Policy J/VA: Visitor accommodation, attractions and facilities

Proposals within the Defined

This refers to development in its widest sense, including buildings, and streets, spaces and places. It also refers to both redevelopment, including refurbishment, as well as new development.

Extent of Cambridge 

1. Proposals for high quality visitor accommodation will be supported in Cambridge City Centre and the following mixed use developments: 

  a. Cambridge Biomedical Campus 

  b. Cambridge East 

  c. North East Cambridge including Cambridge Science Park 

  d. West Cambridge 

  e. North West Cambridge 

2. Elsewhere within the Defined

This refers to development in its widest sense, including buildings, and streets, spaces and places. It also refers to both redevelopment, including refurbishment, as well as new development.

Extent of Cambridge new visitor accommodation will be supported where it is located on the frontages of main roads, in areas of mixed-use or within walking distance of good public transport accessibility. 

3. Applicants for Apart-hotels and serviced apartments must provide full details of the nature of the accommodation to be provided and the proposed terms of occupation when submitting a planning application. 

Outside the Defined

This refers to development in its widest sense, including buildings, and streets, spaces and places. It also refers to both redevelopment, including refurbishment, as well as new development.

Extent of Cambridge 

4.

This refers to development in its widest sense, including buildings, and streets, spaces and places. It also refers to both redevelopment, including refurbishment, as well as new development.

which will provide visitor accommodation within Defined development extents will be supported where the scale and type of development is directly related to the role and function of the centre. 

5. Outside Defined development extents, development to provide overnight visitor accommodation, holiday accommodation and public houses will be permitted by the change of use / conversion / replacement of suitable buildings and by small scale new developments appropriate to local circumstances. 

6. New developments of visitor accommodation will be limited to short term holiday lettings. Applicants will be required to provide full details of the nature of the accommodation to be provided and the proposed terms of occupation when submitting a planning application. 

Conversion of dwellings to visitor accommodation 

7. Within Cambridge, and settlements and countryside that are within the outer boundary of the green belt, where planning permission is needed, in order to maintain housing supply, support residents’ amenity and wellbeing and maintain local character, the conversion of residential properties to visitor accommodation use will be allowed only in exceptional circumstances and where it does not: 

  a. adversely affect residents’ amenity and sense of security including unacceptable impacts and effects from noise, nuisance, traffic, or on-street parking; or 

  b. adversely affect the local area’s character or social and community cohesion either individually or cumulatively. 

Loss of visitor accommodation 

8.

This refers to development in its widest sense, including buildings, and streets, spaces and places. It also refers to both redevelopment, including refurbishment, as well as new development.

will not be permitted which would result in the loss of existing visitor accommodation unless it can be demonstrated that: 

  a. all reasonable efforts have been made to preserve the facility but it has been proven that it would not be economically viable to retain the visitor accommodation in its current form; and 

  b. the property or site has been appropriately marketed for at least 12 months in order to confirm that there is no interest in the property or site for visitor accommodation use. 

Visitor attractions within the Defined

This refers to development in its widest sense, including buildings, and streets, spaces and places. It also refers to both redevelopment, including refurbishment, as well as new development.

Extent of Cambridge 

9. Proposals for new visitor attractions within Cambridge will be supported where they: 

  a. complement the existing cultural heritage of the city; 

  b. are limited in scale; and 

  c. assist the diversification of the attractions on offer, especially to better support the needs of families. 

Visitor attractions outside the Defined

This refers to development in its widest sense, including buildings, and streets, spaces and places. It also refers to both redevelopment, including refurbishment, as well as new development.

Extent of Cambridge 

10. Proposals for new visitor attractions within South Cambridgeshire’s towns and villages will be supported where they are of a scale and character that is appropriate to their location. 

11. Proposals for new or extended tourist facilities and visitor attractions (excluding accommodation) in the countryside will be supported where it can be demonstrated that: 

  a. The development utilises and enhances the areas existing tourism assets; 

  b. There is an identified need for a rural location, and all opportunities for reuse / replacement of existing rural buildings have been explored appropriate to the proposal; 

  c. The scheme is in scale with its location and the nature of the facility it supports 

  d. The proposal does not require on site accommodation (e.g. for security). 

  e. There is not a significant adverse impact on the amount or nature of traffic generated. 

Visitor accommodation now takes many forms, ranging from traditional hotels, guesthouses and hostels to apart-hotels and serviced apartments. This policy applies to visitor accommodation within any of these (or similar) formats. 

The

The combined areas of Cambridge District and South Cambridgeshire District Councils.

Hotel Needs Study (2025) assessed the demand and supply of hotel bedspaces across

The combined areas of Cambridge District and South Cambridgeshire District Councils.

. It identified a base case need for an additional 2,000 new bedspaces in the urban area of Cambridge to 2045. The pipeline of hotels already under construction means that no additional bedspaces are likely to be needed until 2027. Other pipeline developments could add to this supply but were identified in the study as being less certain. They could potentially meet demand until 2032. 

Due to its appeal to leisure and business travellers, Cambridge city centre is identified as the key location for half the identified need with the remainder focused in the urban area outside the city centre, particularly to the south of Cambridge. As such, this policy seeks to support new visitor accommodation within the city centre. At the same time, recognising both the projection of need and the possibility that constraints on development and the competition for sites may increase demand in peripheral areas, the policy: 

• identifies mixed use sites on the edge of Cambridge as locations for new visitor accommodation 
• supports the development of visitor accommodation at suitable accessible locations elsewhere in the periphery. 

A modest growth in the need for hotel bedspaces of 220 is projected in the remainder of South Cambridgeshire. As such, recognising that there are existing hotel permissions not yet implemented in the developing new settlements, rather than identifying individual locations the policy seeks to support new visitor accommodation of an appropriate scale and type across the district. 

In recent years, the use of online platforms for short term lets to rent out either whole or parts of a residential unit as temporary accommodation for a variety of occupiers has increased in popular tourist locations and areas close to large employment centres. This is particularly the case in Cambridge, including areas close to the main railway station and Trumpington Meadows where these activities are clustered together. Although these services provide opportunity to support good growth in cities, the widespread and concentrated prevalence of this activity can have negative effects. These include: 

• Loss of residential housing supply, reducing the supply of homes available to meet residential accommodation needs. 
• Loss of amenity space, privacy and enjoyment of their home resulting from patterns of behaviour of short-term tenants. 
• Continual disruption caused by visitors moving in and out of the premises, disruptive occupants and associated servicing of the unit(s). 
• Frequent rotation of unknown, neighbouring occupiers undermines residents’ sense of security of living in their own homes. 

The accommodation offered at apart-hotels and serviced apartments can display characteristics associated with permanent, self-contained housing (Use Class C3). Alternatively, this accommodation can be akin to hotels, as a result of the type of services they provide (Use Class C1 or Sui Generis). Characteristics can include (amongst others): 

• presence of on-site staff/management 
• presence of reception, bar and/or restaurant 
• provision of cleaning and administrative services 
• ownership or other tenure of units and/or ability to sell or lease on the open market 
• minimum/maximum lease lengths. 

The different nature of the C1 and C3/Sui Generis accommodation may consequently result in different impacts on permanent housing. Where proposals for apart-hotels or serviced apartments are considered to fall within C3 use Class proposals or comprise sui generis uses which have the characteristics of a C3 use, such proposals will be assessed via relevant housing policies in the local plan. 

Where apart-hotels and serviced apartment units fall under C1 or Sui Generis uses, the councils will take steps to ensure they will not be used for any other purpose. This may include the imposition of conditions to ensure maximum lengths of stay (typically 90 days) and a restriction on return visits. 

The visitor economy has an important role to play in maintaining the sustainability of rural communities, providing business supply chain opportunities and jobs for local residents. In South Cambridgeshire, beyond the urban area of Cambridge, holiday accommodation will be limited to short term lets of no longer than four weeks, through conditions or legal agreements, to ensure it is retained as tourist accommodation and not used as long term or permanent residential accommodation. Permitted development rights may be removed in the interests of amenity. 

Whilst some of the requirement for new visitor accommodation can be met through the new sites, conversions and redevelopments, the cost of and competition for sites, particularly in Cambridge city centre, mean that the retention of existing accommodation is key to ensuring growing demand can be satisfied. Where the case can be made that the visitor accommodation is not and cannot be made viable with investment, its loss may be acceptable. 

The emphasis for the management of Cambridge as a tourist destination is on extending the length of visits and continued visitor management. While Cambridge would potentially benefit from the diversification of attractions including enhanced provision for families, major theme parks and other national profile developments will not be appropriate. There would, however, be potential for enhancing the existing visitor experience. 

In South Cambridgeshire there are a number of assets which have become major tourist visitor attractions, such as the World War II airfield at Duxford which is now home to the Imperial War Museum, and Wimpole Hall which is owned by the National Trust. Facilities such as these can only be developed where the assets exist. Tourist facilities and attractions could include visitor and information centres, toilets, tea rooms, or picnic sites. The policy is intended to support the districts existing attractions and assets. It is not the intention of the policy to encourage new major tourist attractions. 

• The combined areas of Cambridge District and South Cambridgeshire District Councils.

  A plan for the future development of a local area, drawn up by the local planning authority in consultation with the community. In law this is described as the development plan documents adopted under the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. A local plan can consist of either strategic or non-strategic policies, or a combination of the two.

  Topic Paper 6: Jobs (2025)

• The combined areas of Cambridge District and South Cambridgeshire District Councils.

  Hotel Needs Study (2025)

We will consider all comments while developing the next version of the

A plan for the future development of a local area, drawn up by the local planning authority in consultation with the community. In law this is described as the development plan documents adopted under the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. A local plan can consist of either strategic or non-strategic policies, or a combination of the two.

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All comments must be received by 30 January 2026 at 5pm.