Biodiversity and green spaces

Through consultation feedback you told us that biodiversity and green spaces were a high priority. You were concerned about the pressure development could put on the network of green spaces. You wanted us to protect existing green spaces, but also deliver new spaces that could support the needs of people as well as wildlife. 

Strategic Priority: Increase and improve our network of habitats for wildlife, and green spaces for people, ensuring that development leaves the natural environment better than it was before. 

Cambridge City Council and South Cambridge District Council declared a biodiversity emergency in 2019, in recognition of the pressures facing our natural world, both locally and internationally. Working as part of the Local Nature Partnership, we want to double nature by 2050. We also want to play our part in implementing Cambridgeshire’s Local Nature Recovery Strategy, which is being prepared by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority. 

To inform the overall strategy for the plan we considered the best locations to restore our area’s habitat networks and provide more green spaces for people to enjoy. The local plan has identified 14 strategic green infrastructure initiatives to help achieve this. The developments the plan identifies will deliver green infrastructure directly, but we will also secure planning contributions where funding can be used to enhance the wider network. 

Reflecting our ‘doubling nature’ ambition, our policies seek a higher level of biodiversity gains from new development than the national requirement. We have followed Natural England’s new

Green Infrastructure is a multi-functional network of public green spaces and routes, landscapes, biodiversity and heritage. It includes a wide range of elements such as country parks, wildlife habitats, rights of way, commons and greens, nature reserves, waterways and bodies of water, and historic landscapes and monuments.

Framework, to develop standards that would ensure places include green spaces, trees, and places for people as well as wildlife.

• Protect important sites for biodiversity, and require new developments to contribute to gains in biodiversity, setting a standard above the national requirement. 
• Ensure development is designed to incorporate green spaces and helps to expand the wider green infrastructure network. 
• Enhance tree canopy cover, acknowledging the benefits that can have for urban cooling as well as biodiversity. 
• Control development on our river corridors balancing the many roles our watercourses have including for recreation, wildlife habitats, and drainage. 
• Protecting and enhancing important open spaces in our communities. 

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.