing this letter to be read out i support the redevelopment of the site and look forward to seeing this area be used more productively for our growing city however the unique nature of this area alongside the house place conservation area means this must be handled sensitively and thus i strongly support the proposed conditions put forward by the residents of house place throughout the planning process they have sought to engage constructively and thoughtfully with the plan development and i trust they will be shown the same courtesy by jdcc in turn the first condition to establish lawrence weaver road is the main access to chapter house for all but pedestrians and emergency vehicles house place is a private narrow road where turning of vehicles or passing is impossible and therefore in order to ensure safety for existing and new residents it is important to support excuse me it it is impossible and therefore in order to ensure safety for existing and new residents it is important that house place does not become a vehicular access road this includes relocating the cycle parking to the northwest of chapter house so that cyclists and cars accessing house place do not enter into conflict as the road is too narrow for this to be safe the second is for the access points between house place and the former site to be removed this is partly for similar safety reasons but also to allow for further planning of the bleached lime trees which house place is so well known for as the character of the area changes the landscaping plan for this redevelopment should ensure that the character of house place is preserved as per its conservation area status thank you for the time to deliberate this proposal today and i hope these conditions will be supported by the committee um thank you very much for that statement we now have councillor simon smith who's another ward councillor who's here and will um make a presentation there i mean make a comment statement now thank thank you chair i'm making um representations on behalf of house place conservation area and the residents of house place and darwin green the applicant has chosen not to went into a planning performance agreement and make a pre-planning application uh presentation to this committee committee and this is limited opportunities for the officers and the committee to promote positive planning which leads to better development outcomes in this context i'll be making positive planning proposals for consideration if the committee is minded to approve the application so the first matter concerns house place and it's an opportunity to make a positive contribution house place is not just a masterpiece of post-world war one place making it sets a standard that few developments of today can match the architect realized the founding philanthropists vision to create an arcadian haven after the death and destruction of world war one by combining a symmetrical linear layout of of housing with parallel rows of bleach lines with shared back gardens laundry and heat network unfortunately due to the failure to ground conservation area status in 2010 house place was left unprotected by policy when the build to rent an apart hotel of application was determined in february 2024 following conservation designation in june 2024 the area now has relevant protection but only if the committee applies them the house place conservation area appraisal notes the area is at risk of losing its special character through cumulative impact of minor changes in addition the appraisal warns the building and landscape are potentially at risk of unsympathetic change in converting the former niab headquarters into 68 new dwellings the developer introduced unsympathetic features such as the palisade fencing longhouse place to provide a cycle park post boxes and parcel lockers and mock cobbles to provide a vehicle access turning point for the resulting delivery traffic to this the proposal adds further harm as described at 14.16 as less than substantial harm it's still harm in recommendation two of the report invites other other relevant planning obligations necessary to make the proposal acceptable acceptable in planning terms so here's one simple condition obligation that reads the development should not be occupied until all post boxes and parcel lockers are relocated to lawrence weaver road access and palace fencing removed reason to make a positive contribution to the character of the conservation area in accordance with national planning policy framework 2024 paris 212-201c and cambridge local plan 2018 policy 61 this measure is justified on these very strong policy grounds so para 212 with the national planning policy framework when considering the impact of proposed development on the significance of a designated heritage asset great weight should be given to the assets conservation great weight should be given and the more important the asset the greater the weight should be this is irrespective of whether any potential harm amounts to substantial harm total loss or less than substantial harm to its significance national planning policy framework national planning policy framework power 210c in determining applications local planning authorities should take account of the desirability of new development making a positive contribution to local character and distinctiveness and cambridge local plan 2018 policy 61 states to ensure the conservation enhancement of cambridge's historic environment proposals should preserve or enhance the significance of the heritage assets of the city their setting and the wider townscape preserve or enhance are the key words here the case officers reported he could not address the question of highway safety in respect of house place as highways was silent on the issue the reason for this is that house place is unadopted and not public highway however mr gennion his representations gave a full description of the inadequacy of the junction and sight lines with huntington road and the committee therefore may consider adding a second reason for this condition to to prevent conflicts between pedestrians and cyclists delivery vehicles in the interest of highway safety in accordance with national planning policy framework 20 24 paras 116 117 in cambridge local plan policy 80 landscape for place making and heritage the report at section 1.8 notes that landscape is a reserve matter and a high quality landscape and a high quality landscape can be secured which would provide environmental benefits the committee may consider the opportunity this affords to provide heritage benefits and the objections raised by the conservation landscape and tree officers and urban design team reported at pages 23 25 and 26 of the report underline this so in place of waiting for reserve matters proposal the committee may consider inviting the officers to bring forward landscape design guidance to secure a better landscaping outcome that would otherwise be brought forward such guidance to incorporate key heritage elements to the removal of the redundant access points between house place and the former niab site infill planting the bleach lime trees hedges and grass verges along house place in a manner consistent with the formal landscaping of house place and the reason to be consistent with the landscaping principles established under caution condition 43 of the extant planning permission 21 036 09 full and to make a positive contribution to the local character and distinctiveness of house place conservation area and preserve and enhance how the house place conservation area policies paragraphs 2 1 2 2 1 10 c of the national planning policy framework and policy 61 of the cambridge local plan the case officers referred to condition 41 the electricity substations protecting residential amenity substations are sources of noise and vibration and electric and magnetic radiation and environmental risks notably fire and soil water pollution from oil leaks and to protect residential amenity the following amendment is proposed prior to commencement of development alternative sites for the electricity substations are shown here as shown in yellow on the drawing lwr202 rev whatever it says ground floor and site plan shall be submitted and approved in writing by the local planning authority and the substation shall be installed and retained in accordance with the approved uh details there are relevant reasons set out in the report in front of you i'd like to thank the applicant for acceding to this amendment amended that condition if the um committee is minded to promote it sustainable transport safe cycling routes and storage the plan on page 15 of the drawing pack which you may wish to refer to shows a cycle store to the north of the chapter house facing lawrence weaver road you will see that cyclists wanting to turn right from lawrence weaver road into the access shown in brown could not do so due to the central reservation to make this access work would require a planning contribution to make a route across the segregation lane and a suitable access across the footway verge on the house green side of lawrence weaver road such a condition would provide a solution to the time limited and unimplemented conditions for permanent pedestrian and cycle linkages and cycle parking facilities for chapter house with access via lawrence weaver road which are in breach of prior approval 20 o-1-5-0-1 p-r-1-0-3-0 and the reason in the interest of encouraging sustainable travel to and from the site in accordance with cambridge local plan policies 1881 i'm at the end now you'll be pleased to hear travel plans for buses the site is poorly served by bus services and the committee may wish to encourage the applicants to engage with the university of cambridge as promoter of the universal bus service and the cpca which is promoting an orbital bus service and the relevant bus operators the investigation and installation of waiting restriction to control parking zones needs to note that roads in darwin green are unadopted thank you for your indulgence and the same chair thank you thank you councillor smith um we now move on to members questions and so let's listen carefully to each other and try not to repeat questions made by previous councillors um but we can we can i note that there have been some some points raised by the objector and also the two councillors but i'll see how those are picked up by members now and if necessarily i'll come in on those points to make sure they're addressed we'll start with martin smart and then we'll go to to me hawkins thanks chair thanks to the speakers um uh so made a few notes let's go through so a note no pre-app disappointing speculative development i'm not convinced about the biolabs argument uh previously we had accommodation for resident you know people to live in um biolabs a very popular thing at the moment the fact that this the site was used in the past for that a similar purpose i don't think it's about that um in terms of the mppf and presumption in favor at 1.5 1.6 and 1.8 so i note that 1.5 gives only moderate economic benefits 1.6 is mixed um advantage from the calf which is not a big thing in my mind and moderate weight afforded to benefits in conclusion and um 1.6 loss of two residential properties um 1.8 also uh i'm getting a bit confused here actually so 1.8 the scheme will bring about moderate environmental benefits so not a lot and 1.7 was the one is not in those three but also noted separately um in terms of design layout and scale neutral weight so um going on uh objections from consultees conservation officer 7.5 to 7.7 less substantial harm to heritage assets i think that's quite significant also note that seven point uh the landscape officer is 7.16 to 7.18 especially 7.17 where the landscape officer lays out an argument which i find quite um strong uh in terms of the problems with the problems with this application also tree officer 7.23 7.24 also finally urban design team 7.25 to 7.30 to paraphrase all of that significant urban design failings in this application in conclusion um i find the scheme poor and not good enough for this site i'm especially concerned about the damage to the heritage assets as has been laid out by others so at the moment i won't be voting in favor of the scheme and yes i hear substantial arguments to the contrary by other members i think thank you councillor smart account there's no question in that statement well um no i think as you know we often make rhetorical statements and that was that thank you we have uh councillor hawkins then councillor richard williams then councillor porra and then councillor carl all right thank you chair i will ask questions um first of all it is disappointing that the applicant did not engage with officers i think i will always say this you should this is very disappointing whatever the outcome of this um discussion is today uh perhaps um i will ask why did the applicant not engage in uh pre-op discussions secondly um thank you obviously for the site visit that we had um definitely very uh insightful listening to uh the residents of house um place if i'm right um the proposed conditions have this been discussed with the applicant i think i heard um councillor simon smith say something about applicants agreeing to something but i wasn't clear what it was if you can clarify that please thank you before we go i think we'll take two two more um members if you don't mind um the case officer john and then we'll come back yeah so we'll have um richard williams thank you chair actually my question follows on from that and that is a question about the suggested condition from the residents about moving the access to chapter house i wanted to get clarification from officers that it was possible for us to do that i know it's within the red line boundary but given it in a sense is a separate development i would welcome some clarification on the extent to which we are able to impose that condition thank you and councillor porra thank you and i was about to ask what councillor williams has just asked because it's unclear um again it is really disappointing about the lack of pre-op you know there are some really positive things here you've got good water reuse those kind of things are positive there's fewer trees removed but it i feel it could have come forward with a lot of these uh sharp edges knocked back a bit if if the applicant engage with pre-op and i would certainly urge them to consider that for reserve matters because i think a lot of the issues relate to the kind of potential boxiness of the massing so i wanted to ask the officer obviously you say in the report that under reserves matters we will have some control over the kind of the final design of these blocks how confident are you that that can come forward in an acceptable way because i must admit my confidence is slightly dented by the lack of pre-op because i have to say this committee we have some real successes where applicants have been through pre-op and we've had a chance to discuss this before it comes to position where it's on a table and we don't have a choice um i wanted to ask about as i always do cargo bike parking i don't think it's mentioned in the report and things like in the cafe whether the applicant is considering a changes places toilet or at least hopefully a disabled accessible toilet and a feeding room perhaps um i wanted to ask the officer how much weight does the recent conservation area designation give us particularly i think in relation to that question around chapter house and the impact of deliveries that obviously we probably couldn't give quite so much weight to when it wasn't the conservation area but obviously this is a new application isn't it so i'd be grateful if the officer could give us some guidance about the kind of weight particularly with relation to the issues raised by house place um and i think um sorry councillor simonsmith said that it was the substation condition that was already agreed but again if you could clarify that that would be really helpful thank you um john we'll hand over to you now thanks thank you very much chair for for you and thank you uh members for your questions there's quite a lot of them uh i will do my very best to help clarify uh the inquiries that you have um start with councillor tommy hawkins okay so um your comments are noted about pre-apps uh obviously uh at the committee you're used to having major schemes coming towards with higher design aspirations and this you may feel has not met that normal higher benchmark on this particular occasion and naturally you feel somewhat disappointed from that uh of course we have to remember that it's not a statutory requirement to engage with the greater planning service we have a fantastic urban design and conservation officers uh with excellent comments that they can make to help improve schemes and add value to the schemes in terms of land value and also the benefits that it gives to our communities um but yeah just to point out that it's not just actually uh given uh why did the appellant not engage uh well uh it's been in since december 2023 with me so the appellant the applicant has uh engaged to a certain extent with ourselves and with the residents of house place as well i i understand and so amendments have been made but i cannot give you a reason why the applicant did not engage in a pre-application there all i can say is that they previously engaged during the pre-app uh for the apart hotel and for the bill to rent scheme and they considered that the information uh gleamed that that in those uh schemes uh were considered enough to basically rely on the fallback position where this application largely relies on and so they are using the parameters of the parameters of the scale uh of the previous permission that basically hold all us up to respect a certain level of development on that site and that is worth remembering that in this case um so uh the applicants uh there's a question about applicants regarding uh agreement of conditions well it's due course that pre-commencement conditions always gone through uh with the applicants and they're actually sent a list of all the draft conditions uh on an email for their for their perusal as well and so actually some comments have been made on the pre-commencement conditions so councillor hawkins i think you need to one one minute your mic is not on yet so do you want to repeat your question sorry i was referring to the uh the suggested conditions from the residence do you want me to do do you want reminding about what they they asked they asked the tube base moving and uh removing redundant access on house please is the councillor asking me just to comment on those proposed conditions that have been put forward i'm asking if the applicant has seen those if it has been discussed with them and what what they think about it if it's possible to do so you're asking if the applicant has seen the proposed matters from the residence i am no uh there is a uh i'm getting a shake of the head uh from the applicant uh i'm not getting a real smile from the uh representation of the residents so that's all i can say on that matter councillor hawkins uh thank you john um so if we just move on to councillor richard williams uh there is a he's obviously concerned along with character support regarding the condition to change uh the access uh that is a something to be honest i have been grappling with throughout this application it's not in the active written description of the scheme uh and so the question asks is it is it an active description of what's been proposed uh we also have to remember that there has been historically an existing access of some sorts between chapter house and house place and the question is whether um uh the proposals to basically shore up that access which has been there and basically take down the parasite fencing that has been introduced in the cobbles up one for zooms and the cut and the cycle parking and put them on to the western part whether that can be achieved or not um what i would say with regards to that is that in my opinion it's not it's not relevant to this scheme because that's up for debate today simply because this is an existing arrangement it's not something that's been proposed and actually it's historically been there you can go on google street and see it for yourselves i'd also um take the opportunity now to basically talk about highway safety and basically the representations made regarding whether the introduction of the post boxes at that location and any additional traffic feeding those uh boxes uh what harm they call to highway safety um the question is well look at the previous apartment application first of all you actually did give plan commission for vehicular access to to serve the apart hotel down house place a bit of correct on that you also have the existing traffic serving the residents of house place as well and obviously you have the traffic movements up and down there you have visit the parking you have the residents of house place a very own delivery drivers themselves turning up and home shopping deliveries as well and so there's already existing traffic flows up and down and so the question is you know what what additional highway safety element or harm is there as i'm not a highways uh consultant so i couldn't tell you i've not sat outside in my car for any period of time you've had representations for the residents of house base saying there has been an increase but i'm unable to quantify what increased areas as part of this report today also councillor poor talks about the final design and uh what certainty can there be that good design will come forward and will prevail as part of any reserve matters uh the answer is is only again only an aspiration we ideally we would bet again ask uh the applicant for the reserve matters whoever it may be first of all i would ask them to come forward and engage in pre-application advice at reserve matters stage and see following the comments made at this committee today whether this would be something they would uh consider uh but ultimately i don't have a crystal ball castle report so i can't tell um um i don't have precise details of for the cargo uh bike parking uh for all um but yeah but there there are internal cycle stores in blocks b c and d and they and i'm sure they could be internally configured so that uh you could fit cargo bikes uh within those stores uh i hope that would be uh acceptable uh but there's no level detail in front of me to to show uh there's also a question about accessible spaces in a cafe area again it's incredibly there's a disabled toilet with changing facilities i understand uh in that area um so if that answers your question uh then the weight of the conservation area or appraisal now we must remember that the conservation area was approved in early 2024 this application came in december 2023 so that time would have can doubt but the appraisal does actually talk about issues about the current application that has been put put forward and i think you have to ask the question that yourselves today does this application is it a better scheme regarding house place than the one that has been previously approved the apart hotel i think that's something that you have to ask yourself in relation to that um and there's also a question about the substation naturally um uh i'm i'm happy uh for wordings of a substation condition to come forward that secures uh a suitable location for the two additional substations uh that are suitable uh to all parties concerned thank you john i think um the development manager philip kelly wants to make a comment thank you chair i just wanted to uh make a couple of points of clarification further to john's um very thorough responses to those member questions firstly on the matter of pre-app just to uh observe that one high-level meeting to discuss the principle of this development was engaged with with the applicant further engagement through the ppa process was encouraged at that meeting so the detail of the development could be discussed in more detail prior to submission but that offer wasn't taken up by the applicant the applicant preferred instead to rely upon the fallback of the consented scheme which john has explained um an observation about the proposed condition one um from the residents if i may please so the proposed condition to establish lawrence weaver road as the main access to chapter house and to limit access to chapter house via house place i just wanted to give some context in terms of how we apply our planning conditions the nppf advises that local planning authorities should consider the use of planning conditions to make unacceptable development acceptable but the access situation to chapter house is an existing situation and it's difficult to see how it would be reasonable to secure this condition through this development proposal because it wouldn't fairly or reasonably relate to the development to be permitted so i hope that helps in in understanding the context thank you thank you very much now we have martin come um i just wanted to uh set up the thing that worries me is to know exactly what is fixed in this outline application because it's more than just a you know a site you've got some additional features which seem to be fixed uh and some matters which are obviously will be a that would by reserve matters um so i i really want some clarity in terms of the buildings how much is fixed and how much is actually available to change during the late to reserve matters because i'm not i'm not really clear about that in terms and the same in the landscaping uh uh and so on and the second matter i would like some clarity on uh it's probably not uh i don't know how much it affects the decision but i just thought it's useful to know um to what extent is the use of the site an existing use and uh and therefore would not require planning permission uh and how much is does it actually require planning permission for the change of use uh rather than the buildings that you're building uh we don't have any other hands at the moment so you could go to john for those thank you very much chair okay thank you for your comments uh councillor carl any questions okay fixed let's have a look at innovation very very quickly so in terms of what is fixed you have the layout so you have the four blocks as it were and remember four blocks so in terms of design that's basically fixed you've got the layout so you have the road going from lawrence weaver road down the middle and then splitting to the north and to the south serving the blocks and chapter house so the road will be fixed and then also you have the access points you have the vehicle access point from lawrence weaver road you also have uh the five cycle points from lawrence weaver road as well uh you've got the use still of chapter house uh and the retention of it you have the demolition that is fixed in the scheme um and then planning permission i mean traditionally it is a um basically office lab uh space and we've got previous planning permissions back in uh 2000s like for permissions to be used historically it's been used uh as a kind of an agri-tech site it is the national institute of agricultural bottomy and so that is that element on there of of the existing use on there but you have uh all over the time period of time you have the different use classes that have been changed descriptions uh and so the office and lab space is now now class e so that's what what that's what they're applying for and there are basically it's what they're applying for is four big boxes in effect of lab and office space there is no end user so we are not saying that no have you been moving we're not going to say the university of cambridge you're going to move in we're not going to say but astrazeneca or anything else might be moving at the moment there's no end user defined for it at the moment we just have four spaces that can be used as office or lab space and you've got generic generic use classes proposed there yeah i mean the only other thing i would add is obviously regarding the scale looking at is the innovations uh fixed in terms of height as well so they can't come along with this application uh and then so you know we can build eight or nine stories because it's fixed at three but the design of the elevation is still open to complete completely change in terms of within the four height and the square and the site and the the area covered um what what what could be built could be completely designed uh in the in the later stages the the thing that you've got is only sort of an imagination rather than a fixed is that that's right is it uh yeah so it's appearance and mainly you know to be honest materials so you know glass perhaps you know people like their office blocks to be lab spaces to be glass don't they want to see them in places or timber clad um it will not look or shouldn't look like a bunch of residential properties simply because of the ceiling to height floors the higher for the general uh normal modern day house would be hold on can you councillor smart is there a reason councillor smart so what's that chair i was wondering why you had left your seat i i just wanted to check something with the legal officer can i i note that councillor bradman is here i'm afraid you've you weren't able to join from the beginning of the meeting and i think you're not able to participate that is what i wanted to clarify whether i had an opportunity to ask a question but if i don't that's fine i'll just double check but i'm afraid you're not able to participate in this application so bradman i think it would probably be better if you um left the the seating area for um the members discussing this application we will we'll take further questions councillor to me hawkins sorry chair clarification why is councillor bradman being asked to leave this area why what's that is that in our terms and conditions of the jdcc i think generally we just people council members who are not participating just for clarity they don't leave the chamber they just just sit further away from the members that's it well i think it in cambridge city members do normally acute leave the seating and just they don't need to leave the chamber but they just need to be to be very clear that they're not participating they leave the seating where the deciding members are arranged yes councillor porra katie porra um thank you um thanks the officers for your very helpful responses and i take your point that obviously the conservation area came in after this application came in um coming back to the pre-app you know my main concern with this i mean i i do agree that i've struggled to find reasons to reject it but i have real concerns that when it comes forward as reserved matters are we going to get a decent design i would hope so because you're not going to be able to sell it to people if it isn't but i do wonder if we could add at least an informative mentioning the quality panel which i see comes up and pre-application um i'd also like an informative about cargo bikes i believe our policy is five percent but actually for a car free kind of area like this with good public transport where i hope the applicant will be wanting their workforce to live nearby you need to have more than five percent because people will not drive they will take their cargo back and they will end up littering the public spaces with them so again we can't enforce it but i would urge the applicant to consider that and i the chapter house issue is frustrating because i think i agree with the officer it's sort of out of the scope of this and this is one of those things if we'd had the chat at pre-app we might have been able to resolve this before it got here but again i would i don't know if we could even put an informative about whether that could be something they might consider when reserve matters comes forward in tidying up that area and also picking up the residents concerns about how's place is there any means we could have some note possibly i don't know whether it be condition two which is the only one that seems to refer to reserve matters about a future landscaping strategy that would explore and cutting off redundant um access points because obviously with the previous residential there were my understanding from the plans is there's a a road inside the site so so the other side of house place but then there were and there's potentially some cycle the little the black dots in the hedgerows are the where the the access points are currently but i think having a landscaping coming forward reserve matters that would at least consider whether some of those could be filled and if they are redundant would be helpful and again in condition two which does refer to reserve matters could there be at least a mention that at reserve matters we would want some attention paid to the concerns of the urban designers and people about the fact that it's very boxy and monolithic yeah and i appreciate you might say no to that but i just think for me i can see the argument for approving this today because in many ways it is an improvement on what was there previously for residents it's set further back but you know we haven't had any pre-app engagement and i need some confidence that when this comes back to us as reserve matters we're not going to end up with sort of four massive boxes and no finer grain that would actually make it a much more successful development in terms of our local plan thank you john before you come back on that i've got some questions um they relate to councillor smith's own questions and my question is can these be covered by the detailed landscape scheme that might come forward for example uh the point was raised about palisade fencing being inappropriate um and some and positioning of letterboxes could that be part of the future detailed landscaping um also the conflict between pedestrians and cyclists and deliveries i think on house place is that um something that could be covered and then as well as um he also raised the point about consistent uh establishing at this point landscaping principles is that something that could be considered thank you for you chair uh obviously a number of questions there councillor porter for sorry informatives um regarding uh future engagement and maximizing the amount of design confidence that you have uh perhaps i'll draw your attention to my conclusions in the reports of design layout and scale paragraphs 13.25 and uh where by where that could be added as an informative where their suggestion that agreement of a series of parameters of plans on key structuring and placemaking components uh could ensure delivery of a well-integrated scheme uh which is recognized good practice in national government design guidance so that's um certainly something um that would be added as informative um there was any uh informative about cargo bikes which is one is that okay chair yeah it's just to say it would be worth considering more than the minimum because this is a very sustainable place and we are finding that many many people use cargo bikes and if you don't have someone to put them they end up just blocking their pathways i can raise that with the applicant i mean regarding uh any additional space and design of any additional cargo bikes obviously uh it would have to be in line with our cycling spd that we have for the city uh there's also concerns regarding uh approval of the landscaping the reserve matters and how to integrate the house place residents concerns regarding landscaping certainly they can be encapsulated uh within uh within an informative for taking forward uh for the landscaping um but if i was the applicant that would certainly be something i would strongly consider basically in order of you know any benefits to any you know to the scheme for the scheme for the landscaping and taking on onto account the red house residents uh views and opinions uh would be beneficial uh and indeed just the general point as a delivery manager has set out already conditions there are six tests but conditions need to be met uh and so far we just have to be careful when we uh put in any additional conditions today or any time in the future uh they need to be relevant uh to the scheme so any um a wish list for example for removal of palisade fencing and post boxes need to be considered whether it is relevant proportional uh where it could be achieved um the palisade fencing is interesting because i think it's actually set behind um hedging no so it's in front of hedging so it's i know certainly you can see them at a certain angle the question is obviously how much do they affect the nature of the street scene and the character of the conservation area when you walk up and down house place and you need to take that into account to consider where that can be conditioned or not but my main point is that area is kind of not active to this application so on that basis i want to say it's outside the realms of any any it's not potentially possible to add any conditions on this occasion i just have council philippa kelly's going to come in thank you chair and further to john's response i just wanted just to sum up um the number of informatives which potentially we could add to the recommendation should members be so minded we could include informatives encouraging additional cargo bike provision beyond the policy provision we could also encourage pre-application engagement as part of any reserve matters application dialogue we could also include an informative regarding the future landscaping strategy setting out the matters raised by residents in terms of closing closing off access points boundary treatment and the like in the interest of good placemaking um members may also feel that the rma application the reserve matters application um would need to come back before them to committee just to add that extra layer of comfort and that's certainly something that we could do just to provide that additional level of reassurance in terms of the quality of the proposals of that next stage of the application thank you we're going to have kareem miss uh councillor garvey then councillor fane and then councillor to me and then a part a part hotel visitors are very likely to have a car with them is there any provision for car parking um so just to just to clarify uh councillor garvey the apart hotel is not part of this scheme uh i refer to it as part of the fallback position of the previous scheme but does have permission it is the extent consent here at the moment so this site does have permission for a part hotel with vehicle access to serve that part hotel down going through up and down house place halfway up and down uh and so by not having that the part hotel as part of this scheme there is some benefit to the residents of house base by that element not being part of this application uh for the lab space which is all going to go vehicle access from the lawrence weaver road hope that clarifies that point thank you we're going to take points from three councillors and then come back for you so we'll have uh councillor fane thank you chair i think we're on questions at this point uh i have a number of questions but since all but one of them are rhetorical i'll reserve them for debate between where i think they belong uh hopefully we have some information about cycle connections from the northeast and southwest uh i'm referring to the page five of our plans unfortunately there's no key now obviously in relation to cycle connections for chapter house that's already been discussed and i think we understand the position on that what is not quite clear to me from the plan is whether there are cycle indeed pedestrian access to the proposed new blocks from the uh from the south and west uh because there may be a number of people working on this site who will find it convenient to be able to access their workplace from the south and west i'm not sure if that is provided for thank you now we'll have to me council to me hawkins oh um thanks chair i just wanted to get to claim my head the response that uh philippa kindly gave which is to do with the condition to suggested by the um residents so we can't put that as a condition but we can put it in as an informative i think i'll ask miss kelly to come back on that now thank you chair yes in my view the condition requested by the residents regarding the access to chapter house fire house place or lawrence river road would not be reasonable under the national planning policy framework so it would not be appropriate to include that condition we would run a risk potentially of the applicant appealing that condition um so no my professional view is it would not be reasonable to secure that condition through the permission but we could include an informative encouraging the applicant to consider the wider issues of access through the site as part of the landscaping strategy that will be needed to be submitted as part of the reserve matters detail following approval of the outline application should it be approved do you want to come back yes please if i may um i think the main point of that condition though is um to make sure there's no new access from this proposed development onto house place uh redundant access points there are redundant access points the idea is that none of that actually gets put into the current proposal if that's the case then why can't we include this as a condition to slightly the two two different matters so the redundant access points yes they can be considered as part of the landscaping details but they're in they're wider across the site those redundant access points the issue about chapter house access is separate separate from that does that help i think i was reading this condition too as just being for that those redundant access points okay thank you okay um i've got we still have councillor fane's questions i think rather than i think we'll deal with those now with uh john if you could deal with them through you chair thank you very much councillor fane a simple solution is regarding cycle access from south and west and from the city center i confirm um um the actually the poor cyclists are going to have to make use of the uh dedicated cycle paths coming up hunting the road but then they will have to turn right into lawrence weaver road and go down lawrence weaver road again using the dedicated red tarmac cycle lanes and then turn right into the site from there uh um captain martin smith martin smart sorry thanks claire so three things so just pick up on bikes for us as that's been talked about so um cargo bikes and bikes generally uh it's quite right we talk about that because we are the biggest cycling city in the uk and it's important to this scheme um so on the site visit we saw the current cycle parking arrangements which were awful decrepit building falling down cycle racks not seemingly fixed to the ground as far as i could see perhaps the case officer could just comment on that arrangement and how that plays into our consideration of this scheme second point is more importantly and more strategically i've said before but just in case we've forgotten cambridge is very much a global city we generally expect and get the best in terms of quality of items coming forward i've said already i don't feel this is one of those however when they do come to our planning committees we have a chance to influence the quality of approved applications you know assuming they don't get called in by the secretary of state or um otherwise so we have a chance here to make a difference um i'm getting to the question so just picking up on the comments i made earlier which were quite general but i just want to read a couple of sentences so in terms of what the landscape officer says the proposed development has not provided any justification for its appearance scale mass form and external spaces and does not appear to consider the wider city context into which it has been placed therefore is unacceptable in landscape terms and in the urban design scheme i could pick out any number of statements from that set of points but the one i'll choose is the proposed large formats and massing envelopes will form boxy incognious forms within the finer grained residential context and will dominate and can compete with the old niab headquarter building and loom over house place both of which are designated heritage assets um blis so that's buildings of local interest so my point and question is for the case officer uh and you know the diagrammatic on the presentations shows a set of scales and we talk sometimes about on-balance decisions which those decisions which the case officer feels only just go one way or the other is this an unbalanced decision would you like to address those points please thanks thank you chair for you chair uh let's ask uh answer the last question first it is an unbalanced um decision it is tightly balanced uh so an analogy of a football match um a good scheme that come forward might you might be described as a last day five nil win um but this could be seen as a scrappy dour one draw with a late minute winner going in off a defender's uh legs wrong footing the keeper so that's the same plain terms that's how i you know you could see it's it's a tight decision uh and yeah in theory could go either way and obviously it's a subjective case officer's decision at the end of the day so that's certainly a recommendation that's something for yourselves to consider going forward um um cycle parking uh for house place yes uh just uh for members who were not there and anybody in the room anyone watching uh members were shown uh the current parking facilities uh for chapters for chapter house which has been approved for a temporary period under reference 2001 501 slash condition a that uh gave approval for temporary access and facilities of pedestrian and cycle from house place for a three-year period with an eastern cycle parking area which you saw behind that pallidate fencing and then also there was a separate western area which has not been constructed and as you rightly have pointed out the current arrangement of this area being housed in an open ground floor large room within the 1950s adjacent office office office residential brock is not to the plans passed here and partner's decision notice that i have in my right hand here the approved drawings are approved for a three-year period as confirmed in an email with the applicant at the time uh and a further discharge condition application for a permanent solution will be required at the end of this period and the decision was 25th of october 2022 so that means that in october 25 we will be expecting if not before then notwithstanding uh to have to have that forward you also have uh on this scheme for you you have an exterior um uh side cycle parking area i'll just try and out this is incredibly difficult it's not to be able but basically it's uh it's above uh and adjacent between chapter house and the left-hand corner of block a as you can see adjacent to longsweaver road there is uh some people the chapter house in addition there is also i believe some internal parking the chapter house on the corner of the corner of block a as well but i'm very much mistaken so just confirm there is some uh that there is some cycle parking uh in a between a between chapter house and block a uh externally adjacent to lawrence weaver road there is a white box at the end of the tree line avenue yeah where my cursor is now for the structure there is an external may i ask is that block that you're talking to for the chapter house or is it for the these blocks the new blocks for you chair that is for that is for chapter house there are blocks uh internally there is space internally for for the other blocks so does that block is that block um fulfill what you were talking about about for the temporary previous the previous temporary facilities you you said that they needed to be a permanent proposal by october 2025 this year is this that proposal uh as it as it stands yes this this this this would be it yes but then again if this application is not realized uh proposal not realized in october 25 then we're going to need a different scheme in order to cover to whatever arrangement is on place for the current residents of chapter house living there at the moment or obviously you know if if we are still in this situation in a few months time in october i think uh thank you i'm just a paragraph 21.10 of the report uh sets this out uh thank you there were more points raised by councillor smart um could i have a refresher please councillor smart well i'm sorry chair but i thought i think the case of the officer did cover them off actually has it has there was a question about urban scale from at the scale and form points raised made by the urban design officer i believe well i was using those two senses to illuminate my argument about the on-balance decision which i wanted to check with the case officer that that was that really and yes the case officer wanted to say anything more about that okay uh councillor porra did you have your hand up yeah just to pick up council smart obviously has some concerns as do i about the massing and the scale but just to be clear the previously consented scheme i think you had a nice slide was in effect worse for want of a better word wasn't it so i'm assuming in your so the comments from urban design are as if it were new whereas i suppose the urban design comments were probably the same as the previous scheme but obviously what we have to add weight to is the fact there's a fallback position that is potentially worse i think is would that be a fair summary as part of your waiting has has taken that into account because obviously and if we do nothing it will potentially go back to that one which potentially is even more blocky for you chair yes the fallback position is a material consideration and one that should certainly be considered by members i recommend thank you councillor hawkins thank you chair for letting me come back um can we go to page 13 of our papers please and look at the description of the proposal which says outline application for the demolition of all site buildings and structures all the van chapter house and erection of buildings for a laboratory stroke office campus class eg etc and associated facilities cafe access car and cycle parking revised access car and cycle parking and refugee storage for the retained chapter house with some matters reserved except for access layout and skill which means to me that we can talk about the current access for cycles and the post box and all that to do with chapter house thank you thank you thank you councillor to me john that description that has been submitted uh by the applicant and is with you today but obviously clashes with uh the prior approval application 2001 501 uh prior 30 which has conditions two and three regarding pedestrian and cycle linkages and cycle parking facilities and whilst i take your point about um encapsulating it i'm i have the impression that this particular access we've got from the house place is not caught by the by the proposal and it's not in the intention of the applicant uh for that to be part of the application i'm sorry chair but it's there in black and white it's there in black and white so if they are proposing that there could be revised um you know access and cycle parking and refuge storage for the retained chapter house that is that access that we looked at and when we were there we did see um a delivery vehicle that you know residents were concerned about and the issues they were concerned about so there is an opportunity here i think to address that concern and if we don't address it we will be in my view not doing our jobs so councillor to me hawkins would you are you proposing that there is a condition or informative explicitly about the access to the chapter house which would uh address the points raised uh yes chair i would like to move the motion to um accept the two conditions proposed by the residents thank you thank you now i'd like to get the opinions of the case officer on that and i know that there are also informatives that we need to um vote whether we want to have those included if in the description of what we're going to be voting on so first we'll deal with i think councillor to me hawkins important point please through you chair okay so uh the access point is a existing access point or of the opinion that it is not being proposed to be changed and therefore should not be part this is not part of this application and therefore should not be subject to a proposed condition uh by members in any subsequent quote quote on it um i'm happy for a landscaping condition to be put on to regard and improve uh and join up any gaps in landscaping where the existing um other entrances uh along house place serving the site along there are we have now three hands have come up we'll have martin khan council william richard williams and then martin smart i'm gonna ask you again come back to this description because it's very ambiguous ambiguous um and where the commas go makes a difference and i just wanted your clarity some clarity on it it says uh and it says um demolition of everything except the chapter house and the erection of buildings for uh and associated facilities access carbon cycle passing revised access comma carbon cycle passing and refuge storage to retain cap chapter house with some matters reserved except for access layout and scale now does the access layout and scale only refer to the chapter house does it refer to the whole site does the carbon cycle does the revised access refer to the chapter house or to the remainder of the of the site uh i'm not clear and i'm not sure whether we can be clear but i just wondered what your view was john before you answer that i think maybe we'll pick up these other two point two councillors points let's richard william okay thank you chair it's picking up the same point i was just going to ask the officers i don't know if um philippa kelly or keith barber could give us uh some advice about paragraph 55 of the national planning policy framework and the rules around when we can impose conditions i i think councillor hawkins has got a good point about what is written in the description um but i think it would be useful to have some more detailed clarification about what is exactly in paragraph 55 because it has been referred to and finally we'll have councillor martin smart yeah thanks for letting me come back so just in terms of what councillor paura said about um the this scheme being better than the previous scheme the the apport hotel scheme i think um in the penultimate point given by the urban design team it states that the approved build to rent scheme achieved a convincing finer grain that created a better edge transition so that's in reference to this scheme so it was it's the contrary to what councillor paura stated in fact and just on that i mean there are two different very different schemes delivering a different product to the site but i mean it is important to bear in mind in terms of that difference that this this scheme will have different attributes and also that because it is a speculative scheme so just in terms of what the conservation officer states as a proposals are speculative the plant on top of the proposed elevation would not be fixed and could be greater once the applicant applicants sorry the occupants have agreed have been agreed this potential for additional height could have a negative impact on the setting of house place conservation area so so so it goes on but i think i've made my point yes so john if you could come back on uh councillor karnes and council williams if i could just take the point of clarity about planning conditions and the nppf if i may please so uh the updated nppf under paragraph 57 relates to planning conditions specifically the advice is that planning conditions should be kept to a minimum and only imposed where they are necessary relevant to planning and to the development to be permitted enforceable precise and reasonable in all other respects thank you thank you john would you like to add anything more um i'll just answer councillor karnes points about uh description being ambiguous i can see that there is a uh a block opinion regarding the description and what and what it could mean uh from south cam's councillors and i naturally respect uh your opinion i would say just because it's ambiguous does not seem does is not green light for you to rush ahead and impose a lot of conditions as you see fits it is ambiguous and up in the air and uh councillor williams has said previously we just want to do stuff legally correct and so we must be mindful of that in discussions in relating to this uh case with the applicants they have always said when i've asked them to whether they would incorporate the intentions of wishes of the house place residents to have that access blocked up and have the post boxes removed yeah they have always said that is not part of the application changes that we are putting forward and that is not something that we are proposing and it's not something we do we would agree to and so just wanted to you know put that out there and uh and state that on behalf of the applicants to make it clear as as to how this case has been assessed okay i think we've heard the uh case officer's opinion that a new condition specifically regarding the access would not be appropriate but i've still wait list so we have too many hawkins to come back and then we'll have katie porra as well uh thank you chair so what exactly does the last part of the proposal say revised access car and cycle parking and refuge storage for the retained chapter house i'm sorry but this is clear it's written it's there in black and white the lack of pre-app frankly is what's causing all this sorry i'm i didn't say it no so yes councillor hawkins i i think so what are we going to do your point is well made about the dis ambiguity ambiguity it's absolutely well made but the it might be well made but what is what are we going to do about it because we can't we have to make a decision that takes into account the proposal in front of us the concerns that have been raised the issues that we can deal with nothing we can do with it i think we have a few options i think one would be to be very clear about additional information that we require to make an informed decision so that would be using the deferral process another would be to decide for to have a condition proposed that we would vote on in line with what you've set out and the third would be to not put in an additional condition but accept that there is a the landscaping design is to come through and make some uh clear points regarding an informative but before we do that i think council porra had her hand up i'd like to take her points thank you i mean i do agree with council hawking i think it does the scope of that is in this design but the problem is they brought it forward as this so we can only look at what's on the table so for me i'm not sure the problems there will be enough to refuse the application however we do have condition 38 travel plan and i do wonder if we might at least make a reference to when this travel come plan comes forward it addresses the issues of how delivery vehicles for example and cars are managed particularly at that end of house place i mean and i hear what the officers say if the applicant is not willing to move the chapter house thing and we haven't had pre-app so we don't have any negotiation space for me i i don't think that's a big enough reason to refuse but i don't think it would be unreasonable to at least make reference in the travel plan as the chair says so when it comes forward at reserve matters and also this condition is discharged we are very clear that there's some kind of at least management of that area which might perhaps encourage the applicant to look at uh other means of access do you with the officers think that might be a reasonable thing to make reference to that so if john if you could answer katie porra's question and maybe just uh talk about deferral process if we decide we need one for you chair thank you very much uh yeah i will just answer councillor paura's questions um so the travel plan the condition it's for the commercial occupants uh of the blocks and it's about them you know commuting rather than any deliveries uh what i would say regarding the question about house place and the access is that on the picture here whether i can get my cursor to land on it but on the right hand side there is a sign at the moment uh on the road at the top from vertex living limited the applicants that say no vehicle access um and it is actually entrance is via lance weaver road so that just to make a factual point as to what the current situation is can support i do take a point but i suppose a i would probably say chapter house is included in this because it is in the description but also there are going to be deliveries coming for these four blocks and i think it would be at least reasonable to say that the travel plan should show that they're not going to be routed down house place given that there are clear um entrances from lawrence weaver way so i would at least ask offices if they might consider that which at least won't add to which i think is one of the concerns of house places this will be kind of back door into the new blocks so would that at least be something officers might consider as reasonable john um for you chair there's no vehicular access for blocks a b c or d the commercial elements from house place it is only proposed to come from lawrence weaver road uh and so um the only vehicular access for the sites is concerning the residents of chapter house who primarily do not have cars hence the lower car parking standards and yes they as with the residents in the house place both sets of residents uh you know require more on home deliveries and home shopping um but yeah just to clarify um we're going to have philippa kelly's coming back and then we'll have martin khan thank you chair um mindful that the d word deferral uh word has been mentioned a number of times i just thought it might be helpful if i just provided some insight uh if i may thank you chair um noting the design concerns raised uh you'll appreciate there has been a comprehensive evaluation undertaken by officers and it is a balanced decision you will see in the paragraph 13.26 which is a conclusion on design layout and scale where the officer has advised that um agreement of a series of parameter plans on key structuring and place making components so it could be suggested that deferring to enable the opportunity to agree a series of parameter plans on key structuring and place making components like access scale and layout could be a useful exercise to offer the reassurances and design terms that you're seeking today providing urban design principles which would then set a framework for the reserve matters stage and also noting councillor hawkins point about the ambiguity of the proposal description which i hadn't appreciated and i do agree it is ambiguous the deferral opportunity could potentially also provide an opportunity to consider the residence condition in respect of the house place access arrangements um to potentially explore that um with with the applicant applicant and i would advise that that is potentially a better route than councillor porra's uh suggestion that we try and tackle that through the travel plan condition uh thank you talking first before you councillor khan because she's raised this point first uh thank you very much um philippa and thank you chair for letting me come back uh on the basis of that explanation could i move the motion that we defer this application please i will just quickly take martin khan's point in case it's directly relevant to this and then we will seek maybe i don't know uh really i just wanted to check with the permitted development because you talked about the the lack of the fact there's no access shown off house place for the other bill for the four buildings um whether under permitted development that could be done afterwards or whether it would need a separate application since it's to a private road i don't know what the what would be permissible and if so obviously any any condition ought to require planning permission and access but so i just want some clarity uh there wouldn't be any uh relevant pd rights for the development rights for access there wouldn't be any uh relevant pd access yeah he'll give access thank you very much okay so we have a proposal for a deferment um based on the points so counselor hawkins apparently that you've made a proposal regarding condition two and and in to include the to cover the access raised by the residents so first of all i need to just be clear if you we need to deal with that request first and then we can come back to the proposal for a deferment so do you still want to do that or can we put that aside now we'll put that we can put that aside thank you i'll withdraw that first one but then we're going to the motion to now we have a motion a proposal for a deferment and rate and and it will be red again before you before we do that council smart is this in relation to this deferment proposal what's your point well basically sure i want to speak against the idea of a deferment i think you know if we defer it's often a comfortable uh option for us as a committee to do and um all that really happens is the same item comes back with more information which is obviously what deferment generally is i mean the applicant could come back with a different scheme even a substantially substantially different scheme but that probably won't happen so the same seems come back i said at the start unless i hear a lot of stuff to the contrary that i hadn't already read about that i would be voting against and i see this as a bad scheme it's still a bad scheme and i think it'll be a bad scheme when it comes back after deferment thank you we're going to take uh we're going to see if there is this we're going to ask philippa kelly to read out the description for the deferral again and if we have a seconder then we will go to a vote on this matter but first council win it i was just going to second the deferral motion okay we will have us we have a seconder we will have it read out again and then we will go to a vote on this motion thank you chair so as i understand it there will be two points that we will be looking to defer the application on the first is to enable time to explore the agreement of a series of parameter plans on key structuring and place making components together with urban design principles which would set out a framework for the reserved matters stage and the second point is to explore the potential for the house place access arrangements as set out by the residents with a view to securing this as an additional planning condition okay no comments on that so we will uh can i see hands in support of the deferral that's two john those abstaining one abstention so that motion is passed i think the the applicant is here i hope you've um heard some of the the comments and i hope that the particularly the engagement with the officers can be fruitful going forward and we look forward to receiving that information back in due course thank you so now um i will hand back to the chair i think maybe we'll have a break as well or maybe lunch actually if the chair agrees so how long do we have for lunch have no so we'll come back at quarter to one quarter to one thank you very much so agenda item five pre-application developer briefing land between huntington road maddingly road and the m11 cambridge cambridgeshire the description of development eddington phase two outline application for a mixed-use development including residential student senior living commercial and academic floor spaces alongside supporting retail and community uses associated infrastructure and engineering works including accesses roads and open space please can the developer introduce themselves and their colleagues are sitting with the presentation you have 25 minutes to present your proposals and once the presentation is finished councillors can have up to 45 minutes to ask questions extendable at the chairs this question so can i ask matthew johnson to make the introductions thank you thank you chair um i'll allow my colleagues to introduce themselves i'm matt johnson from the university of cambridge i'm the head of development for eddington within the university estates division uh good afternoon i'm daryl chen from hawkins brown architects and we're leading on the master plan i think that's me uh afternoon all elliott page kmc transport planning dealing with transport elements good afternoon claire hobart from grant associates i'm a landscape architect supporting the team please proceed thank you very much chair and we've got other colleagues here as well to take questions from members um so thank you for seeing us today this is our second visit to jdcc as part of our pre-application um for the future phases of eddington i'll start with a reminder of what eddington is and why the university of cambridge is embarking on it so the university identified many many years ago the need to provide affordable housing in order to attract and retain the most talented individuals from around the world to come and do their research and teaching at the university and within our city uh so that was the reason that we came up with the eddington master plan utilizing land released from the green belt um in 2013 uh that was previously the university farm and we've been developing out the site since 2013 you see an example of it there um and so far have built out or underway delivering 1 850 homes we've housed over 2 000 university employees on the site and we're coming to you today with a presentation on the future phases because there was a 10-year time limit on the original outline master plan relating to residential reserve matters so we need to renew that application which is what caused this conversation and why we're back here today um i would say that the original need that the university identified around housing uh our key researchers is stronger now than ever housing affordability has actually got worse in the city in the time since we came up with this idea and international competition at the highest levels of academia is is as strong as ever so the university is very invested in seeing eddington grow to its full potential and that's what we want to talk to you about today um we have had significant pre-application engagement with officers jdcc as i said and um the quality review panel um and we're going to talk you through here some of our detailed proposals that have been discussed with with those people uh already i shall pass on to my colleagues to take you through the detail oh sorry i'll just touch on this one um apologies the bulk of the proposal proposal remains the same as it was in 2013 when we think about uses around employment floor space student floor space the major change that we're introducing is to increase the residential density on site so that's the significant diversion from what we had consent for in 2013 and major the bulk of what we'll talk to you about today yeah we're happy to be bringing the scheme um forward to you for your consideration we're taking the opportunity of working with a great client on a great site and to hopefully bring forward a great scheme uh you will know phase one eddington and it's um it's exemplar kind of characteristics we're very keen to emphasize the health and well-being aspects of uh this scheme for the benefit of residents and people who will be here and we believe that that's not an add-on the things that we haven't done are just sort of like a baseline scheme we've sort of chucked in some extra stuff in but it's actually quite integral to the way that we've designed the scheme and we have made some deliberate choices in the layout and in the configuration of some of the spaces um that have said uh no we're not doing it like this yes we are doing it like this so hopefully that comes through in the scheme i mean a couple of those things when we talk about shared gardens and and utilizing open space for the kind of designing it proactively for the benefit of those people who will be kind of facing onto those gardens and utilizing it for their own health well-being and community making um and also and and another example is the prioritization of active modes of travel which which is to put that above the sense that this is a drivable scheme you know it's it's it's better to walk and cycle through the scheme and we've had to make some layout decisions uh in order to finish that um we have undertaken research with the university um to um help can undergird the way that we uh realize then in design terms so we're working with the uh the behavior and building um behavior building design group uh for the the architecture department um and that's also say that we're adding on to the that baseline environmental sustainable uh credentials of of phase one so uh you'll also hear uh ways that we've uh we're working with natural systems and trying to reduce the embodied and operational carbon through the scheme so that's um kind of by means of uh an executive summary this is where we've got to with the overall um um scheme and you can see that the colored parts are the uh the subject of this application and the and the the whited out parts kind of between those two bits is is the phase one i'm sure you know well um already i'm going to pass to to claire to talk about landscape thank you um so as described the master plan seeks to establish a new um landscape set into the edinson urban fringe um and a create a new oh sorry speak up sorry yes so seeking to establish a new landscape set into the eddington urban fringe with a soft interface between city and countryside in terms of placemaking we're seeking to seamlessly extend and enhance the qualities of the completed phase one as well as reinforcing eddington as a special place a distinctive and sustainable ecologically rich neighborhood in cambridge the landscape strategy seeks to be multifunctional biodiverse with a diversity of experience and distinctive character democratic access to green open space and targeting opportunities to minimize carbon as an open space strategy the green network sets up a quantum of open space sports play amenity which fully meets their targets and support the development parameters next slide as part of this the western edge is a significant piece of open space which sits between the m11 and the development edge it provides an opportunity to work with landform so thinking about how we reuse materials from site as best as we can and maximize those opportunities it works with water supporting the site-wide drainage strategy and it supports new habitat creation with new pieces of grassland meadow wetlands and and tree planting woodland and so on to give a filtered and soft frontage to the development it also provides opportunities for informal recreation and as part of the site-wide strategy for play offers woven through the development offers opportunities for different kinds of play experience really all ages actually not just children all ages to experience the opportunity to express themselves and enjoy the external environment that i think leads us sorry the next slide leads into thinking how we can deliver that as a sort of seamless coherent network of trails and routes we've got up to 10 kilometers of of trails which support sports and leisure nature exploration and playable spaces and as part of that thinking the open space strategy shared gardens were already mentioned we have looked at taking forward fingers of green which weave through neighborhoods they connect between neighborhoods they connect to the phase one and they connect open spaces they may have different characters but they support the site-wide drainage strategy for instance as this slide and the next slide goes into a little bit more detail to take one of those spaces and sort of interrogate what can happen in there importantly they are car free they are overlooked by homes and accessed by homes they incorporate walking and cycling routes and importantly places to spend time so social space and gathering space space for growing and space for play with a layer of biodiversity woven through from a more natural character that brings the western edge to something slightly more formal slightly more and refined perhaps that leads through to the heart of the neighborhood i think the next image just gives a little bit of an illustration of sorry it's not quite coming through on the screen but an illustration of how that potentially could be realized in terms of relationship from open space to built form and people overlooking that space and some of the potential uses and the character and i think importantly the scale the sense of making clean spaces that can vary in width and frame views and become places in their own right and that leads us to neighborhoods and we as a series of neighborhoods we've just this slide just shows one of them but importantly there are prescribed vehicle circulation routes which tie back to the main spine route on permeable active travel routes that weave through the development and connect to the wider network of routes beyond eddington and also through the through the whole master plan and the car free element is really key as we've introduced and the idea that there are car free spaces and so here for example the green being shared gardens diagrammatically and the yellow being a community lane that connects the two that sit between and connect across each neighborhood um plot and then within each neighborhood plot a management of movement of cars which allows if you like a peeling off of movement and this a gradual diminishment of load if you like on any given streetscape within the plot we've tested that in cross-section also it's been a team team effort um looking at the widths of the streets looking at how we can accommodate the stuff that needs to happen below ground sensibly and also keep above ground place for people to move safely for some on street parking to be accommodated but similarly street trees frontages to homes etc and that leads us to cartwright avenue and it doesn't at all it takes us to the community lane sorry um which is the walking and cycling route that we've identified to connect the phase one core through the new neighborhoods and connecting across each of the shared garden spaces to the northern cluster within the master plan and other amenity uses it's car free it incorporates playable space and suds and importantly isn't sort of backs its fronts it's people looking out onto these spaces they may be private amenity or indeed access to shared and private doorways from that space and it varies in width importantly um this does lead us to cartwright avenue um which as the main spine road and vehicle route through this piece of the master plan connects into the existing road network at the turing way junction it's a it's a piece of public realm which which does help unify and connect yet it can have different characters along its length and one of those points has been to test the width of the route and play that back against phase one and see where we think there are opportunities alongside the densification of the scheme and bringing that forward as a slightly as a obviously better use of land whether we can narrow that corridor for example here at 30 meters in one place within the the phase one scheme and testing that in cross section in the next slide then just shows how that could come down to something closer to 20 meters but still retain um green advantages to homes generous verges with tree planting um dedicated footways and segregated cycle ways as part of that corridor of movement but then along its length there's the opportunity also for that corridor to open out into a more generous piece of landscape so a linear space here it's between 40 to 50 meters wide for example um which is a focus for mobility hubs for example and the coming together of cycle networks at this point it's in effect a public gardens so it can accommodate playable space as well as the good things around suds and you know landmark trees and so on in terms of scale and i think yes there is one illustration there that just shows an imagining of how that could start to look this is looking from north to south with the mobility here you can see across the road on the other side um important to note there is a level change across this site so there is there is a degree of of landform rise within that view which is sort of setting up the ridgeway route that runs and i think that takes me to handing back so i'm going to follow on with discussing scale character and massing the common is a really good departure point for that because it's at that point that we have our tallest elements within the scheme they are a few they are the six they are the asterisks you can see there between six and eight stories we think that the common at the center of the development is the place to do that it's well connected it's almost equal distance between the the workplace innovation street in the north to the local center uh in phase one to the south uh and it's kind of equally accessible by um residents who live in and around the area and having that kind of open space there means that we kind of market um uh with with taller buildings that is exclusively where where the taller elements of the scheme are um an important consideration we had in working with the massing of the site is to respect the uh adjacencies the neighbors uh principally those uh properties that that face onto huntington road and back onto our property for which we're providing a 20 meter uh buffer um and that will be written into the design code so that that it's enforceable um there are some interface plots towards phase one where we're equally sensitive uh and provide some transitional massing that leaves the consideration of the massing along western edge this is the condition uh which exists at the moment in phase one which you can see is four to five stories with flat parapet roofs um we've worked uh with that as our guide to provide again four to five story buildings but adding in um also some um lower houses that have pitched roofs all to the aim of providing a more varied uh frontage which will be viewed from a distance knowing that um what we don't want to create is a kind of a flat uh sort of undifferentiated skyline to present to the um anyone approaching from the north um that's the massing that happens right on the western edge what we've also tried to do is a have a kind of a sense of layering of massing as we go by so that that there's um the four to five story uh edge along the western uh edge there's a zone of four to six stories which is the vast majority of the massing of the site and then there's this that the taller massing which happens around the common um should be said that uh 95 of the the building uh massing is is at four to six stories um we've felt that that's appropriate in terms of townscape it's also appropriate in terms of a body um an operational carbon operational carbon in terms of maximizing uh the the the form factor um uh which uh our consultant max fordham have of um work with us on and so so outside of that 95 there's a little bit this that's shorter a little bit that's taller and we hope that through that layering of the site um combined with the topography of the site um you do get a sense that this is a um not just a blocky development but one that has some kind of um sort of complexity to it um so the green duplex uh blocks face the western edge uh to the left of the screen um and again i mean it's a theme that kind of works through there's a transition of of height that goes through the site um from western edge to cartwright avenue there's a progression of uh open space characters there's also a progression of building types and so we have duplexes in the green we have um housing semi-detached clusters uh within the yellow and then we go to to flats and apartment buildings on on the cartwright avenue uh side uh i'll show you two of the views uh that we've been looking i believe there are about 30 that we've been looking we're not going to weigh down this discussion uh with that suffice to say that they're quite important one second uh is long um towards the southwest just west of of of the um the motorway uh and this is the existing view that you have towards the site um this is the winter view that we've done as a verified uh kind of test um this is from muddingly hill and then view three which is north of that uh view if you can kind of see it's from from this uh spot here looking back towards the development this way this is the the existing uh view and this is the proposed view again in winter so you don't see that the foliage probably worst case as it were uh in terms of not being screened by trees uh where we would zoom in on that and see not just a kind of a simple block of building but a sense of recession as you go via the you know a stepping back of the of the roof line and then even the trees along hattenden road kind of poking above that where they're at the the highest higher points on the site um and hopefully in the pack that you received you've got those that that information as well um to kind of have a look at with more more detail um so this is a view along the western edge you have the the four to five story uh blocks you can see both the mix of flat roof and also um gable roofs um thresholds between the private space of those blocks that are going into the western edge which would be of public benefit uh and a range of uh activities that that it could contain um the view is a little slow but you'll see the next one is of the community lane um and yeah there it is uh and this is uh where we've uh it's it's car free this would be a slower sort of more recreational route that runs parallel to cartwright avenue has a lot of doorstep play sitting out areas green spaces and suds integrated within that um this is uh part of that loop um street within one of the neighborhoods you see houses on the left apartments on the right and a view through to the western uh edge right uh in the center of that this is this has cars on it but we hope that's not to the detriment of the character of the scheme because that's also um space for planting suds footways um and um kind of doorstep kind of landscape as well uh i'm going to finally talk about the innovation street which is workplace towards the north of the site and this would contain a mix of a a flexible workspace accommodation which could be laboratories could be mid-tech um we've worked with offices quite extensively and we've got ongoing discussions with them um the idea is for this not to just kind of be a bolt-on sort of bog standard science park but something which does adjoin to the rest of the development um it addresses uh the street frontage so it affords people who work there a more street character um and it forms a part of a hub towards the north of the site where you have sports pitch mobility hub potentially a cafe uh and potentially also a nursery just kind of to give a little bit more of a kind of a node of activity between the residential and that and that workspace element um the initial views that we've got through this uh emphasizing kind of the street-like nature of what those frontages can contribute to we hope that this is more congenial to work and in keeping with the overall development in uh in terms terms of public space character um so i'll hand over to elliot to talk about transport brilliant thank you um there is a term in transport planning and termed decide and provide and what that really means it's kind of enlightened transport planning you decide on the future you want and you provide the infrastructure to achieve it and i think the 2013 application that the university of cambridge achieved at eddington was exactly that in practice and that has kind of manifest in a set of mode shares and trip generation um statistics which are significantly better than what was forecast as part of the transport assessment and what that really means therefore in terms of this application is that we can commit to working within what we would term the trip budget of the previous consent so all of the mitigation and all of the assessment that forecast the level of vehicle trip generation before despite having another 2600 units circa um we are operating within that trip budget and we will not exceed it and that will be monitored um and you know i go back to that decide and provide that is decide and provide in practice you you invest in cycle infrastructure good bus services walking communities and density and get that outcome you're designing for the best outcomes rather than the worst case and there's a lot of numbers on this slide but that's really what it needs to be shown um whenever i get involved in a sort of strategic land site i will sort of preach the the responsibility of the land to provide the connectivity and this is a slide that illustrates that you know there is a large slug of land sitting between huntington road and maddingly road and the need for connectivity between cambridge west and the northern fringe has been born out in the previous application and again will be reflected in the future phases um it washes or helps to wash the face of the proposal itself but equally it provides betterment to strategic movements within and around the city um all of those positive outcomes i mentioned on the previous slide in many ways have been achieved in advance of the gcp investments which are coming forward so notably and many of the members in this room will be um familiar with maddingly road proposals so we're clearly supportive of that and we're working with the gcp to ensure that our proposals dovetail um sympathetically with the proposals they're bringing forward um the hot spots the heat mapping that's sitting behind this image here um is really our sort of initial origin destinations of where people will be traveling to from the site and as you might expect with a development such as eddington a lot of that is concentrated to the west of the city center but the outlier there being the um cambridge biomedical campus which again is a kind of origin destination pair you would expect but in transport terms is probably the biggest challenge for this application to try and address albeit the u services arguably the most successful bus service in the in the city at the moment and it goes a long way to achieving that um so connectivity you know at a strategic scale i've touched upon but also it's about communities and it's not just the new community coming into eddington northwest cambridge it's about what eddington could do for the surrounding communities the image on the left illustrates how the local center and the communities in girton and west cambridge and maddenley road kind of bleed into that and therefore take advantage of the services and facilities but there's a kind of black hole sitting at its heart there's a lack of sort of connectivity and there's certainly a lack of sort of services because at the moment it's yet to be built out but if you go to the image on the right you see the way in which we are sort of backfilling that sort of black hole these are 10 uh 10 minute 800 meter walk isochromes which are consistent with active travel england's sort of preferred analysis and a lot of the kind of facilities and services we're putting into phase two try to respond to the needs elsewhere and build upon the the local center within phase one so to stitch it all together you need good considered um infrastructure um scaled appropriately for demands but equally scaled appropriately so that it doesn't become excessively infrastructure heavy and the qrp you know gave us that advice as well that you know lots to like about phase one but in places some of the infrastructure feels a little bit kind of baggy in terms of you know excessive in in places so we've tried to take the learnings from that and the image on the left you're seeing the contribution that the university is essentially making to stitch the corridors and the communities and the neighborhoods together the red being the essentially the university-led uh investments um within the site building on phase one we are adopting kind of dutch approach to segregated cycle infrastructure um for the primary sort of movement routes within the neighborhoods low speed traffic environments um there will be elements of sort of shared um walking cycling um within them but in a in a safe context um car parking always contentious and i'm sure you as members will have heard numerous debates around where to pitch it clearly you know the university needs to know that there is a commercial uh reality around the level being put forward um from a transport perspective i'm entirely positive around the shift from what was um applied for and approved as phase one and was reflected in the aap which at aggregate level worked out about one space uh or no one unit to about 1.1 uh parking spaces whereas now we're proposing um an aggregate level of uh 0.43 spaces per residential units we've come a long way down from what the the previous consent um you know was approved at and that that's based on evidence from from phase one and surrounding areas cycle parking um you know this this scheme needs to be exemplar um we i talked about the trip budget and you know great we can work within that from a vehicular perspective but that doesn't remove therefore the burden of the transport plan because people need to travel by other means so you need more buses and you need more cycles so we will absolutely meet minimum standards and go beyond noting previous debate about cargo bikes and you know oversized bikes will be catered for beyond minimum standards um this is a simple a simple it's a venn diagram that kind of shows our our approach to the overall mitigation package and each one of those kind of bullet points has work and thinking behind it but fundamentally the message i want to deliver is one around accessibility it's not just around physical mobility it's around a systems-led approach to making things accessible and that in part is around physical uh proximity so the master plan has to be mixed use um and it has to have things within easy walking cycling distances and the digital layer comes into that and the university have been you know at the forefront of that working with smart cambridge in terms of their sort of you know bus um bus prediction kind of software and indeed the mobility hub that sits within phase one so it all layers on top of one another but um accessibility sits at the sits at the core um through traffic conscious sort of time we're getting just towards the end um so at the moment eddington does cater for an element through traffic it's circa 50 of the traffic as i've mentioned eddington residents largely do not drive because it's done designed correctly and it's in the right place for growth um but eddington as a as a network does provide some vehicular or road resilience to the city so historically northampton street used to be a way in which traffic moved around the western side of the city stories way stories way then had a modal filter on it and what it's done is slowly push traffic out from the center and i think that is the right thing for the city to be doing at a policy level but at the moment the burden sits on eddington so what we're doing is designing for the amount of through traffic that uses it at the moment because you can cater for that and it doesn't blight the environment particularly residents do have issue so it is a sensitive subject um but we're making sure that the design of cartwright avenue has done so in such a way it doesn't incentivize it and if you talk to the county council they will tell you that most of the corridors that are about the site are effectively full so we're not anticipating that the level of through traffic will go up significantly we are actively engaged with national highways with regards to junction 13 and north facing slips it still exists as a pipeline scheme and the flexibility we have within the master plan is that if that does come to fruition you know in essence we could design out with a modal filter a bus gate for through traffic and um there wouldn't then be an implication on the city center because the slips have come on but we don't want to be as you can imagine beholden to national highways doing that as a scheme but we are putting the pressure on them to make that a an evidence-led reality i think that is it from me uh yeah just very briefly i touched on the public consultation we've done so we've done three rounds of public consultation already we've just finished the third one i've not got the final numbers but it's uh in the high hundreds of people that we've been able to engage with um all of the different residence associations which we've engaged with directly as well that's an important one we referenced earlier our close neighbors to the site and making sure that we can deliver all the great benefits of eddington but minimize the disruption and impact on our local neighbors um some of the key themes that have come out from those conversations so height and density of course we've we've talked about people are generally accepting of the need for more housing and they appreciate the way that we're proposing to do it here in terms of height density where we were going to develop anyway but retaining the open green space and making sure that there's lots of publicly accessible infrastructure excuse me as opposed to spreading the um density across the whole of the site and having less green infrastructure that makes sense um yeah and that's so this is sorry that was i should go back one just cover some of the other themes very briefly um other themes around existing amenities and infrastructure and we've got a very positive story to tell there around the stuff that's already on the site the primary school the health center which we can talk more about in questions um and the activity spaces that we already have on site as well um and yes this is just uh we've got our next round of consultation coming up so we're not pausing here we've got a grow club coming up which is engaging the community um in discussions as well and then we're proposing post submission to put forward a further public exhibition to help explain what our proposals are to the community apologies we've run slightly late time's up um yeah 42 seconds penalty uh so that was pretty good um well well done um i'm hoping that the committee will be as disciplined um hollow laughter ensued um so at this point um members are encouraged to ask questions seek clarifications on the developers presentation and are reminded not to express any opinions on the presentation proposals to suggest or imply closed mind i'm doing a keith barber here okay so um anna braddon please thank you chair and thank you uh for the presentation which was very comprehensive i have a number of questions which i'll just rattle through uh giving you time to write them down and then the chair can decide how you wish to take them so um on the landscaping issue with the shared gardens uh running sort of north east southwest through the site have you got a plan for how they will be looked after if the residents neglect them um the second question is traffic management what is the intention for traffic management you've touched on that and i wanted to understand whether there's an intention to exclude traffic because you've said it's a mainly residential site with cycle and pedestrian access as priority on massing um i may have misunderstood but it looks awfully to me as if the taller massing is actually at the highest point of the site which seems a little unfortunate i just wondered how is that have i misunderstood that um uh and and can you explain if if that is what i'm seeing um the next one was um you mentioned during your presentation when you were talking about the apartments on cartwright avenue i think i heard you say um you sir um uh this area is going into public ownership and i just wanted to understand what that meant and then um the community gardens running as i said southwest northeast have you checked what the shade implications are for the adjoining houses and departments uh in other words it would be unfortunate if they if some were completely shaded by others thank you very much thank you chair we'll we'll take all those in in one go if you if you can because that was a long list okay thank you um um i've got um jimmy martin okay katie katie peter okay thank you uh thank you um i think they're going to answer the questions first we're going to answer first yeah okay thank you chair um i'll address each of these and then pass them around i think as necessary so uh the first question was on the shared gardens and maintenance so eddington has a service charge that is managed by the university that freehold residents pay into and the university obviously is the biggest contributor to because we retain over half of the properties on site so that will continue to be privately owned and managed through the eddington estate management company they won't be demised to individual residents for example um having said that on things like food growing so the grow club event that i mentioned that we've got coming up that's the the seed to try and build a community there that's going to take on ownership and management of things like community food growing uh so there'll be various community elements integrated into that management as well um on on traffic management i'll um briefly uh synthesize what elliot said as well the the cartwright avenue element so that's our main through road going to our new junction at huntington road west we are designing that that now on the basis of a fait accompli that we have to deal with through traffic that eddington has to provide that service to the city um we're hopeful that in future that won't be the case so when we're designing that road we're making sure that it's going to be a 20 mile an hour limit it's going to have traffic calming measures that are very thoughtfully designed and incorporate things like landscape there's some very clever ideas about how long an individual stretch of road is and sight lines and things there's a lot of thought going into it even at this outline stage so we will carefully manage that through traffic through the community and out and then the other critical thing is where we've shown the shared gardens and the community lane we're doubling down on the kind of active transport routes that people have you have three four five different options of how you want to safely get through the site on a bike and wherever those options then hit a road there's going to be prioritization for pedestrians and cyclists so that's supporting the eddington community who mostly do active travel on massing um i don't think it is necessarily the highest part in the site but it's not being deliberately put in the lowest part of the site and again there was a very lengthy design process that we engaged offices on where we looked at different options of how you deal with the long views and how do you avoid this blocky scale of eddington as it's perceived from the m11 now and the option in the illustrative scheme that we've come up there that's supported by the proposed parameter plans really addresses that best by creating that articulation it creates layers of height starting relatively low on the western edge which is where you'd think you'd put the height to kind of block off the m11 but this system works better start off relatively low go up higher and then get to a handful of taller buildings in the middle that create that articulation and interest on the skyline all the while preserving key views to things like the hundred and row trees for example which you'll still perceive above some of the the taller buildings in the center there uh public ownership i'm sorry i missed that comment i'm not sure what it was but there there are no firm proposals here for public ownership of anything on the site so land will either be part of the eddington management or something for the university to look after after long term um and then daylighting and shading again i must emphasize this is a an illustrative proposal but absolutely the proposals the thought processes of how individual units get quality daylight and sunlight versus having them in those shared garden spaces is being considered um i don't know if daryl you want to comment any more on that i mean perhaps like i i don't believe i don't believe i talked about public ownership i might have talked about the public character and just cartwright avenue being a slightly more urban in in in feel and therefore accommodative of kind of the higher amassing in the scheme possibly that was what you were going to thank you jimmy hawkins please thank you chair um i think i'll start with the um trip budget and parking stuff um um you mentioned about the parking per dwelling going from 1.1 to 0.43 per dwelling that is quite a reduction on what basis is that that's primarily based upon the the evidence from phase one and the take up for key worker housing so key worker housing within subsequent phases will effectively be zero supplemented by car clubs so that brings the ratio right away down so aggregate level 0.43 we think reflects the evidence coming out of phase one um but for the same type of housing or different type of housing uh in terms and types i mean based on take off now of what you've got i see yeah so all right but what you're going to be building the same or different types sorry um i think it's it's worth talking about index it's a very university specific thing so it's not necessarily about the type of housing it's about the people who live there so what we found in the first phase is that our principally postdoctoral researchers that live in the university housing do not drive they have no demand for cars we've got two basement car parks built at great cost and great carbon in the first phase one of them is mothballed because the demand doesn't exist from the current population of university workers and that's because of the bus because of the cycle routes and again because of the population they're very international if people are coming here expecting to be here on a three-year research contract they're not going to take a car unless it's absolutely necessary and we make sure that it's not so by having half of the home for university workers we can um make sure that we bring down the housing for private housing it's still important that we do retain it but we're thinking about the long-term future and making sure that our parking interventions aren't big basement based carbon investments on the basis that everybody drives a car now because we know that in 20 or 30 years even the private residents at eddington probably won't be driving much so we're trying to make sure that we design the links are required now but that they can be phased out in the future as the community evolves and technology evolves okay thank you for that but that leads me to my next question which is what's the provision for visitor parking um because as it is there isn't that much and many tend to park at the maddenley park and ride i know it's what i do and then there seems to be only one access from the park and ride to eddington as well so are there any future plans to link the two any better um well yeah there may be plans to link the park and ride better in and obviously that is a facility that is available to people visiting eddington in cambridge west which is very helpful uh people visiting the very center of eddington have access to on-street parking which is permit based but free for short trips uh and access to the parking in sainsbury's as well which is uh community parking effectively um no don't go there okay um but just to finish the point on that the parking on the sainsbury's is for access for the whole community to the local center it's not just if you're shopping at sainsbury's um and then visitor parking in terms of resident visitors is all factored into the numbers that we're working with and the critical way that we're focused on making that really work is by trying as much as possible not to demise parking um so particularly where there's apartment typologies as opposed to houses we're able to have a quantum of parking that is kind of diverse and people aren't necessarily saying number 13 is my space that means that through a clever like technology driven permitting system we can expand and contract the visitor parking based on what actual resident demand is thank you um i'm quite serious about the visitor parking there's issues you might not have had um reports but they have been issues last but not least um through the landscape section where you showed a 30 meter distance between buildings you're going to be reducing that to 20 meters why that was cartwright avenue i think we showed you didn't we um sorry i can't sorry you can't me sorry do you hear me now better just just sorry um that was cartwright avenue we showed the 30 meter sort of analysis from phase one and i think that just feeds into the transport conversation about the width of corridors and the amount of space given to sometimes duality of routes and so on so we've worked quite hard as a team to try to i guess simplify that and rationalize where we where the routes where we're really taking people and where people need to go so a lot of that space came out of having multiple cycle lanes that were doing a similar job and being able to reduce that corridor down simply because it's quite a big open baggy space and trying to make the best use of the land on site with one of the drivers behind our original brief from the university really yeah no sorry and just to add to that yeah i think it's an urban design piece as well that we've been talking with the officers about they those large cut through roads are both bad for car management and slowing people down but also they make it feel impersonal it's not very human scale and so closing them in produces a much more human scale environment and that's been supported by the qrp and officers for example it can't express an opinion um um councillor khan oh sorry it's the wrong martin council small please sorry thanks claire i'll try and be quick uh so i think on your point earlier i think this is about as good as it gets i think really so thank you for coming it's good to listen and uh hopefully the comments will be helpful so um i think firstly just in general i'd say plain english is really useful and you've spoken mostly in terms of plain english that's good so sometimes you went off script a bit with uh stuff to do with diversity and diminished and things but um it's been good to listen to so matthew um uh it'd be useful to i mean we talk about affordable accommodation in residential be good to have some sort of breakdown in terms of quantities of what sort of accommodation you're going to provide uh and also in terms of what you said about residence would you consider something like um cooperative housing type structures perhaps that might fit your your coat you know your clientele daryl so equally accessible by residents around the area that brings to mind the concept of promoting things to the public you can be proactive or just put it out there so it sounds like you're just putting it out there it's open it's available but i think in order to do what you what it says on the tin what you just said you need to proactively encourage other residents to come to the site to enjoy it otherwise they won't uh i believe you said about um 95 46 stories and then the other was a little bit i think that's a little bit disingenuous because you need to be clear about what if you're if you're going to use percentages for one part you need to be clear on the other parts as well because we don't know it could be that in that five percent is 20 story blocks we just don't know you're not being clear claire uh you said about the trails um were those planned in plan or were they planned in terms of how you walk around the site because i think you know when one makes a trail through a piece of countryside or walks through trying to try to you you walk through it as you see it so it'd be important to make sure those trails work visually as you walk around to not as an architect would plan it on a plan um and councillor bradnan pointed out that you know it needs to be looked after so all that's very verdant in the pictures will there be irrigation because otherwise it won't be elliot um decide and provide sounds very interesting will there be plan for change because you talked about pre the previous scheme and and how you know you've learned from that um i've learned through the years that we've moved from electric bikes to what we have right now which is a smaller form of electric bike for higher bigger electric bikes scooters other scooters and then there's all stuff in the future have you planned for change because you've got those separate cycle lanes and effectively roads for other vehicles we i know we just don't know what's going to happen in the future but you did say that you decide so that decision has been made on what on a view of the future i guess hopefully you've got the right view um finally almost finally dutch so dutch cycling i've said this in another meeting years ago we are not we are not dutch we are english how are you going to make it work for us unless you plan to have dutch people living on site i think there's a very different culture in holland than there is here in this country you it might be argued you have a different subculture in your site because it's a special site not an average piece of housing infrastructure but you need to make sure it works for people that they understand what to do and i concur with to me to a certain extent on the 1.1 to 0.43 so um and on that my question would be are they the same or similar people that are going to be populating these dwellings i.e are they richer and can afford more likely to afford an electric car or something or are they the same people can't afford it so won't have it is that that's it thanks so if i may i'll start on the accommodation question um i'll probably touch on your final point on the parking as part of that as well um so you wanted to understand more about what the kind of housing we're going to be bringing forward so it very much is a continuation of the university housing model that we had at the start the big difference now is we've had 2 000 people live there and go through the site so we understand that population a lot more than when we were forecasting previously and that's born out in lessons learned on things like the size of the school for example and the number of vehicle trips we now know how that population lives the the target population for university housing largely remains the same and that's principally post-doctoral researchers and they are the kind of engine houses of university research where we face significant international competition to make sure that they keep coming to us and to cambridge in the uk so we understand what their needs are a lot better now so that means that we're able in the future when we get to rma stage to start defining what the unit types are going to be some principal lessons from that for example are small units so our university workers are principally single or maybe couples very few number have small families um so rather than building houses for them we know that apartments are more appropriate um and then even in that it's looking at studio apartments one-bed apartments and flexible two-bedroom apartments where they might serve a small family but they could equally serve sharers so that's something we're interested in you mentioned co-housing which is really something we're very actively looking into so co-housing typically refers to things like marmalade lane which is very much a kind of owner-occupier type of space that's going to be less common here particularly because of the university housing so we're looking more at the co-living style model to think how can people have a small space that means they have to pay less money in rent for it effectively but can have all of the amenities both in their building and the community to make sure that they can thrive and feel like they're not living just in one small apartment they're living in the whole of eddington that's something we're really looking at um to make sure that we can bring that in through time as part of the proposals um just on the who's going to live here in terms of parking again it will be a very similar mix so we we understand the key worker population so we think we can target that parking provision to them very specifically the private housing population will be based on whatever those demands are coming from the market at the time um again touching on the co-live thing we've got at the moment uh we've just pc'd the first phases of the build to rent scheme present made that this committee passed through rma a couple of years ago um but that is a purpose-built build to rent community so we're seeing a lot lower demand for cars there for example coming forward we might see more of that in the future we might see less but market housing will be based on whatever the market demands are at the time um i think the oh and on on visitors and be proactive in attracting them that's something we're we're very focused on so we work with for example the darwin green residence association curtain parish extensively we've touched on it with some of the cycle connections so you'll see in our plans we don't just draw our cycle routes up to the boundary of the site we're showing them penetrating into the communities beyond and we have a rolling a rolling calendar of place making activities as well so we've got our eddington beer garden coming up again for its third year those events tend to attract two to three thousand people over the course of a weekend the bulk of whom are coming from off-site so still more to do on it but something we're really focused on i mean i'll just add on that last point about and i welcome the point about you know what the offer is for people who live wider i mean the public open space is more than 40 across the site the western edge is far greater a space than you need for a community of this size and so we expect size so expect that a lot of people from the wider area will be kind of looking to use this uh for you know play space for recreation for sports pictures for growing space which there are general allotments um the accessibility uh it is critical to it to kind of enable that those connections uh and and we've made a quite a lot of effort to ensure there are there are trails of walking and various ways that you can traverse the site through the shared garden through the community lanes through three streets that are designed well and through streets are of a dimension that are kind of you know easy to cross uh and so hopefully that combination of kind of providing attractive landscapes as well as making accessible is an offer for white residents and then just very quickly just picking up on the decide and provide sort of transport planning um philosophy the decide bit really is about the outcome of the vision so i think what we are committing to is a vision for sustainable transport more walking cycling less car driving the provide bit is really adaptive planning so at the moment we have a view on how that might be achieved but this is a significant and long-term build and if that changes and adapts with technology and behaviors over time which was your other point the planning system will need to play board whether that's car parking as matt says or whether it's types of infrastructure or just types of behaviors adaptive planning will ensure that the vision we've decided on will be adhered to so it is flexible but it's about making sure that that kind of direction of travel to end up in a better places is consistent thank you also sorry i like the point about the paths actually um daryl's partly responded to it but it's right you have to think about it from from the ground absolutely and i think as part of the is outline i would say that so there's obviously detail to be to be developed but working with topography thinking about how we use trees for landmarks these are all things that we've woven in as well as the built form that sets some of those roots up it's just thinking about where people want to go where they want to move and so yeah that has been part of the thinking and i think will continue to be refined quite honestly um but yes definitely fundamentally thinking about that and you mentioned about the verdant imagery and is irrigation needed and sort of flipping it on its head i guess we've been one of our reactions to phase one has been firstly speaking to the estate management team and understanding their lessons learned really what did they find there has been some sort of post fitting of irrigation in some places just to make things work we have been trying to consider a landscape approach which takes on board climate resilience and biodiversity more so and whether that can be woven in and as part of that inevitably thinking about where we are in the world and drought um sort of situations of water demand really trying to avoid irrigation as far as possible and working with native habitats to sort of be make that the sort of um the character of the place more so than than perhaps some of the slightly more formal planting that came forward as part of phase one and sorry there was a point on massing which i should clarify um that it was the 95 percent uh point 95 of the apartment blocks are four to six stories which is to make the case that actually the majority of vast majority of buildings are at that four to six kind of optimal range and within an acceptable townscape the ones that are above that are uh top out at eight so i think there are five buildings that do that and they're they're clustered around that common area so um not many of them uh and and they still kind of top out at eight so seven and eight stories um in addition to those apartment blocks there are also um the houses uh the semi-detached houses and duplex blocks which are you know between that three four or five stories yeah thank you so we're probably more than halfway through the allocated time and i'm bearing in mind that we've got another pre-app um application to consider so i've got uh katie thornburg katie poorer uh peter fane i'm martin calm can you please be ready with your questions as concise as possible and can i ask the team as well i know you're fantastic professionals and you want to showcase what's so brilliant about yourselves um but otherwise you wouldn't have been appointed by the university of cambridge but can you also be concise so that everybody has a chance to ask their question and get a reasonable answer thank you very much i'm i'm more interested in asking my questions not necessarily getting the answers right now but they're taking on board okay so in some of the earlier schemes quite recent ones there have been single aspect homes and uh no external design detailing to deal with overheating and we get really upset by that we really do not want single aspect homes and it would be great to see some elevational treatments which deal with overheating and um purgulars shutters etc etc and passive ventilation because it's getting hotter and drier i was going to ask about water use and how how close are you getting to using the the really amazing re water recycling system so that we can continue to be 80 liters per person coming forward if we've got a mothboard basement car park is it possible to use that for to provide the spaces what the the demand in the new scheme rather than more car parking um car clubs i'm really really interested in car clubs and what percentage of the final um is this all within the current local plan um that uh assigned to eddington um um i know we're talking about the emerging local plan and some increased numbers and increased density in that delayed for whatever reason but that has an impact on our housing delivery numbers etc so it's really important that we're realistic about the pressures on build out um i'm going i'm the the allotments which is part of phase one still hasn't been delivered and it is so such a great feature for bringing the community together i really hope that that can be done uh there was going to be a uh a block of housing for older people um opposite the junior school at one point and then that became a hotel and there's the suggestion when we approved that was that the housing for older people would come in at the north of the site i i wonder what's happening with that in my opinion housing for older people should be distributed across the community rather than in a block but how um sort of any you know we talk about first homes what about last homes um it'd be really nice to know how that's being dealt with because it affects all of us and people are living hopefully more healthily for longer and finally the i think the health and well-being as a priority is really interesting and i would really like to uh hear more about that coming through because so much of there's some lessons specifically from the pandemic about spacing and opposing places and quiet spaces and safe spaces and dealing with noise all of these really important health and well-being issues that it would be fantastic if we you could um tell us more about them and how is those these really new ideas are incorporated in the design and again it's a less it that would be a lesson for the whole of cambridge and cambridge and the greater cambridge area so those are sort of my comments you don't really need to answer thank you um it may it may be helpful to have written responses uh to those questions so they can be shared with the committee and the very good ones um okay so katie poorer can we follow the same yeah i'm very happy so most of mine are comments so i very much welcome the varied frontage i think when you approach eddington it it's blocky and i've heard people comment on that so i think that's excellent i would really push the idea of a nursery i appreciate not all your residents will have kids but certainly for the local area that would be a huge benefit and we are short on that and that co-living and as council sources um spaces for older people as well is really welcome and car club again my feeling quite strongly is you need a critical mass of those spaces for people to actually trust that a car will be available and i don't know if you've got any learnings from your previous iteration but that would be really important i think and i echo council thought if you've got a mothboard multi-story you know we are seeing developments coming forward with proposals that the car parking is off almost off-site you know people have to walk to get their car because i saw some of your designs the cars were in the work you know in the roadway can i also check will you be planning to have segregated cycleways i mean my ward is this ward we have a lot of open spaces that are not segregated and my inbox is just full of it people having accidents you know pedestrians um dogs children people with impaired mobility you know so it's really important i think i didn't see any of that coloring yet but obviously i would hope you'd consider that very seriously i also have some real concerns about pulling away to 20 or pulling together to 20 meters we saw some designs in london when we did some tours where there were some very quite tall blocky blocks and they were very close together and it it even with landscaping it was overshadowed there wasn't enough light um and i appreciate you can't always set back the the blocks easily they're better blocky to be more passive house but i would have real concerns that that would have a impact on the the niceness of livingness in that space you know i wouldn't want to walk through those corridors at night on my own i wouldn't want my kids out playing there so i think i've cautioned certainly with the taller blocks i would be really worried if you're going too close and again early landscaping i'm sure you'll think about that but it would be lovely to see a lot of the trees and things coming forward to outline so that they can actually thrive we saw how hackney had done that quite successfully rather than being put in at the last minute and then taking 20 years i encourage you mentioned um some of your students getting involved but apprenticeships of all levels because again i think that's a local community involvement that's been quite successfully using some of our city center sites um and spaces for teenagers i have a teenager now and you just start to realize there's just not anywhere for them to hang out you know it's either kids stuff or adult stuff so i welcome the all ages play um well should i say i think that was oh and yeah i think you said key worker housing but student housing as well and i hope the student housing will be year-round we won't have a situation where it's all 24 weeks of the year and the rest of it's rented out as airbnb because i think certainly because you aren't doing the affordable housing it's being replaced with these other equivalent modes that would be a concern which has come up certainly with some university developments in the past where what is student housing is actually 50 percent of time not student housing but i appreciate with postdocs that's probably not an issue but i just raised that i think those are all my points i don't think i need any responses chair as long as it's just noted thank you okay um comes to think can you follow that place i'll do my best here it's always extremely useful to follow the two councillor katies because not only do they ask the questions but they imply the comments which of course we don't have any comments in the state um i would just say however whilst being very careful to not to make a comment on the future plans how useful it is to us to have this as an exemplar uh inevitably it's different but for other developers other employers too not only in affordability co-living very important one you mentioned there sustainability and of course street furniture too which includes strange enough how people might be fun furniture but parking on the streets as well which can be a feature but my question related to what you said about landscapes i was i can say very glad to see you doing thorough lvia's from an early stage and not just at the later stages which tends to be the cases you know lvia's come through at reserve matters stage you've looked at this from the start um i think it's particularly important when you're looking at taller buildings and you're looking at the western sector which is effectively the edge of this that you are looking at the landscape the long-term landscape impacts you mentioned maddingly hill and of course the crucial american cemetery there uh and i'm sure the new consultations you've been discussing with with the management there as well and it isn't just the height of the buildings which is a concern to me but also the roofscapes that isn't just you know i'm not suggesting you put uh uh gables on on the tallest on the eight-story buildings or anything like that but tearing buildings having different tiers of buildings is important but also features in the upper stories of buildings can have a major impact from a great distance and i'm sure those are factors you will be considering like the others i don't need any any reply to those questions uh you know i just take comfort from the fact that you are considering them thank you chair so um councillor khan please i've got two two points early um firstly uh i'm partly i'm a bit drowsy as i came back from poland yesterday on a 30-hour coast journey so it's still having an effect um but one of the places it passed through passed through is brussels which is a very specific town where every individual house is individual it's fun i mean that's all i can say you go along the street scene in brussels it's fun uh so i'm wondering about your internal street scenes i mean maybe it's not right maybe you should be going for um uniform rather a block block rather like georgian sort of design maybe you should be going for more more individual like you you were talking about having varied outside are you going to have a varied inside um how are you going to play that i just think that's that will be important for the street scene because the people are fairly enclosed there they will spend quite a lot of time on the streets uh secondly about getting out into the greenery you've got this greenery along the motorway and it's very nice it's good for a buffer it's obvious but it will be affected by being next door to a motorway and so in terms of the record there's the one aspect of the greenery diversity the second aspect of recreational and it won't be up because of that it won't be ideal have you thought about how you're going to get out to green areas other areas particularly this northern area which is away from the green that you're creating at the southern end of the the site um i i mean for instance you've got gertin next door get with the college grounds which are very nice maybe that's an opportunity though obviously it's college land laws and university land you've got the other side towards the american cemetery are the way the accesses across i'm not sure that there are any access across but you need to think about that so i i just think thinking how these are people who are going to be for a large proportion single people away from where their natural orbit is in their urban area they're not going to have means long distance transport to go so what you can get for them to get into the area around is i think important for their person that their lifestyle and their their their quality of life those are two thoughts that i thought might be worth looking at um i'm going to ask a few questions um we'll put them to you anyway um the as matters stand the noise from the m11 is quite overbearing and have you looked at noise mitigation um measures that will make the properties that are directly facing the motorway let you know the impact is basically born by them because once you get behind the front row of buildings you can't hear the motorway noises in the same in the same way so that's one question you referred to slip roads and negotiating with highway england about those we've got a few minutes so could you explain to me up to the committee where those connections would be and how they would impact on through traffic going through eddington and how well have your discussions been received let's put it like like that because this is kind of i'm thinking this is going to cost a lot of money yeah well hang on just and then um just one more i i've heard from members of the committee concerns about the 20 meter face-to-face proposition i think that's something come back to us on to give you know address those concerns and and for the view to satisfy them but if you could just give me a quick response on them on the motorway noise and the slip roads i think that would be that would be quite helpful yeah and i've got and then i've got you okay and then that will be it okay thank you very much so we're not in negotiations per se with national highway we are engaged with them through the pre-application process north facing slips at junction 13 on the m11 are part of what they term the road investment strategy pipeline schemes i it's something that they are considering we do not need them to mitigate the impact of eddington but if they were to happen that would mean the traffic cutting through eddington between maddingly road and huntington road would to a large extent be designed out so we are flexible to whatever happens into the future in many ways it's my mind i think it would be a benefit and it it could and should happen um but we are not dependent on it and we're not negotiating per se we're just saying for the benefit of this scheme it would be a nice thing to happen thanks for clarifying that um just on the on the noise on the area yeah very briefly on that so yes it is an issue that we have to design in it's kind of like through traffic um the big change from the previous master plan where we were focused on putting kind of commercial buildings as a buffer is we believe the technology is there now that you can easily protect a residential uh unit from noise through engineering so we've seen it in some of the buildings in the first phase with triple glazing and that kind of thing dual aspect so we will be using the residential buildings to create those internal buffers doesn't address the point on um the western edge which will still be an issue but we will try and mitigate that as best we can with planting and landscape thank you very much uh so councillor bradman thank you very much chair um and thank you for your patience gentlemen and lady um just one further thought councillor thornborough has raised the issue of avoiding overheating uh but as somebody who lives in a rather north facing house can i please remind you that there are some aspects of housing which can cause create very cold accommodation which is i would personally feel is worse than being too hot but you know i just please just be bear in mind the need to be able to control um you know i'd welcome some incident sunshine myself so just be aware of that too thank you uh so i was just talking about the issue about going from 30 meters to 20 meters i think it might i think it needs to be considered like where are the major roads and hierarchy of roads because in cambridge city like saint edwards passage it's only like five meters wide and in hot summer days you go in and it's lovely and cool and you get these in in italy you get these little spaces where on plan you think well we would never the committee would never agree it but actually in reality they they've developed and they're very special so it's it's not and where you get wider roads you know they're like avenues or boulevards that are right and they they need to be the right scale and the right width for the planting and everything but i think some side streets and the sequence of spaces and what happens and what opens up and what you experience is what is really important whether then rather than saying none no 30 we're going to 20 i'm sure you know that but sometimes some narrow roads are quite exciting too thank you um i'm going to now just say um thank you very much uh for brilliant presentation and the pack which is which is fantastic i think counselor fain referred to this as exemplary placemaking that we've already seen in phase one um and so um learning lessons and continuities as we can see that's um quite evident with what you're doing um i i would i think it'd be helpful if you could come back for a third time um when you're very close to submission which i think is going to be later this year um essentially we don't like surprises um so um if if if you wanted to commit to making that investment um of your time to to do that you will take away all the prize all the surprises um and we would also like to expect explore the heads of terms of the section 106 at the same time um and as you know um and probably witness this morning um this is the we've seen the way of how not to do it um this is the way to do it to secure smooth passage through the planning process and uh i welcome all the time investment that you've committed um committed um with the officers as well to bring us to this stage thank you and all the consultation work that you're doing as well so thank you so much what you're doing thank you 10 minutes yeah so agenda item six um council khan can you close the door behind you please can we cut the doors yeah born in a bomb thank you agenda item six pre-application developer briefing cambridge business park pilot project description of development refurbish and extend robinson house to include an event space flexible workspace a cafe event spaces and lab hotel a glazed corridor will link the existing building to a proposed modular extension containing the lab space rooftop immunity space and potential urban farm car parking reduced to seven spaces cycle parking and gas storage are proposed please can the developers introduce themselves and their colleagues assisting with the presentation you have 20 minutes to present your proposals once the presentation is finished councils have up to 25 minutes to ask questions extendable at the chair's discretion thank you introduce yourselves please good afternoon i'm lizzie sears development manager at the crown estate and with me today i've got actually collins our planning consultant from montagu evans and caitlin from sew who is our design lead um we're delighted to have the opportunity to brief you on our planning application for origin which is going to be the first in the number of planning applications that will be coming forwards as we seek to breathe new life into cambridge business park in this briefing we're going to cover a little bit a little about the crown estate and our vision for the business park um the existing planning context for robinson house and our design response to the consultation that we've undertaken and also the pre-application process that we've been discussing with planning officers so just inside next one um so the crown estate is a national landowner with a diverse portfolio that includes cambridge business park as well as land in oxford london's west end windsor great park and much of the seabed and coastline around england wales and northern ireland we aim to use our portfolio to make a positive impact that supports communities to thrive and that pioneers sustainable and inclusive design all of our profits are returned to hm treasury for the benefit of the nation cambridge business park is our only business park and longer term we're aiming to transform it into an asset which will generate a positive impact on the local community and surrounding areas whilst contributing to the innovation economy and pioneering sustainable solutions to address global environmental challenges our ambition at cambridge business park is to play a key role in convening a next generation innovation district in northeast cambridge and we aim to achieve this through three guiding principles firstly equipping people and communities with the tools to thrive through skills programs and education by championing sustainable and inclusive design and transforming purposeful ideas into successful businesses by bridging the commercialization gap that exists in the uk in terms of innovation it is of note for this briefing that this proposal is not included as part of our wider master plan application but we will be presenting on that as part of a separate committee briefing over the coming months however um what's really exciting is that the existing vacant robinson house presents a really unique opportunity for us to set our intention for the future of the business park to address local need and market demand early and also to engage with stakeholders in the community from the real outset of the master plan process robinson house will become origin the crown estate's first innovation hub and lab space with a temporary use of 10 to 15 years this will meet much needed much needed demand for startup space in cambridge it's going to provide cambridge business parks first on-site public f&b offer which is very much needed in that area and sorry food and beverage and also a space for people to bump into each other so that they can kind of share ideas in terms of business it will also provide event space for local stakeholders and also provide the crown estate with a space for us to test and learn um kind of in terms of community and stakeholder relationships and also ideas for the future of cambridge business park i'm now going to hand over to our planning consultant ashley to provide an overview of the planning context of the project and then caitlin will talk through how we've responded to the consultation process in terms of design thanks if you just go back about three slides sorry sorry a bit enthusiastic on the slides um so just wanted to summarize a bit of the wider context of where the building is and where it sits um as you can see there the the robinson house is highlighted in red and it sits on the northwest corner of cambridge business park which is sort of within that blue line area there the site has direct frontage onto the what the a1309 which is which is milton road where there's a prominent uh through fair but also a cycle route that runs along there um the in accordance with your policies map the site is located within the cambridge northern fringe east and the railway station area of change and specifically policies 15 and 40 are important particularly helpful as they support high quality mixed use development for employment new offices and research and development which were all encouraged it's also worth highlighting that the the the plot is within the emerging northeast cambridge area action plan as well which is which is currently under consultation um as lizzie's sort of summarized the plot is in a great location uh on fronting at the front of the cambridge business park um it's the opportunity to deliver high high quality and showcase a scheme uh head of the future master plan which will cover the whole of of of the cambridge business park but that's being pursued under a separate planning application and is currently in consultation with planning officers and the proposal sit as currently planned within phase eight of that master plan which is anticipated to come forward phase eight is anticipated to come forward in 10 to 15 years as such that the temporary development is proposed to optimize that vacant plot and showcase the future aspirations of the crown estate technically the the proposal has been designed to avoid any conflict with that that master plan and its delivery and therefore it's seen as a pretty integral part of delivering that early phase and to maintain active frontage while the remainder of the business uh business park is brought forward these are some of the oh too far one back again sorry um these are the building this is the building as as presently uh on the site and it was previously occupied occupied by ernst and young they vacated in the summer last year and it's remained vacant since uh the air the site includes an area of surface carpet car parking and accommodates about 55 car parking spaces and the majority of those will be lost and as you heard at the beginning it'll be about seven spaces proposed the other area of the site is a small portion of the neighboring surface car park and hedgerow which is associated with newton newton house and as mentioned that plot uh the this anson young plot uh it has direct frontage onto milton road and through discussions with officers we saw that as a real opportunity to open up the building onto milton road great this this slide just summarizes some of the the high level sustainable objectives of the master plan which caitlin will sort of explain in detail and how those have been accommodated um but the three guiding principles that lizzie referred to also align the the golden thread of the mppf for sustainable development which are the economic social and environmental um elements of what is defined as sustainable development the key components include the refurbishment of the existing building to create that flexible office and lab floor space meets an identified need for startup enterprises together with the provision of community event space the modular building is is designed for 15 years but i think it's key to note that we've done a briam assessment to achieve excellence despite it being a temporary building and there's been a whole life carbon assessment which has informed the design proposals we'll also seek to enhance landscaping uh reconfigure that car park so that we've so have a modal shift of encouraging uh alternative modes of transport and so cycling and pedestrian and whilst the modular lab building is considered temporary in terms of built form the concept and enterprise that it will harness uh seen as a sort of a permanent element of the scheme and it's hope that this scheme will act as a stepping stone for those small to medium enterprises to locate within the permanent buildings in the future um we've gone through quite a extensive pre-application process with officers so we've had two two pre-application meetings uh and the dates are up there and and some details about what that feedback was um but really the process has been extremely positive and from my perspective it's really rare to have a client like the crown of state who who seek to exceed some of those key sustainability objective sustainability and social objectives uh and the crown have sought to accommodate recommendations and feedback from planning officers and local stakeholders wherever possible and as i say caitlin will come on to those now in terms of how they've been accommodated thanks ashley uh so from a design perspective we started off by retaining the existing robinson house building uh refurbishing that and making it uh suitable for a new use we've then extended the reception space with two single-story extensions which will give us a grander sense of arrival to the building as well as proposing a new entrance off milton road which will pick up the footfall and the people using the neighboring cycle route we then situate a demountable set of lab buildings a single lab building sorry a set of lab containers within the existing surface level car park and then a connecting atrium building which is carefully located um to avoid existing windows and provide additional landscape space which we can discuss further on the following slides at roof level we have opportunity for an urban farm which would be a collaboration point with um a sort of external provider and this whole element will sit within a landscape proposal on the next slide you can see the proposals in more detail um which is an aerial accident electric view so you can see how the building elements are going to be treated with a pink paint so it gives us a holistic vision across the site and sort of celebrates new life and ties these quite disparate elements into into one proposal and you can see the emerging landscape which surround the buildings which we'll go into more detail in the following slides from a landscape concept we're imagining this project to be an opportunity to explore pioneering sustainable landscape methods and that will be from this site and then we imagine that rolling out across the crown estates wider portfolio so using it as a real test bed where we can look at ideas and how they actually work in reality the landscape proposals have been developed following feedback during the pre-application process so the designs that we presented at the the initial uh pre-app been simplified somewhat uh following members feedback and in particular the milwaukee forest which we propose to uh the south of the site has now been simplified somewhat to work to a wooded area which retains the existing trees the retention of the existing trees was a real importance um for this site in particular due to the biodiversity net gain requirements and we're currently sitting around uh 21 for those uh we also have a clean air garden which is situated next to milton road which is obviously quite a high trafficked um main route so we're proposing some air quality monitors which will assess the performance of um of the planting and then in that way offer a sort of test bed for this to be rolled out across the wider master plan the materials for the landscape are to be reclaimed so we're taking up existing paving um which sits beneath the proposed lab buildings and we're using those as paths that are going to be relayed in a way which allows for drainage uh beneath them we can go on to the next slide um also in the landscape we're going to have some large water collection containers and the purpose of those is to communicate the the water shortage issues in cambridge um and seeing sort of a not only a conversation starter to talk to um obviously people that are visiting the site can then become aware of uh of the issue here but also then act as a functional um sort of element which can use be used to water the the landscape the proposed landscape although we have focused our attention to sort of drought tolerant native species which would require less irrigation obviously to be suitable for this location on the ground floor the spaces are divided into sort of three three zones we have uh the engage spaces in the purple which are for the community use so that includes the cafe which um addresses both milton road and also the existing cowley road entrance and we also have an event space which is tucked away adjacent to the cafe but can be opened up into one large space and the idea behind that is that the work that's being done within the labs and the research can then be shared with the with a wider network of people including the local community um the green spaces the darker green is the office uh uses and then the lighter green are the lab spaces so those will work um together in that the work will be sort of developed in the labs and then wrote they're written up in the um in the office spaces and then the pink spaces are communal uses for the um building users only so those are seen as these bump spaces that lizzie mentioned where building users can interact and share ideas and become a sort of hotbed for um for sharing and developing new things on the first floor we have more office and lab space as well as um further collaboration spaces in the form of a hot desking area and a common room the common room links to the proposed atrium which is a connection between the labs and the offices and allows a sort of fluid route between the two spaces and then at roof level we have opportunity for an urban farm as well as a viewing deck which will be an exciting opportunity for people to look out as the master plan of the wider cambridge business park develops as well as meeting space that um users can rent out we've consulted quite uh quite thoroughly on pedestrian and cyclist experience thinking about that user uh that user journey um we've spoken to cam cycles in some detail about the expectation for high quality cycle facilities um so we're proposing a dedicated cycle entrance to the rear of the building where an access control gate provides access to long stay cycle parking and then the rear door connects directly to the cyclist shower and locker facilities providing a sort of route into the building where you can get to work freshen up before greeting your colleagues we also have short stay stay spaces off milton road connecting into that um that existing cycle network as well as a uh proposed maintenance stand and then again picking up on feedback from pre-apps we're now using the space between the proposed lab building and existing robinson house adjacent to the atrium for further short stay parking so the short stay parking is next to both of the main entrances um so the vehicle access uh is proposed um to the west of the building so we've had vehicle tracking which ensures that a vehicle can enter the site without interrupting the the cyclist um route so there's a dedicated cycle path uh to the to the west um and the servicing will be for bins which we've based on the policy requirements as well as a gas store which we've had some advice from our operational um people that are gonna advise for how many sort of gas uh store um gas bottles will be required for uh such a development um we also have a small amount of car parking spaces including an accessible bay and as ashley reminded us that the the landscape proposals all include level access we've got appropriate um gradients and level thresholds in the building which provide access for all into the into the development and then finally we've also started to think about what will happen to robinson house in the future obviously as the master plan um progresses and thinking about how the materials may be reused in the future and we see this as an opportunity to um test ideas so again thinking about how we can reuse those existing pavers we'd also like to explore the reuse of any small demolition we might have to do within the existing building for origins so where we're taking out existing windows and existing brickwork perhaps crushing those up and using them as aggregate for the proposed extensions and then finally uh we finish with a proposed cgi of the origin uh where you can see that landscape in the foreground with the reclaim pavers as well as the pink paint which unites the whole uh proposal and the two sort of small single story extensions uh either side of the existing entrance point so um needless to say um you're now encouraged to ask questions and seek clarifications you're reminded not to express any opinions that might suggest or imply closed mind so um thank you very much i'll i'll i'll go in the order from right to left so katie peter anna thank you don't forget counselor smart perhaps you're avoiding me uh it's a quick question actually very quick very quick yeah i think right to left apologies it's been a long day so thank you for the presentation um it's just really one main question is why is the building for 15 years i appreciate the you know the things about reusing buildings and all of that if its buildings has some use in it why not use it but um so the question is why the building is for 15 years and what's the plan in 15 years time which is an adjunct to that question really so yeah i can cover that one off um it is more of a master plan kind of answer to the question um so we've had a building life survey conducted across the site and based on the initial survey that was undertaken in 2023 it was indicated that the useful economic life of this building was only for a 15 year period and based on current master plan phasing that fits quite nicely with where we're sitting so the target is for 10 to 15 years if the building is a complete success and becomes a bit of a landmark there's no saying that it won't stay but um that's why we've kind of been really um cognizant of the fact that we'd like to try and enable the modular elements of the building because that would be new to be reusable in the future um hopefully that answers the question there was a second part okay it's happening in 15 years in 15 years time and the current master plan phasing it will um become part of the future master plan so at the moment it sits outside our master plan vision um as a plot but then it will become one of the later phases at the moment the last phase of the master plan so not down for redevelopment it's paura now thank you very much it does sound really interesting and a good use of the end of life of a building particularly if obviously we've got the whole northeast cambridge coming forward hopefully soon so it's good to know this can be changed to fit with that and i was interested in the urban farm are you suggesting animals like i mean literally i mean just like a little bit of definition on that because it seems a little optimistic to have a load of goats pooing on the roof for that and uh food and beverage sounds like a positive thing again i've said before i hope you'll think about things like a changing places toilet or a at least a disabled accessible toilet which i think you probably have to provide anyway because those kind of things are so enabling we've got i think one changing places coming forward but not very near to you so that would be an amazing thing to do for the community and i mentioned cargo bikes as i do all the time again it's a very sustainable site you will have people dropping their kids off and coming in so provision for those so they're not sort of littering the streets in would be great and finally the the modular part where you're going to extend the height and i suppose it would be useful coming forward to have some proper views of that and how that would impact obviously on the one you showed it does seem to stick up a little bit but i do appreciate it's quite hard to tell how big the other buildings are currently all be planned to be so i think you don't need to necessarily answer that one now but it would be useful to know but yeah something about the farm would be useful uh no that's actually interesting so we were just discussing this outside um so when our fire uh strategy consultant came onto the project they asked whether there would be animals on the top of the building um we're talking more about kind of agri-tech kind of uh solutions so more kind of an urban growing farm hopefully something that might be able to even supply the cafe in the future um but yes more vegetation based rather than animals um uh in terms of the accessibility of the building we've had a um an inclusive design consultant look at everything at stage two so that is uh considered in our design and access statements um and then cargo bikes correct me if i'm wrong but i think we have two spaces um provided which aligns with policy requirements and what cam cycle have advised on okay if i might i would definitely say yeah the policy is a minimum and you're seeing the changing habits of people now if you if you just stand on the road you'll see people going by and it stops people buying your car if they can park it safely thank you katie thornborough um this reminds me of the hub in west cambridge i don't know if you've been there so it became west cambridge site is a lot of um university buildings for engineering and tech and things like that and they've got a lot of little cafes and they decided to do a hub like you like you and a lot of people said we don't need it we don't need it but it is it's probably twice the size i would think and it is um used so extensively by everybody on that site and people coming in from outside the site i've i've had a break between meetings and cycled up and had a coffee and um did some work there and i think you should go and have a look at that because i think you should build i would suggest that building in uh flexibility and future proofing should be part of this because if it is successful you may want to extend the the public hub aspect and and maybe reduce the amount of offices and lab space if it becomes really successful so i really hope that it and this one in west cambridge it was it's a it's won awards and you know there's no you know we're looking for award-winning buildings all the time so i really hope you can build in accessibility so that if it's few if it's really successful it can expand this um the amenity side uh i'm really interested in seeing the master plan in due course um this is not part of what we're talking about but uh and and the routes through that and in in a way even with this scheme it would be nice to have an idea about the master plan um i think i think that's all yeah thanks i've just been told that the master plans like to come to committee in june but will we see it beforehand you know this is is you know master plans and uh it's a briefing it's briefing yeah yeah yeah i was just going to say we'll have probably the first of a few briefings on the master plan um in june which will be before the committee on this um uh project so that should help hopefully inform it a bit more comes to fame thank you chair um very excited i when i we started on the slides i wondered why the word origin kept appearing and now i see from this why uh i i think that when you have a pink painted painted building with the origin of new ideas and possibly even goats grazing on the roof you may create high expectations and high visitor demand as well you'll probably even have people passing in their cars on cowley road hoping to come in and see what this is all about but seriously it's a it's a very interesting idea and we do need i'm sure following on from councillor smart was saying to be able to look in particular at how people will live and how people will travel in 15 years time or indeed more um you know will we all be riding around on electric cargo bikes possibly not but just a little issue which i think is worth taking account of in passing is that a significant number of people who have electric bikes don't have anywhere really to keep them other than to charge them up in the corridors at home and we have had a significant number of fires in corridors some of which have resulted in fatalities and whilst you can't do much about that it will it is very useful if employers ensure there is somewhere safe for cargo bikes or electric bikes cargo or otherwise to be charged up at work and maybe even not a matter of planning maybe even checked but very interested in the ideas and the expectations you create thank you so um anna bradman please thank you chair um one of the things uh right i have a number of questions um thank you for your presentation um firstly i noted in your proposal you refer to a lab hotel uh and you've only described lab so i'm kind of reassured perhaps that hotel is not going to be part of this but maybe you could think about that um secondly i welcome the fact that you're going to bring a master plan to us as a briefing uh before it comes to us for approval so thank you very much um right on the uh lab part um i wanted to clarify how many stories that will be uh because the other buildings currently around it are relatively modest although they might change in future i appreciate that um for me personally uh i look at pink paint and think why not green given that that's the credentials that you're uh considering bringing forward as part of the uh consideration for your building you know the environmental and agricultural and uh sustainability issues um also in the presentation you showed us your innovative water collection containers um and i would just like you to think about how they might look from the road and whether they will be attractive and be considered exemplars of their type or what you know how people might view those it would be good if they could be beautiful as well as functional um the other next one is you're right hard up against the shared uh on your northern boundary with the shared cycle and pedestrian path to cambridge north station and you may have people coming from there to use your facilities so i've just wondered whether you've thought about navigation and this is a master plan issue through the business park to your premises because otherwise people would have to go all the way out to the west to milton road then down the milton road shared cycle path then back in and i just wondered are you thinking about access through the business park to your premises um also if you don't do that i'd just like you to think about the potential risk of conflict between pedestrians and cycles on the western access of your building and for clarity i attended your public exhibition and saw your presentation there and what i also noticed was that access is on a slope and you i would just like you to think about the safety of that access on that side um also on that side you've proposed cycle parking right next to the the shared use cycle path on milton road and again i'd like you to think about possible conflict between the cycle parking cycle stopping pedestrian access pedestrian exit from your western exit just think about how traffic is and and pedestrians and cycles are going to move around that space particularly in terms of visibility um and lastly as others have said there are a lot of e-scooters and e-bikes being used around cambridge and particularly on the milton road and on the towards the cambridge north station so i would urge that you consider where e-scooters and e-bikes might park thank you again i don't really need answers to those just so you've got those in your mind thank you councillor khan you're talking about an event space and having event activities and uh and obviously a cafe um and if this is just service servicing the employment start areas around i i see that the access won't be a real problem people will mainly be walking but if you're planning to also service residential areas you're actually quite distant from residential areas uh people uh quite a lot of people who participate will be will be elderly because that tends to be the people who've got the time to participate in events and they may well need me to go by car rather than by uh by other means you've only got seven spaces if you're having events there they're going to be sudden rushes of people you need to think how you might manage parking if it did gain in that sort of instance uh even if you're not wanting it on a regular basis i i just feel that i can see there might be problems if you're trying to do that um and um with the best will in the world around obviously promoting sustainable transport um uh and while it's good to get rid of some of the spaces i i i think it's there's a potential conflict there you might want to think about how you how you manage it and who you're targeting did you want an answer i can cover general thinking at the moment um in terms of the event space we're providing um we're going to be really targeting some of our skills and education programs which we're already engaging with local stakeholders so i can reform the future at the moment so the idea would be that hopefully we can host events with them in this space once it's there um at the moment we have an urban room in one of our other vacant buildings which we're kind of building up momentum with um stakeholders and um kind of community companies that we're working with um in terms of car parking kind of we are fortunate that we do own the rest of the business park and there is parking provided elsewhere on the business park so for events perhaps we can speak with our um asset team and then as the master plan comes forward parking will be provided on sites um and so accessibility should be something that is mitigated as the master plan comes forwards um i think that was it in terms of answers but yeah thank you did any member want a question answered at this point cancer smart yeah it's not a question but just a bit clarification i already googled it i know what it is but uh what are they called lab hotels was mentioned you might want to just tell us all what that is so we all are clear yeah of course so it's um i think we'll take out reference and the design and access statement to a lab hotel because it is confusing it comes up quite often um so it's basically we're going to be putting on 16 modular lab units which will be self-contained lab laboratory spaces um and amenities that go with them um so it will be space that our customers can carry out experiments and research and then they can go into the main building into their office space that they would be renting out from us um right up and kind of work from there um the idea is to run it as an innovation hub so they'll also be kind of supporting services provided to small companies so that we can support them as they scale up and grow um so for clarification i hope you don't mind i asked that question you mean it's rentable lab space in the sense of a hotel room but it's not for accommodation yeah it's for rentable lab space it's a lab space that can be rentable lab space okay is there any more questions no well um at that point can i just thank you very much your presentation uh i hear things are progressing well through the pre-apps uh i haven't heard any objections just interest in curiosity in what you're up to um a near neighbor of yours is cambridge sustainable food um you might wish to contact them in respect of your roof zoo uh uh and uh yeah they're very nearby they're quite nearby um so um thank you so much and we look forward to seeing you again in june thank you um members are reminded that the next meeting will take place uh as the joint development management committee on wednesday the 18th of june that now concludes the what the the last joint element control committee meeting um for today could the producer please end the live stream thank you you