Cambridge urban area includes all of the built-up area of Cambridge, irrespective of the administrative boundary between Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council.
Our ambition is for the historic core of Cambridge to be protected and enhanced by appropriate new development of the highest design quality, and for the centre to be complemented by active, compact neighbourhoods – new and old. This means regenerating parts of the city that aren’t fulfilling their potential, and creating new neighbourhoods on the larger brownfield sites, such as at North East Cambridge. These must have the critical mass of homes, jobs and services to create thriving communities, fully integrated with surrounding areas and making the best use of brownfield land. We want all of Cambridge to be a place where walking, cycling and public transport is the natural choice and where unnecessary private car use is discouraged to help with our net zero carbon ambition.
How have the plan’s themes influenced this?
Locating development within the Cambridge urban area is a highly sustainable development option, because of its very good accessibility by walking, cycling and public transport to existing facilities and services. This brings particular benefits for climate change mitigation, equalities, health, air quality, economy and employment, and helps to limit development on greenfield land. must also be carefully designed to respect the historic character of the city.
Topic paper
Further information on the policy areas, including their national, regional and local context, and further information on the evidence that has informed the proposed policy direction, can be found in the topic paper which accompanies this theme:
Tell us what you think
Our consultation for this phase is now closed.