 Well, good evening members and a warm welcome to you and also to officers and any members of the public who may be viewing the livestream this evening. Welcome to this meeting of South Cambrishshire District Council, Scrutiny and Overview Committee. My name is Councillor Grenfiel Chamberlain and I am the chair of this committee. To any member of the public watching you may see just a few of us in the council chamber. That is, as we are following the advice of the director of public health and keeping our exposure to a minimum, but I'm delighted that the rest of our colleagues and officers are joining online and I'm grateful to you all for looking after each other's health. May I remind those present in the council chamber that everything on your desk, including your laptop screen, may be broadcast at some point. The camera will follow the microphone being switched on so councillors and officers are requested to wait a couple of seconds before speaking to allow the camera to catch up. If the fire alarm sounds then please leave the chamber by the door near the top table and make your way down the stairs. Do not use the lift. The safe assembly point is next to the marketing suite halfway along the business park. If I may address those joining us via the livestream please indicate that you wish to speak by the chat column. Please do not use the chat column for any other purpose. Please make sure that your device is fully charged and that you switch your microphone off unless you are invited to do otherwise. Please ensure that you have switched off or silenced any other devices you have so that they do not interrupt proceedings. Please use a headset of available when speaking and hold the microphone close to your mouth. When you are invited to address the meeting please make sure your microphone is switched on. When you finish addressing the meeting please turn off your microphone immediately. Please speak clearly and slowly and please do not talk over or interrupt anyone. Please note that if we do need to vote on any item we shall do so via the microphones. But only those present in the chamber can vote or propose or second any recommendations. That committee member is present in the chamber. I will now invite each of you to introduce yourselves. Members after I call your name please turn on your camera and microphone. Wait two seconds and say your name so that your present may be noted. As I said earlier my name is Councillor Grenville Chamberlain and I am the Member for Hardwick Ward. My Vice-Chair is Councillor Judith Ripth. Good evening, I'm Councillor Judith Ripth. Thank you for the mic rather than the space and then if you need the time. Good evening, Councillor Judith Ripth, Member for Milton Wood to each ward and Vice-Chair of this committee. Thank you Judith. I now have call upon Councillor Anna Bradnam to introduce herself please. Thank you Chair. I'm Councillor Anna Bradnam and I'm district councillor for one of the three district councillors for Milton Wood to each ward. And now Councillor Dr Clare Daunton please. Sorry for the delay, Chair. I'm Clare Daunton and I'm one of the members for the Fendit and Full Born Ward. Thank you very much. And Councillor Dr Richard Williams please. Thank you Chair. I'm Richard Williams. I'm the Member for the Wittlesford Ward. Thank you Richard. Joining us virtually we have Councillor Henry Batchelor. Good evening Chair, Councillor Henry Batchelor, one of the members for the Linton Ward. Thank you Henry. Councillor Paul Bear Park please. We can't hear you Paul. Can you please confirm your presence, Councillor Paul Bear Park? Can you hear me now? Yes we can, thank you. Oh great, sorry about that. My name is Paul Bear Park. I'm also a member representing Milton Wood Beach. Thank you very much. We now come to councillor Dr Martin Karn. Hello, Martin Karn, councillor for one of the councillors for Heston and Invington and Watcher Park Ward. Thank you Martin. Councillor Nigel Cathcart. Good evening. Nigel Cathcart, the Member for Fendit and Full Born Ward. Thank you. Councillor Peter Fane. Good evening. Peter Fane, Shelford Ward. Councillor Aiden Van Der Wy. Good evening. Yes, I'm Aiden Van Der Wy from Barrington Ward. And I'm Councillor Graham Cohn. Thanks very much. I'm one of the councillors for Fendit and Full Born Ward. Thank you. I'm delighted to have with us from the Cabinet Councillor Tumey Hawkins. Good evening, Chairman. Good evening, Members. Tumey Hawkins, Member for Codico Ward. And the Cabinet Member for Planning, Policy and Delivery. Thank you. Thank you very much. I believe we also have councillor John Batchelor. We have indeed, Chair. John Batchelor, one of the Members for Linton Ward. I'm the lead Member on the Cabinet for Housing. Thank you very much. Councillor John Williams. Good evening, Chair. I'm John Williams. I'm one of the Members for Fendit and Full Born Ward. And I'm also the lead Cabinet Member for Finance. Thank you very much. And we have councillor Bill Handley. Hello, Bill Handley. I'm one of the Members for Over and Willingham. And I'm the lead Cabinet Member for Community Resilience, Health and Wellbeing. Thank you, Bill. May I ask, are there any councillors that I have missed? Chair, you've got to see the Deputy Leader and Member for the Codico Ward. My apologies, Councillor Gough. You're in the corner. We also have a number of officers with us this evening. We have Liz Watts, our Chief Executive, Stephen Kelly, Peter Maddock and Peter Campbell, Julie Fletcher from Housing, Caroline Hunt, Terry De Souza and Matt Patterson. And I'm delighted to confirm that this meeting is quarat. May I ask Members if anyone leaves the meeting at any time but they please make that fact known to me so that it can be recorded in the minutes. Before we proceed with today's agenda, I would just like to inform Members about a letter which the Chair of the Audit and Corporate Governance Committee and I have sent to Mr Daniel Fulton of the Fuse Lane Consortium. At the last Audit and Corporate Governance Committee, Mr Fulton had asked a supplementary question relating to the robustness of this council's risk management of 3CICT. Mr Fulton was under the impression that the Head of 3CICT also undertook duties at Cambridgeshire County Council and the Combined Authority. Our letter to him was to assure him that this was not the case and that the interim Head of 3CICT appointed 12 months ago worked for no other organisation. So, ladies and gentlemen, we now revert to the agenda and as set on item 2 is the Apologies for Absence. Can I ask Ian Senior whether there are any apologies for absence please? Thank you, Chair. Four apologies from committee members. Councillors John Johnson, Hart, Hunt and Harvey. Also apologies from leader of the council, Bridget Smith. We have two apologies today, two substitutes for the committee today. Councillor Henry Batchelor and Councillor Bear Park. Thank you very much, Mr Senior. Item 3 on the agenda is declarations of interest. May I ask whether any members have interests to declare in relation to any item of business on this agenda? If an interest subsequently becomes apparent later in the meeting, please would you raise it at that point? Thank you, Chairman. I am three flavours of councillor for the area affected by item 6. I am parish councillor, district councillor and county councillor in the area affected by item 6. Thank you very much. I think Councillor Rippers. Just to say that I am district councillor on the local members in relation to agenda item 6, too. Thank you. Councillor Peter Fane, you have your hand up. Thank you, Chair, just to say that I am a board member of Irmin Street Housing and also of Charles Holmes, which may be relevant to item 7. Thank you very much. I personally will declare an interest as the sole director of Cecil Instruments, which owns commercial property adjacent to Milton Country Park and very close to the north-east Cambridge Area Action Plan, which we were talking about on item 6. May I remind members joining remotely, please use the chat solely for confirming that you wish to speak. Councillor Bear Park, did I see your hand up? Yes, you did. It's just regarding item 6. I am district councillor for Milton and Water Beach. Thank you very much. Any other declarations of interest? No. Thank you very much indeed. In that case, can we move on? Yes. I have my hand up. Oh, sorry, Martin. My apologies. You can see it now. I am councillor for Histhen in Peter and Roger Park and a tiny part of the area affected by item 6 is affected, is in my ward. Thank you very much indeed. So at that point, sorry, councillor Bradley. Could we just ask for the volume in the room to be slightly higher, please? Of course you can. Not wildly. Thank you, Lawrence. Item 4 on the agenda is the minutes of the meeting held on Thursday, 11 November. I'll go through page by page for accuracy, first of all. Page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4, page 5 and page 6. Can I ask members, is everyone content with those minutes? May I at some point sign them off as a true record of the last meeting? I agree. Thank you all very much indeed. Item 5 is public questions. We have in front of us this evening an agenda which runs to almost 450 pages, potentially leading to a very long meeting. At the start of each meeting we are allowing 15 minutes, up to 15 minutes for questions from the public, but as some of these questions are extremely long and it's likely to take up most of that with the asking questions, I will not be allowing follow-up questions this evening. But the first question comes from Mrs Margaret Starkey. Mrs Starkey, may I invite you to ask your question, please? Thank you, Chair. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. This is in relation to item 6 on your agenda. The area action plan for North East Cambridge is predicated on the proposed relocation of Cambridge wastewater treatment plant for which the development consent order is still in the pre-application stage. Given that the DCO application is unlikely to be submitted until late 2022 or early 2023, the proposed regulation 19 submission of the area action plan is premature. Why is resource being used so inappropriately and prematurely when the regulation 19 consultation on Cambridge wastewater treatment plant is not scheduled until February 2022 and the councils are deferring any formal public consultation on kneecap until after the DCO and the officers have recommended that any subsequent alteration to the area action plan is delegated to individual members and officers which appears to be at odds with the democratic process. Thank you. Thank you for your question, Mrs Starkey. I will respond on behalf of the council. I'm getting an echo from somewhere. Okay, thank you very much. The Greater Cambridge Local Development Scheme adopted in July 2020 sets out the council's process for preparing the North East Cambridge Area Action Plan. In respect of the timing of preparing the proposed submission AAP and the reason for that, it says under 0.9. Significant government housing infrastructure funding has been secured to facilitate the relocation of the Milton Waste Water Treatment Plant which will enable the development of a major brownfield site and comprehensive planning of the North East Cambridge area. Anglion Water proposes that a development consent order process will now be undertaken to enable the relocation. Under 0.10, the formal agreement by the councils of the proposed submission AAP will be an important factor in the DCO examination process to demonstrate commitment to development of the area. Therefore work on the AAP is intended to progress to complete the regulation 18 stage, consider the responses received and prepare the proposed submission AAP. The councils would make a decision ahead of the DCO examination to agree the AAP for regulation 19 publication, but actually carrying out the consultation would be subject to the successful completion of the DCO process because of the need at examination to be able to demonstrate that the development proposed on the site could be delivered. It is therefore anticipated that the AAP process would then pause until the outcome of the DCO is known. If successful, the councils would then proceed with the publication of the proposed submission AAP for the making of representations under regulation 19, following which the AAP would progress to submission and examinations. The councils are complying with and implementing the process and timing set out in the adopted local development scheme in bringing the proposed submission AAP to members now for agreement ahead of the formal stages of the DCO process progressing in 2022. Mrs Starkey, I thank you very much for your question. The next question comes from Mrs Catherine Martin. Mrs Martin, would you like to unmute yourself and please ask your question? Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. My question is also in relation to item six. The NEC site has been described by officers as the most sustainable site for building in the area. Caroline Hunt mentioned this in her opening on November JLPAG meeting. Could you please consider the impact of the release of embedded carbon in the destruction of the sewage plant and the massive carbon impact of rebuilding the sewage plant on precious green belt a couple of fields away? Thank you for your question, Mrs Martin. The description given at the JLPAG meeting of the North East Cambridge site was as the most suitable location in Greater Cambridge for development. This referred to the locational benefits in terms of minimizing carbon emissions from transport and the opportunity to maximise travel by non-car modes as identified in our evidence. That comment was not intended to relate to a wider, more detailed assessment of the North East Cambridge site that included embodied carbon. It is not possible or appropriate at the plan making stage to undertake a full carbon impact assessment, including arising from demolition from proposed development, because that level of detail is not normally available. The sustainability appraisal supporting the proposed submission AAP considers the cumulative effects of the plan in combination with other plans and projects, including the relocation of the wastewater treatment plant to the extent appropriate for the stage of the project at the time of the assessment. In terms of embedded carbon associated with the new proposal, this is addressed at paragraph 5.36 of the sustainability appraisal. The appraisal will be kept under review as the AAP and the DCO processes move forward to take into account any new information. The scoping opinion relating to the development consent order process for the new wastewater treatment plant has now been published by the planning inspectorate. With specific reference to the decommissioning and demolition of the existing plant, it requires assessment of the cumulative impacts of the proposal for the new works together with the effects of waste generated from demolition activities at the existing sewage works. This will include an assessment of cumulative carbon impacts. In any event, policy 2 of the proposed submission area action planned before members requires planning applications to calculate carbon emissions through a whole-life carbon assessment to demonstrate actions to reduce life-cycle carbon emissions and also to reduce construction waste. The environmental assessment supporting any planning application for development on the Northeast Cambridge site would be expected to include consideration of the demolition of existing structures on the site and the potential for waste reduction and reuse on site. This would inform the whole-life carbon assessment required by the AAP. The fact that there are different legal processes involved for the AAP and the DCO does not mean that there is any reduction in the level of scrutiny of the projects. All matters will be considered in the correct forum and in the correct way on both and both are subject to scrutiny from independent planning inspectors before they can be approved. Thank you very much, Mrs Martin, for your question. The next question comes from Mr James Littlewood. James, are you with us? I'm with you. Good evening, councillors. Thank you very much for allowing me to ask my question. My question is in relation to item 6 as well. There are many things, I should say, from the Cambridge past, present and future of those who don't know me, I'll also speak on behalf of Milton Country Park. There are many things to commend in the environmental aspirations for this development, but disappointingly, the provision of natural green space is not one of them. The amount of informal green space meets the minimum amount required to meet the councillor's policies, but two-thirds of this is provided on a business park described in page 26 of the Open Spaces report as these green spaces aren't perceived as being accessible to the wider public. Would you want to visit a business park for your leisure and recreation? It should be noted that the green space on a business park already exists and would not be new space. Only a third of the green space is provided in conjunction with the housing, and most of this is provided as linear green space or pocket parks, in other words, small areas of green space that are loomed over by high-rise buildings. There's one larger park, but the size of this is not provided in any of the documents. Extrapolating from the plans, we estimate this to be around two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half hectares in size. Figure 20 in your report includes an infographic which aims to compare the amount of open space in the AAP with other Cambridge parks. That comparison is misleading because the parks which are used for comparison are just that. They are parks. A better comparison would be to compare the main park proposed for the new development. At two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half hectares, this is very small in comparison to the other parks, given that it's dedicated to 16,000 people. At a bare minimum, the proposals for the AAP might just provide for the day-to-day open space needs of new residents, play space for children somewhere to walk the dog or kick a ball about, and perhaps for formal sport. But what it won't do is provide the kind of green spaces that people in high-density developments need access to, which is large, natural green space, somewhere they can go for long walk or run, experience nature and escape the pressures of urban life. There is, of course, somewhere for them to do that. It's Milton Country Park, and there's a subway proposed under the A14 so that residents can get to it. That would be great if it wasn't for the fact that the Country Park is already at capacity and cannot cope with 16,000 more visitors. In the hundreds of pages of text, there's almost no mention of Milton Country Park, let alone of it meeting the needs of the development. There's been no assessment of whether the Country Park has the capacity to cope and what mitigation might be required to enable it to do so. We could see no requirement for Section 106 contributions to support the Park to cope, only a rather vague paragraph on page 54 of the Open Spaces and Recreation topic paper, which refers to the need for resilience and capacity of existing green spaces. Natural England's accessible natural green space standards would require the AAP development to have a large 100 hectare site of accessible natural green space within five kilometres. Especially as this development is largely car free so people need it close by. But there isn't one. To make matters worse, North of Cambridge will also see 20,000 people at North Stowe and 22,000 at Water Beach. So where will these 58,000 people go to meet their green space needs? This is an area which has been highlighted in the evidence space for the next local plan that is already suffering from a deficit of green infrastructure and recreational pressure. It highlights North East Cambridge to Water Beach where the community area for green infrastructure marked as critically important. I want you to understand that there is only one option for providing that critical green space and that's through the North East AAP and therefore it's essential that section 106 contributions are secured towards this. So please will the scrutiny committee recommend that the AAP is not adopted until there is a commitment within the AAP for development contributions towards providing the larger scale green space that will be desperately needed by the future 58,000 residents of North East Cambridge, Water Beach and North Stowe? Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you very much, James, for your question. And in response I would say that it is important to clarify that the councils are not seeking to adopt the area action plan at this stage. The recommendation to both council's scrutiny committees is to agree the AAP and supporting documents for future public consultation following the outcome of the DCO process to relocate the wastewater treatment plant. The AAP requires development to bring forward 27.6 areas of new informal and children's play space across the area which is the equivalent of around 34.5 football pitches or around three times the size of Parker's Peace. In combination with the existing open spaces at NEC the development will meet the informal and children's play space requirements in the adopted local plans on site meaning all residents will have access to open space within a five minute walk of their homes for day to day informal recreation. The existing open spaces within the employment parks will form an important part of North East Cambridge for informal exercise and by providing a range of different types of spaces for people to enjoy. The proposed open spaces are substantial in size. The new large green space is 4.1 hectares which is around the same size as Christ's Peace or five football pitches. Similarly, the main linear park is between 70 metres and 100 metres wide which is the length of a football pitch and over 1.3 km long. As required by the AAP a landscape-led approach to designing these spaces will ensure that there will be opportunities for people to go for walks, run and experience nature on their doorstep. As set out in the first proposals local plan the councils are also seeking to bring forward new strategic scale green spaces as well as development. The nearest area identified to North East Cambridge lies immediately north of the A14 between the top of Cambridge, between the top of Cambridge, Water Beach Newtown and Northstone. This could provide a substantial amount of open space to serve not only these developments but also existing communities. These wider proposals fall outside of the AAP area and due to their more strategic role will be considered further as the councils prepare the greater Cambridge local plan. It should also be noted that the majority of new homes at North East Cambridge will not come forward until after the planned period, 20 years from now. So there is opportunity through the local plan process to address the strategic open space needs for not only North East Cambridge here but also greater Cambridge and therefore not relying solely on Milton Country Park to meet the recreation, health and well-being of people living in this area. James, thank you very much for your question. I believe our final question this evening comes from Mr Daniel Fulton. Mr Fulton, if you would like to unmute yourself and present your question please. Yes, thank you chair. The best planning policies in the world will not amount to much without effective delivery and enforcement operations at the council. Unfortunately, planning delivery and enforcement is where the council is currently falling short. As members will know, there have been an extraordinary number of irregularities on planning delivery decisions lately and the council has failed to address these appropriately at all. Even if all the concerns that James just made are addressed in the policy making process without effective delivery and enforcement, this development in North East Cambridge will end up being just as chaotic as the outcomes we're now seeing in Water Beach and North Steel. Mr Fulton, sorry, I interrupt. Are you delivering a different question to the one that you have? I was just going to sum up. I was going to say I was going to run through a long list of anomalies and irregularities, but in light of the length of the agenda tonight I'm not going to do so. I'll let the committee get on with its business, but the fact is the procedural problems have to be addressed, and thank you for taking that into account. Thank you very much. Do I take it there for that you are not proceeding with this question that you have delivered? That's correct, Chair. Thank you very much indeed. So that brings to the end our public questions for this evening and may I thank all those members for taking all those members of the public who are making an interest in the council's business. Thank you. Councillor Richard Williams. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to make a small point. I think just maybe for the clarity of people at home and for those of in the room. Can you just clarify that the answers you've given to the questions are answers supplied by council officers rather than your own answers? I'm pretty sure that they will have been provided by both officers and members. So we come now to the next item on the agenda, and with members' agreement, I would like to move forward item 8 on the agenda, which is the audit of the accounts update, as we have with us our head of finance, who I'm sure would like an opportunity to go to his family at some point. So with members' agreement, we'll take item 8 now, and I'll ask Peter to introduce his report. Thank you. Peter. Thank you, Chair. So this report is just a brief update on the Audit and Governance Committee of 1st of December. At that meeting it was reported that there would be a meeting between EY and officers to progress the issues in relation to the fixed asset register. That meeting occurred on the 3rd of December, and all information required as a result of that meeting was passed to EY by the 8th of December. So as things stand at the moment, EY have all the information that they need, and we are just waiting for a response from them whilst they look through the papers that they've got, and that's the position we have at the moment. Thank you very much, Mr Maddock. Do any members have any questions for our head of finance? No, on in the room. Dr Williams. Thank you, Chair. Can I just ask Mr Maddock, or Councillor Williams, if he's the political lead responsible for this. Can you give us an update on the fees, the additional fees that have been incurred to date by EY in dealing with this? We had an update, I think, on that in earlier in November. So I'd be grateful for that, thank you. Unfortunately, I don't have an update at this stage, but I've been racist with EY, and I'll have to report back on that. We'll come back to you, Dr Williams. Thank you for your question. Are there any questions from any of our remote members? No? Good, thank you very much. Mr Maddock, thank you for your report. So we now come to item 6 on the agenda, which is the substantive item for this evening's business. It is a very extensive report running to, in excess of 300 pages. So I will invite, first of all, the League Cabinet Member for Planning, Dr Tumie Hawkins, to introduce her report. Then I will open discussion for, firstly, local members who are present here in the committee room, then followed by local members who are joining us remotely, then any questions from members who are here in person, and any members of this committee who are joining us remotely, and finally by any other councillors who may be present. But could I ask you all to please make your comments brief but concise, on the point that you have made, has been made previously by one of your fellow councillors? Please do not repeat it. But I will now invite councillor, Dr Tumie Hawkins, to introduce her report. Tumie. Thank you very much, Chairman. Good evening, again, and to you and members of the Scudini committee and those online. My introduction is going to be in two parts, Chairman, if you don't mind me in here and Terry online. The report you have in front of you today is the culmination of years of work by both South Cams District Council and Cambridge City Council in one guys or another on the area that is now called North East Cambridge. It used to be called Cambridge Northern Fringe when it was first identified in the Cambridge structure plan in 1989 and there was some work early work done in 1996 to inform the Cambridge local plan and that study concluded that whilst the area offered a unique opportunity for substantial and appropriate development the cost of relocating the wastewater treatment plant and possibly the Cambridge business park would result in the development not being viable at that time. And there were various other studies 2003-2004 and in 2006 in the light of the evidence from Anglain water on operational risks and on the amount of land which could be released for development the independent planning inspector examine the Cambridge local plan concluded that the only realistic options were either complete relocation or retention of the current site and through the public enquiry it was acknowledged that the redevelopment of Cambridge Northern Fringe could not fully go ahead unless the wastewater treatment plant was relocated. And more work followed 2006, 2007 and 2008 looking at how this area could be redeveloped and it wasn't until 2014 that they then joined the strategic transport and special planning group meeting on the 6th of February 2014 agreed the scope and approach for that project including early work on preparing the joint area action plan and the overall approach to developing this site and that approach was agreed by South Cambridge District Council at the planning portfolio holder meeting 11 February 2014 Now of course the work was paused until 2018 because they then planned or submitted for examination in 2014 wasn't completed or else the examination wasn't completed until 2017 and the plans for both Southcams and Cambridge City local plans were adopted. One thing though in the meantime the combined authority at its meeting of September 2017 decided to put forward the bid to cover the cost or relocate in the wastewater plant as the only expression of interest from Cambridge and Peterborough area for the government's housing infrastructure fund. Now as you probably are aware both the local plans for the city and Southcams which was adopted in 2018 include a policy allocating the respective sections of North East Cambridge for development and that policy for Southcams is SS4 and it states that the amount of development the site capacity, the viability, the time scales and phasing will be established through the preparation of the area action plan for the site and it will be developed jointly between Southcams District Council and Cambridge City Council and will involve close collaborative working with Cambridge County Council Anglen Water and other stakeholders. This is what you now have before you today. An area action plan that has had a tremendous amount of work gone into it by the policy team working with partners. It has undergone further consultations and as a result of that work the NAC area is one of the sites we now put forward in the local plan first proposals and it's got a tag assigning 3,900 houses in the plan period up to 2041. It is proposed to be an exceptional green low-carbon living community where active travel not the car is king or queen. The AAP sets out how this area which has multiple landowners and current users can be developed in a coherent way in multiple phases over time to maximise the opportunity that it presents. There's a fair amount of technical detail in it which we'll hear about shortly in the presentation that Terry will be making so without further ado I will shut up and hand over to Terry to tell you more about it. Thank you Chairman. Thank you very much Dr Hawkins. Terry can I invite you to unmute yourself and address the committee please. Thank you chair and thank you committee. I'm just going to pass over first of all to Caroline who's going to start the presentation and then I will then do the majority of it. So I'm just going to quickly share my screen. I should have said welcome to you both by the way. My apologies. Thank you. Thank you chair. I'm just going to say a few words before handing over to Terry just really to set the North East Cambridge erection plan into context within the Greater Cambridge Local Plan which Councillor Hawkins just referred to briefly. So Terry on the next slide please. So as Councillor Hawkins said North East Cambridge has been identified as a key part of the Greater Cambridge Local Plan first proposals and the consultation that closed at the beginning of this week and our evidence showed that this was the most sustainable location for development in terms of reducing car use and so on as was referred to in one of the public questions earlier. The preferred policy direction in the local plan draws some of the headlines from the proposed area action plan in particular up to 8,350 dwellings in total with around 4,000 during the plan period around 50,000 new jobs with only some of those anticipated during the plan period and having appropriate infrastructure and mitigation to support the development. And the other point I just wanted to raise before handing over to Terry is about the relationship with the wastewater treatment plan because this is an issue that I know a lot of people are interested in and it is quite a technical distinction between the two processes but they are two separate legal processes and the area action plan is very much predicated upon the wastewater treatment plan being relocated and it's therefore contingent on that separate development consent order process being approved for the new plant. Therefore the decision by the councils that we're recommending to you on the proposed mission area action plan the process would then be paused and it would go through its process which is due to move to the next stages during next year and on the current timetable we think it's likely to be around 2024 before that formal consultation could take place but of course with that amount of length of pause we would of course need to undertake a health check to see whether changes in circumstance mean evidence or indeed change the area action plan itself and the North East Cambridge AAP sustainability appraisal and the Habitats Regulation Assessment that go with it do consider the cumulative impacts of the area action plan with other plans and projects such as the relocation of the water treatment plant so there is two separate processes but there are relationships between the two so I'll hand over to Terry now to talk to you more about the area action plan itself Thank you Caroline so yes as councillor Hawkins mentioned earlier we've been through three rounds of consultation on the area action plan to date the most recent one was in 2020 when we consulted on the draft plan and we've received just around 4200 comments during that consultation that has helped inform the proposed submission plan in front of members this evening and in total there's been around 6900 comments received over those three rounds of consultation the main issues from the last consultation were around the lack of open space provision the heights and densities were considered to be too high too many proposed jobs which then has a knock-on effect in terms of in commuting into the area by private car and also not enough clarity on the community facilities that were being proposed as part of the development so as a result the team have been working really hard in updating the area action plan as well as the spatial framework that sits within it we are now looking at a reduction in building heights so generally four to six stories rather than generally five to eight and the maximum building height of ten stories rather than thirteen by some significant evidence that we've been undertaking alongside Historic England we're retaining the housing numbers on the site as Caroline mentioned but we're reducing the average densities to around a gross of 100 dwellings per hectare that's broadly comparable with a lot of the developments in and around Cambridge that have come forward recently as mentioned there's a reduction in the number of in amount of office floor space and therefore office jobs down from 20,000 to 15,000 and we are still looking at retaining the existing amount of industrial floor space within North East Cambridge we've also clarified the infrastructure and supporting community facilities through the infrastructure delivery plan and we've now agreed the transport strategy and strengthened the transport policies within the plan Open space as I mentioned was a key issue in formal and children's place based standards in full onsite so in addition to the existing open spaces within Cambridge Science Park the AAP is now looking at providing 27.6 hectares of open space and as the chair mentioned earlier that's the equivalent of around 34.5 football pitches or three parkers pieces there's a picture of parkers piece just to jog everyone's memory there will therefore be ample space for informal recreation, biodiversity and also space to support people's health and wellbeing and that's just not the people that are living on the site but also those that will be working there as well the new central park the sort of triangular in shape is about 4.1 4.2 hectares and again that's about half the size of parkers piece whilst the linear park is 70 to 100 metres wide and at kind of 0.8 miles long that's a good sort of 15-16 minute walk the open spaces have been laid out to incorporate existing tree belts, protected hedgerows key walking and cycling corridors the first public drain which runs through the site and also other infrastructure requirements in terms of allotment provision we'll be expecting food growing spaces to be provided on site and we'd expect them in forms such as rooftop provision podium level within courtyards of development as well as actually within the public realm itself and we've got lots of examples of how that's been successfully delivered elsewhere both in the UK and abroad and also a community garden within the area as well any residual allotment provision that isn't going to be met on site we would expect that to be provided off site so there'd be no sort of deficiency in allotment provision it'll be provided on site and potentially off as well in terms of formal sports provision we're looking at delivering this for innovative means like multi-use courts in total it'll deliver around 9% of the standards and the rest of it we'd expect to be delivered off site now we have looked at how you could potentially increase that provision on site and impact on a range of other factors like housing numbers building heights and densities or informal open space and children's play space provision so the way the AAP has been prepared we feel that we've got the right balance between all of the different competing uses but all of the different types of spaces and facilities that we are looking to provide so just to give you an example just to deliver 20% of the local plan standards on site for outdoor sports would require an extra 4 hectares of open space 4 hectares of land which is the equivalent of that orange or yellow kind of box which is just popped up on the diagram within that area is 1,150 homes so if we wanted to maintain the number of homes on the site and provide an extra 4 hectares of formal open sports we would then actually start to look at potentially increasing the heights and densities of the blocks that I've highlighted with the purple arrows and that would actually push heights back up to around 8 to 13 stories and push densities back up to 275 to 350 dwellings per hectare now you could deliver this in a million different ways and this is just one example but I just wanted to show you the knock-on effect of trying to deliver additional types of spaces within the AAP area that then does to jobs, homes, open spaces etc in terms of indoor sports provision the AAP will be delivering an indoor sports core on site as per the standards and in terms of swimming pool provision it doesn't generate the development doesn't generate the need for full full-lane swimming pool so we're therefore seeking contributions towards a new pool at West Cambridge now that's not to say that people at NEC will have to go to West Cambridge to use the pool, we've done some work and we've identified that within a 10 to 15 minute cycle ride of NEC you have Impington Sports College, Jesus Green Lido Cheston Sports Centre, Abbey Leisure Complex and Parkside Pools so actually looking at pool provision within the local area the North East Cambridge is quite well located in that sense now obviously there's been a historic undersupply of swimming pool provision in South Cambridge and a lot of local residents end up using the pools within the city now as swimming pools come on board at Water Beach Newtown, Camborn West and also North Stole, North Stole this would change the catchments and demands for the pools within the city and we will therefore need to look at this as we progress the new local plan and sort of look at current and future growth sites as they come on board and look at it in a much more holistic way these are just some precedent examples of open space provision such as food growing spaces, neighbourhood parks some sports courts and also incorporating biodiversity into urban environment now in terms of the local plan we are identifying opportunities to enhance green infrastructure and provide strategic scale open spaces as being mentioned earlier and doing one of the responses to the public question Chest and Fenn which is the land to the east of North East Cambridge between the railway line and the river is identified for biodiversity enhancements and informal immunity space which will be accessed via a new foot and cycle bridge over the railway so that will give people opportunities to move over towards the river corridor and the public footpath network in that area now the green infrastructure strategy in the local plan identifies new strategic green space north of Cambridge which goes up to Water Beach Newtown and North Stowe now this space would not only serve North East Cambridge but also existing communities and those growth sites so the local plan is looking at the possibility of introducing a strategic open space standards because such a standard doesn't currently exist in the adopted local plans and additionally the infrastructure delivery study in Cambridge notes that contribution should be sought towards offsite green infrastructure provision as a result of the development. Some of the key benefits very quickly summarised include limiting car journeys no fossil fuels and a 20% biodiversity net gain 40% affordable housing 15,000 new jobs both of which wouldn't come forward all over the plan period they would go beyond 2041 as well as in existing industrial floor space which is really important to the local economy. New connections into the existing communities significant employment and training opportunities as well as new services and facilities that will be accessible to them. Water supply is a key issue for the area of action plan and wider local plan the phasing of development at North East Cambridge reflects this issue and the AAP will the pause in the AAP process allows the councils to consider the water resources east water management plan which is expected to be finalised in 2023. On the 30th of November officers took this report to the joint local plan advisory group as also set out in the report to this item some of the comments that were made were that we should the councils land ownership that's both city and south Cambridgeshire councils land ownership should be made clearer to be more transparent the members supported the increase in open space but had queries on the formal sports and swimming pool provision and the scale of the spaces provided the impacts on Milton Country Park the query reductions in heights and densities they supported the water usage requirements and limitations to 80 litres per person per day and they also questioned the provision of jobs at North East Cambridge and how that fed into the greater Cambridge local plan first proposals. One key issue that came out as it was at the consultation as well was the Fen Road level crossing now the level crossing and the Fen Road area does not fall within the AAP area but we know that that is a key issue. Network Rail recently consulted on their Ely area capacity study which looks at level crossings in this area and beyond and unfortunately it was not proposed to be closed through that consultation study so officers are continuing to seek engagement with Network Rail on this matter because we know it is a key local issue through the local plan forum that we have established Network Rail reaffirmed that commitment to work with officers on this issue at the Cambridge North Area Committee in mid November. We are going to wrap up the presentation in terms of the key changes to the spatial framework the draft plan on the left and the proposed submission plan on the right all homes will now be within a five minute walk of an open space and a local or district centre that will meet their day to day needs we've got 10 new or improved connections in and around the site. Open spaces and key walking and cycling routes have been aligned we have car barns which are essentially consolidated multi-storey car parks that will consolidate parking from not only the homes but also the jobs and we're also proposing enhanced landscape buffers to the east and the north of the site to try and mitigate the impacts of development on the heritage and landscape sensitive areas to the north and to the east and just to remind everybody of the process and future key dates the top ones obviously this evening then in January we go to South Cambridgeshire Cabinet and the Cambridge Planning and Transport Scrutiny Committee on the 10th and 11th of January the development consent order process is anticipated from next year to 2024 at which point if that is successful we will then consult on the proposed submission AAP around 2024 before examination and then potentially and then hopefully adoption thank you chair happy to take questions thank you very much Terry and Caroline Members I'll now open the matter for discussion firstly by the members, local members who are here and may I remind you that we are invited to take note of the report and to make recommendations to cabinet so whilst you are talking I will be making a note of the recommendations that we can deliver to cabinet along with the report in due course and I believe our first speaker this evening is Councillor Anna Bregman thank you Chairman I hope you will indulge me as local member I'm sure alongside the other local members there are a number of things I would like to raise I would like to be brought to cabinet so I have five or six questions if that's okay firstly members I'd like to draw your attention to the statements on page 65 of the plan 93 of our agenda from here on in I'll just refer to the numbers on the plan so this is page 65 and it states that this will be a bustling new city district admittedly well integrated into the surrounding communities and then a new district which should feel like part of Cambridge and I'm pointing that out because what I want to clarify is that the intention is that this should not be part of the village of Milton it's part of Cambridge City so the first thing I wanted to identify is that I wanted to resist any suggestion that anybody might call it Milton anything I wanted to be at least considered that the area that it lies in is East Chesterton and I think any naming might sensibly reflect that location albeit we are it is in many parts of it are in the parish and district of Milton but the majority of the area that we're developing is in East Chesterton so just a thought about the naming but that also brings me onto my concerns about the green space so what I wanted to point out is that I'm very concerned we've heard about informal open space and play space but what I am particularly concerned about is open space for formal play so this is recreation grounds sports pitches and such like now if I may just point out to you that there are 14 of the plan go to now this is the infographic where it reminds us that in future it is hoped and I know this is a long term plan but in future this area of the city will have homes for 16,000 residents in 8,350 homes and it will also have some 15,000 jobs on site so I'm concerned not only for green space for the residents but also for sports clubs associated with the employment uses on site and let us remind ourselves members this is 31,000 people who might be using this area so my concern and I hear what Mr De Souza has pointed out to us about the implications of that relative to the housing numbers but I just wanted us to bear in mind that elsewhere in the plan at policy 8 on page 81 it refers to the fact that and I'll read from it we're talking about quantitative delivery provision of outdoor sports facilities will be met through a combination of on site provision and funding towards new or improved off site facilities and that includes reference to the area north and elsewhere it refers to access to Milton Country Park but also in this paragraph below it refers to improving the recreational access to the river Cam now I just wanted to point out take you on a brief diversion into Milton Village itself for our existing local plan a study was done called the Recreation and Open Space Study dated admittedly 2013 so quite some time ago and this looked at the village of Milton and at that time it said bear in mind members that provision of recreational space is based on population and at that time it identified that the village of Milton needed additional recreational space and that included one adult football or sports pitch one junior come senior sports pitch and two mini soccer pitches so that was a total of four pitches of various sizes and quantums but that was before the delivery of North Lodge Park and we are very fortunate that through careful negotiation we managed to achieve two new sports pitches delivered at North Lodge Park but those are of the smaller size and so actually what we recognise is that even compared to the data in 2013 since which of course our population has increased we still need to supply the recreational leads of Milton Village to the tune of two football pitches and I would point out that we have to a number of very well used sports pitches and we have recently had to refuse businesses on the science park access to our sports pitches because we have to protect them these are grass pitches which are used very intensively over the weekends by various clubs in Milton and so whilst we don't mind them using in the summer for businesses when the put pitch is more resilient we have not been able to grant them access during the winter because the pitches need time to recover from the very intensive use so this is just to give you a view that is indeed Milton could do with additional sports pitch but that's for its own population not for an additional population of 16,000 or indeed 31,000 so if we come back to the open space the reason I'm concerned about it is because I think this and to use an expression often used by Mr David of transport this development needs to wash its own face in my view and it needs to be sustainable within itself there is reference to the development needing to here we are at page 156 we are referred to the fact that if you'll bear with me while I find it yes it refers to this is talking about shops and local services but the same applies to the community it's saying that it wants to meet the daily needs of its own local residents employees and visitors while not creating a destination location for people living further afield in other words it didn't want to make northeast Cambridge into a honeypop for the very good reason that transport in this area is highly constrained and congested so what it wanted to do is provide for itself but given that it's trying not to be a destination for other people my concern is that it shouldn't be it would be unfortunate at an extreme you might say hypocritical to then use facilities outside in the surrounding area to provide formal recreation space so I'm concerned that the space that's on offer is all for funding towards new or improved offsite facilities and I'm just hoping that the intention is not to use facilities in Milton I'm pleased to hear reference to the green space to the northwest of Cambridge between North Stowe, Water Beach and the A14 because clearly there is much more space in that area but that's clearly not within walking distance of the development so I'm concerned that we shouldn't be the note on page 82 refers to the fact that for open space requirements where there are deficiencies in certain types of open space provision in the area surrounding a proposed development the council will seek to prioritise those open spaces deficient in the area but I hope that doesn't mean that all of the delivery will be in communities that are already struggling to provide their own space so that's my point about open green space the formal space for play doesn't seem to be very much at all in North East Cambridge my second point relates to cemetery space I can't see any reference whatsoever in the North East Cambridge area action plan to the need for burial space and the implication is that space might be used elsewhere and again the parish of Milton has provision for its current population but we already feel that our provision of space is limited and we need to safeguard that space for burial of residents from within Milton parish and we would like to see some reference in this area action plan for designation and safeguarding of space for burials please thirdly I would like to see reference to space for faith and for worship there is one mentioned that I saw I didn't delve too deeply but there is reference on page 152 when it talks about community space find it under community facilities in the section policy 14 social community and cultural facilities there is a reference buried in the middle of a paragraph talking about the need for different types of facilities to support the development in this area identified community and cultural facilities that should be provided comprise a library and community centre community rooms to facilitate several uses including youth clubs worship groups as well as spaces to enable community events to take a place now bear in mind this is going to be some potentially 31,000 users I would like to see formal designated space for faith because I think that will actually not only help this community to be developed as a community but also create coherence and cohesion in the community and not to mention the fact that I think there are some faiths that require separate space from other religions so I think we need to acknowledge that if this is to be a vibrant and inclusive development just passing reference I'm very glad to see there is designated provision for health also on page 152 and I'm glad to see that being recognised The other aspect I want to mention is and indeed Mr Susa and Caroline Hunt mentioned this I would very much like to see provision for safeguarding of space towards a vehicle bridge for my residents at Fenrodd Chesterton Absolutely there are concerns about the inevitable increase downtime at the level crossing at Fenrodd Chesterton and that means that we really do need to make provision for another vehicle access out of Fenrodd Chesterton and logically it means into this development The reason I'm asking for that is there are not only some 500 residents at the remote side of the level crossing in Fenrodd Chesterton but there are also I estimate some 200 possibly employees and remember these are not small some of them are small businesses but we have skip sites we have cycling sites there we have a very well used furniture for office office furniture site down there for which large lorries need access we also have numerous mobile home sites down there and a number of other very active industries there is a lot of to-ing and fro-ing at the level crossing at present and if the downtime is increased in other words the time by which people can actually access and exit Fenrodd Chesterton we need to make provision for them to have vehicular access through another route so I would like there to be consideration given to the footprint of a bridge because it won't want that because it will reduce the amount of space available for housing but I really do think that if we don't do this now if we don't safeguard that land now we will condemn all those residents and employees on the far side of the level crossing at Fenrodd Chesterton to only ever being able to get out of Fenrodd Chesterton for about 20 minutes in the hour on the evening peak I don't think that's acceptable so thank you very much Chairman I think that's all I've got to say Thank you very much Councillor Bradman I have made copious notes I think next we come to Councillor Judith Riffith I've also got quite a few points to make although some of them touch on Councillor Bradman so I'm going to try and not repeat the main point I'd like to draw members' attention to and anyone interested Page 18 of the agenda pack I'll just go by the main page numbers I was just looking at the mention first of all of Milton Country Park and indeed Greenspace I can see that this new version of the AAP is trying to address the Greenspace and there has been improvements in it but I'm still really concerned that take it like this you can't imagine everybody will spend all their time on site for example during the week they might use the Greenspaces on site as a weekend you tend to as a natural for any human being to go slightly further afield and I do think the access of the underpass is really good it should be accessible with walking pedestrians cyclists, equestrians and that's a good aspect however one of the first places you're going to land up is Milton Country Park and it is nice and it is at capacity and so we really need to work into this AAP some form of Section 106 for future development of Milton Country Park I know the land which is most probable for that is not part of the area and I understand that from the answer to James Littlewood's question but it is an issue otherwise the country park would just become a park with not much country left because there will be so many people trampling closet biodiversity is obviously a major feature of trying to create a place which is both quite urban and yet also offers biodiversity so you could have a situation where you're increasing the biodiversity in the current location of Norway's Cambridge but by mistake almost you're reducing that biodiversity just across the A14 and in a different area so they are the things which have really, I suppose, jump house at me as items which have to be addressed and this may not be a particularly popular opinion but I'm kind of known for this I think I don't mind height and actually if that means you can improve the provision of sports facilities on site for example in an urban district I would go slightly higher with some of the buildings because then you're using your space more efficiently and it provides more green space or it can provide more green space that's the main points there was one or two extra points that I wanted to really praise and I can see how much work has gone into this already and this development could work I think it could be truly groundbreaking in what it's trying to do and it's one aspect which again with Chester and Fen and I completely concur with all the comments Councillor Branlam has made about that area being quite cut off and we need to have a bridge it just has to happen but on page 90 we need to enhance biodiversity in that area and because of flooding that you wouldn't want to put specific open space or play areas but you could make that into quite a good kind of not quite a wetland but really increase the biodiversity so I think that's something which is excellent and please can we have that I think I've covered the main points but I know that Councillor Bear Park would also like to speak and he's the next member the final member of Milton Walsh Beach Ward but he's online so back to you chair I did say we seek comments from local members in the committee room first so I'm going to go to Councillor Daunton first and then I'll come to Councillor Bear Park immediately afterwards and Graham too I've got a few interconnected points so in her introduction Councillor Dr Tumey Hawkins set out the sort of timeframe which brought us to where we are now and I think there were significant decisions in 2014-15 when there were consultations in 2017 when the infrastructure was put in for the move of the water treatment plant and I just wondered if we could now look forward to where what the timeframe is for the building out of the housing and the infrastructure for the area action plan in one of the parts of the presentation a figure was put on four and a half thousand houses what is the timeframe for the development of the site we've been hearing that this has been on the card since 1989 significant decisions in 2014-15 a significant decision on the move of the water treatment plant a decision to move it in 2017 are we looking to 2040-2050 if you could give us some idea of the scale and timeframe for the development that's one issue second question is about the DCO process if the DCO bid by Angliar Water is not successful or falls shall I say falls where does that leave the area action plan and third question slightly different what's the relationship between this site and the neighbouring villages not just Milton and Water Beach but Fenditon Horningsey and what's the porousness between the site and neighbouring areas and I will just make a comment on height and density I'm actually very pleased that earlier comments on height and density have been taken into account particularly for the villages of Fenditon and Horningsey and Kwai I think density is very important I think density is very important and the porousness between those villages and this new site Thank you councillor Jordan I'll come to councillor Bear Park and then we'll perhaps ask or invite a comment from councillor Hawkins I'm councillor Cone too, my apologies so let's go to councillor Bear Park first Paul Thank you chair I have three points I'd just like to echo councillor Bradhams and councillor Ripott's comments about the pressure on Milton Country Park I think an example of the pressure it's already under is the fact that they've had to abandon the park run because there were too many people going to it just like the park run will not continue there Also echoing their comments about the connectivity of chests in Fend and the problems with the access and the level crossing and the importance for ensuring that there is connectivity to that community My second point is about car parking Policy 22 isn't specific about the number of car parking spaces at Cambridge North but I understand the proposals are for 628 car parking spaces which seems to me to be excessive I'd be concerned about the pressure that adds to in terms of the congestion at the A10, A14 junction I'd prefer it not to be called a car barn but a car park which is specifically what it is or a multi-storey car park I note that there are very few spaces for car parking if any being provided at Cambridge South I just as an example St Albans which is a home counties commuter town where a very large proportion of the population travel into London has 588 spaces and I don't think this is intended as a commuter town station so I would say it's contrary to the policy 16 for sustainable travel so I'd like the number of spaces at Cambridge North to be reconsidered My third point is just about the Water Beach Greenway I just wanted to be noted that the GCP the Water Beach Greenway is split into two phases Phase 1 which has been approved and Phase 2 which hasn't and I noticed there's lots of references to the Water Beach Greenway and the underpass under the A14 but as far as I know at the moment the GCP has no plans to approve Phase 2 or I haven't seen it on any agendas or any consideration at the moment it's just that if that is going to be part of this scheme I think we need to understand what the GCP's plans for Phase 2 of the Water Beach Greenway are and that's all of my points Thank you chair Thank you very much Councillor Beyrpoch Thank you very much chair I'll try not to repeat too much my first point was going to be on Milton Country Park I'm someone that takes my children to Milton Country Park quite a lot and anyone that has been there will understand just how busy it already is so I was just really building on the point that have we done a proper impact assessment on what this development will have on Milton Country Park essentially with all the additional families and businesses that will be using that space if the links are done well like alluded to in the report my second point was that I really wanted it to be noted that I worry that this document going forward for consultation in its current form without mention of the water treatment plan specifically detailed in that it has to move isn't transparent enough and I think there should have been more reference in this report about the water treatment plan moving. I know Caroline talked about the planning processes being totally different which I accept but one doesn't happen without the other I know one of the other councillors talked about the DCSO at DCO and what would happen if that failed I'd flip that round and say what would happen if we didn't go forward with the planning as a planning application my fear would be we'd have to put 8,000 houses somewhere else within the local plan or not have as many houses in the local plan but I don't think that is highlighted enough within this report and I don't think it's transparent enough about the water treatment plan moving that noted I think one of the other councillors had already mentioned car parking which I was going to ask about mainly my concern was the impact on surrounding neighbourhoods especially Milton if will there be an implication on people parking in other villages surrounding that new development the other point I just want to make quickly was on page 181 where we talk about community facilities I wondered if we could add in there about community workspaces so we've talked about libraries and various community spaces but especially since Covid and if we want to try and make this a sustainable green development having shared office or community space with good wifi possibly communal computers where people can work locally to where they live I may have missed it in the report but I wondered if you could expand on that a little bit as well thanks for that that's all my points it may have come to you in a moment we've heard an awful lot from councillors I wonder if at this stage before we go any further councillor Jimmy Hawkins would like to comment on any of the points that have been raised thank you very much chairman when do I start I want to thank you all for your comments I can assure you that the issues that you have raised we have juggled this and thrown this up and down and tried to come up with what we thought was a reasonable compromise on the issue of what if the water treatment works doesn't move now obviously that is a decision that will be made in the DCO process we don't know what the outcome of that is but if the outcome is that it doesn't move then that means we will need to re-look at the AAP and as I said earlier on we have tagged this site with potentially 3900 homes in the emerging greater Cambridge local plan which is for the plan period up to 2041 what that means is we will have to re-look at where that 3900 homes will go in the greater Cambridge area and also if I can tag on to that there's issues of the Fenroad and said garden land and being able to allow those from down in Fenroad to access, any second access for them bear in mind that a lot of work has gone into the trip budget for the NEC and I think you would have heard from some of the briefings we've had David Allett talking about trip budgets and military is congested already which is why you have to have a limit on those trip budgets and if you were to allow for the vehicular traffic into that site you would have to go back again and re-look at what cannot be allowed within that trip but it will trip that trip budget very severely and yes there's issue of land take but one thing to bear in mind is the network rail have actually just finished I think what they called the the Ely area capacity enhancement consultation which looked at the amount of time that the barrier was going to be down or up an increasing number of trains through that now the conclusion of that was that they didn't need to close the barrier there is as far as I know and I'm sure perhaps Mr Kelly or Carol will be able to expand more there is no further as of now plan to do anything to that crossing so bear in mind but bear in mind we do have cycleway proposed from North East Cambridge across to Fenrodd so at least that way there is still a connection between the two so it's not completely blocked off it's that it's more to do with cycling and walking rather than vehicular transport I think in terms of community facilities again there's a lot of discussion that has gone on on this issue and I take a point about faith organisations some of whom actually do not want to share space but we've also done a lot of work I think was with nostal which officers can expand a bit more on that where some faith groups were happy to share and I think that sort of outcome was what potentially we're looking at here as well but we'll take your point and if we need to obviously look at what else could be done I don't know about the cemetery though I think Chairman if I stop at this point and I'll hand over to Caroline to be able to answer some more of the questions and if necessary Mr Kelly who is also online thank you Caroline would you like to come in or is it Stephen I'm sorry Chair could I start and perhaps hand on to Caroline because I want to deal with in a sense a comment that a number of people have made about in many respects the balance that we have struck in the plan around some of the headline issues of open space and development and so on and as everyone has noted in the previous rounds of consultation we had a different balance than we've got now but a couple of important points obviously this is effectively the largest brownfield site and it's also in the most sustainable location as Caroline Hunt has clarified we're therefore faced with an issue about do we want to optimise that in terms of development and the brownfield first kind of objectives or are there ways in which we might wish to strike a balance in terms of the approach that we've followed and it's an approach that follows out from the local plan is to try and recognise that in any respect this is a there are a series of choices that we have the site is probably one of the highest density locations that the local plan promotes if not the highest density location and that's because as you've heard it has public transport access both from outside of Cambridge in but also within Cambridge through the railway stations and so on and we've ended up in a situation where we have in response to consultations reduced the heights and densities and I've heard Councillor Rippeth's comments about height not being perhaps an issue and that's a choice and we've met in full the open space requirements for informal play and so on and you'll have heard Terry's presentation in terms of the actual scale of open space that is proposed but we've recognised that using any more of that precious brownfield development land for things like sports pictures and so on comes with a collateral effect of either greater height and density which is something that people were very clear about in the last consultation or the displacement of that growth to greenfield sites so we would be effectively utilising and creating more development in greenfield areas likely rather than utilising this brownfield site and so the approach that we've tried to follow and the local plan adopts this is to look at things in a slightly more strategic way but to recognise that picking up on a number of commentator's points the open space that we are providing isn't incidental or small scale but as Terry has highlighted there is something around one and a half kilometres long, continuous green space wider than the width of a football pitch and in a number of parts actually wider than the length of a football pitch as a continuous park where play, recreation and indeed much of the paroling the walking and so on that potentially takes place in Milton Country Park at the moment because of the absence of that facility might well take place in future effectively within this site enjoying the amenities and the characteristics of the place and there are precedents for that also in terms of the busyness of some of the greatest spaces that we know across cities in the UK and the way that those parks form a really important and powerful space as Terry has highlighted some of those spaces like the main green space are also substantial areas for informal play and activity but by necessity we've had to take a view of meeting that need for not only day to day but the spaces that are great for health and well-being unusable for health and well-being we've had to compromise on those areas of formal pitches that are in fact quite space hungry and are nevertheless necessary for formal sport and activity and it's in that regard that we need to see both the city of Cambridge and indeed part of the greater Cambridge area as a whole rather than in isolation of course there's a direct public transport link to Northstow for example from the site and with GCP up to Water Beach as well where there are new sports and open space facilities in addition we've also highlighted that we are looking for innovative forms of delivery including the use of roof tops and so on where appropriate for some of those formal sports and activities and we certainly haven't given up on making the very best use of every part of the site but at a plan level as opposed to a planning application level along the lines of the concerns that Councillor Bradenham has highlighted it's very difficult to be precise and specific about some of that community provision and the very close detailing of it that is normally delivered through section 106 and what we have tried to do then is to use the policies in the plan to try and drive some of those choices I think you've heard enough from me about it about that point I would commend perhaps some of the questions around cemetery space and car parking and so on but also the relationship with the water treatment works which Caroline I know has commented on perhaps if I can pass over to Caroline through you chair if that's helpful Thank you very much Caroline, please go ahead Thank you chair Actually I just wanted to stick with open space for a moment but thinking about that more strategic open space on the park because I think it's important that we see how North East Cambridge sits within the wider area and including within the wider proposals emerging through the Greater Cambridge Local Plan because if you recall members when we brought the plan through you a couple of months ago we were looking very much at a lot of work we're doing on green infrastructure across the whole of Greater Cambridge and some significant opportunities for new strategic green spaces to come alongside development and we talked in this area around the role that that opportunity for new North Cambridge strategic open space could have in serving the North East Cambridge area whilst at the moment I appreciate your focus on Milton Country Park but I think if you look at it in that wider context if we are able to deliver on that wider green infrastructure ambition alongside and as part of the new plan that provides opportunities not only for North East Cambridge to access new facilities but people who currently use Milton Country Park having other opportunities themselves to use that might actually be nearer to where they live and more accessible to them so I think it's where we start to look at that strategic scale where there are, where the sort of movements that people make in the facilities that they currently use might change and that overall pressure you would hope to see reduced and that's very much something we will continue to look at in detail through as we prepare the draft local plan during next year and I did just want to mention that I think Terry probably said in the presentation but just to confirm that we do envisage through the infrastructure delivery plan that there would be contributions for off-site green infrastructure it's not specific about that where that would be so that remains to be discussed and worked through as I say through development of the local plan and as we start to see what that picture of open space might look like overall Moving on to talk a little bit around the Fen Road issue that is something that we realise members are very concerned about members of both South Cambridgeshire and also the City Council are very concerned about the impact of the increasing downtime of the level crossing there and only recently Network Rail came and presented to the North Area Committee, the City Council's North Area Committee on their consultation and members were very clear to them how important this issue is to the council and members are quite successful in securing a commitment from Network Rail to engage with the councils and that's very much something that we will be picking up as we move into the new year to make sure we are having those discussions with Network Rail about what the potential opportunities could be for dealing with that downtime and what possible opportunities could be but I think at this point we genuinely don't know what would be the right solution there could be other options and we think that's something that really does need to be owned by Network Rail and looked at seriously and we will very much be emphasising the significance and importance of that and we want to work with them as we move forward through the local plan because it may be that the local plan is a good opportunity to address that but I think it's going to be, again, a slightly more strategic issue I think I'm going to hand over to Teriel Matt to talk about one or two of those other issues around faith and burial facilities and so on I'm happy to pick up some of the issues in particular I'll just talk quickly about the cemetery space so we've had consideration to the requirements for cemetery space through the infrastructure delivery plan we applied the South Cambridgeshire standards for burial grounds that results in a need for about two hectares of cemetery space to meet the future burial needs of the site we're looking to secure financial contributions to extend existing cemeteries to meet that provision in the future with regard to worship space the AAP promotes multi-functional community spaces those spaces can be used for a range of purposes including cultural events but also community meeting spaces that could also make provision for worship space as well and worship purposes there was a question regarding affordable workspace that's actually covered in policy 12b where it requires development proposals to demonstrate how they'll support the delivery of affordable workspace within NEC to provide for that drop-down workspace for local residents in particular and there was a question around the station car park and the quantum of parking there overall we agree that that quantum that's currently on site is probably in excess of what will be needed but at the moment until we get some of the strategic transport infrastructure in place to support a move to more sustainable modes of accessing the station or for all users of the station currently we stuck with that level of provision that's the level of provision that Network Rail have suggested is required and needs to be maintained on site but once we get that sustainable transport measures in place such as the mass transit and other initiatives we could see that level of parking coming down significantly on site there was also a question about displacement car parking part of the package of the transport strategy for place is to look at how we monitor and manage the trip budget and that will include monitoring of the surrounding areas getting a baseline understanding of parking in those areas and monitoring those over time so that we can pick up if there is being any parking in place placement to those areas and we've got processes in place now where we've got powers devolved from the police to the local authority to introduce control parking zones and parking enforcement within those areas should that be necessary to move forward period. Thank you very much indeed I think at that point we're going to come to the members from other parts of the district to a hearing person first of all so I'm going to come to Dr Richard Williams and then we'll come to those members who are online so Richard over to you. Thank you very much chair. I've got a number of points to make I'll start with some general points and then I'll move on to some more specific questions but I will try to keep it as brief as I possibly can. The first general points I wanted to raise is really picking up on issues that a number of members have made indirectly but some of our public questions earlier made more directly and that's the fact that to put it bluntly I think there are two potentially huge holes that could sink this plan and I think it's premature the first hole is the DCO which I think council Hawking's has already acknowledged could mean that we have to come back and look at this again the second hole is water now that we're doing this before we've had the water management plan the document we've got acknowledges the problems that we have with water supply it only says that it thinks there's a reasonable prospect of delivery starting in the plan period but really until we've got that water management plan we don't really know so we've got a document before us that we could have to completely rewrite because of that as well so I do think this is premature and we shouldn't really be recommending this for adoption if I'm honest having thought about it since the joint local plan group that I also sat on in November because of these two huge holes in it that as I say could require it to be completely rewritten having made that point the other larger point was about the green spaces I don't think it's reasonable to count green space in the business park as part of green space in this action plan I think we all know Milton Road, he's not a road one can easily cross and I doubt very many residents would think of going to a business park for recreational green space I do think the green space is inadequate in this, it's very good and I was very pleased to see that the green space has been increased since the draft plan that's great but I would say more please I don't think it's adequate I don't think it's reasonable to count what's on the other side of the road I mean on that point I mean we were given some figures earlier about some indicative figures about if we put an extra four hectares of green space that would be 1,150 fewer homes but my answer to that is great, I think that's good and I think less dense, more green space because we have to think of the quality of life of the people who live there and not simply about maxing as much as we can possibly cram onto this site because the green space is not adequate and we all know it will put enormous pressure on Milton Country Park and surrounding green areas and it's equitable and its common sense I mean to the point that if we don't max out the building on this brownfield site that means we'll have to look at greenfield sites I would say not really because we're only planning to build 3,900 homes on this site in the 2041 2021 2041 local plan period so 4,000 of those houses we're talking about future demand at some point other local plan that we haven't even yet began to think of, we could quite easily reduce the density on this site increase the green space and have precisely zero impact on the current figures in the current proposed local plan who knows what will the case will be in the local plan after the one we're currently processing we might be able to access all sorts of other green spaces we might need far less office space who knows but I don't think we can use that argument because we're not planning 8,000 homes on this in the current local plan period the next local plan period so plenty of space plenty of room to make an adjustment there and get a slightly different balance on some of my more detailed questions I raised this at the joint local plan group I'm just going to come back to the water efficiency measures and the 80 litres per day which in principle I think we all agree with I mean it would be wonderful if it could be achieved but I would like a bit more detail on this because we talk about making use of reuse of water so rainwater harvesting greywater recycling I mean that raises a number of questions one question is whose responsibility would it be to maintain the non-potable water supply would that responsibility fall on the residents because those systems are not cheap to maintain and you have to be very careful that you don't mix potable and non-potable water because non-potable water carries significant health hazards now inevitably you need a backup system with a non-potable water system because if it doesn't rain for example and the rainwater harvesting goes you might have enough water in the greywater recycling system or the rainwater harvesting system that non-potable system to actually supply what you need to supply to it so you do need a backup system there does need to be some interface between the potable and the non-potable water and you know that is a complicated process and it requires some pretty sophisticated maintenance so who would actually be responsible for maintaining that I mean I would like to know again I asked a similar question but I would like to know if there are any empirically tested developments of this size where this level of water consumption has been consistently achieved I know because it was said in the last meeting there are certainly schemes where this has been planned but do we have empirical proof on a similar sort of development this can actually be achieved I have looked I can't find any but that may be because I'm just not looking in the right places I would like to know that this is in fact achievable just on a few other more specific points on the biodiversity policy and this is a very specific policy on policy 5 so I'm on page 57 now of the plan on the numbers on the action plan not the agenda pack numbers page 57 and the bottom paragraph there we talk about in exceptional justified circumstances development proposals that cannot achieve a full 20% biodiversity net gain should seek to provide a higher proportion elsewhere I was wondering if those shoulds could be musts we talked in a different context but the fact of the word should does not mean the same as the word must I would like that to be a more robust policy so that if 20% net gain cannot be achieved there is a requirement that it should be achieved somewhere else and not that it or rather it must be achieved somewhere else getting my own words mixed up not that it should be just so that we don't leave any doubt about that so I was wondering if there is room to toughen up that specific policy one other point and this is a very technical drafting point in some ways I'm on page 89 the paragraph there I think it's the third sentence it says the councils have undertaken evidence I'm not sure undertaken evidence is quite written properly undertaken a study or gathered evidence I'm not sure you can undertake evidence that's a very specific point one other final point and that is just to pick up on something that Councillor Bradner mentioned earlier and that is the location and the identity of this I strongly support what I'm not a local member but I would strongly support what Councillor Bradner says about this being regarded as part of the city I know this is slightly outside of the context but I think if this does get built there really is a strong case of redrawing the city boundary it is slightly ridiculous that of the area we're actually building out here only the small south east corner falls in south camps and the vast majority of the residential area falls in city I think it's a bit ridiculous that the people in that south east corner will be potentially paying different council tax be represented by a different MP and a different councillor so I really think if this does happen we need to redraw the city boundary thank you thank you very much Richard who's next? Councillor Martin Cullen Martin over to you I come to that number of points really coming back to the green space area I mean that's a I tend to agree that the more informal green space I'm glad to see more green space in the planner I think that's a good thing but basically it's urban it's city green space it's a sort of place where you've you know along one rugby pitch wide long avenue but between tall buildings to me it will feel like an urban a city green space rather than a rural sort of open more informal green space and the existing areas around it there's been commented in Milton Country Park and also along the Cam Toe Path which is the other sort of avenue going out from that area potentially avenue particularly with a link pedestrian link over the railway are already heavily used by people from the city in particular so I think you do need to think about that quite seriously I mean one area which doesn't seem to be considered and which in some ways I'm surprised is not even in the plan thought thinking the plan is the area north of the A14 which is the existing refuse tip area which is partly being restored by the end of this plan that would be fully restored and our use of that area does need to is an area you need to think about and how you might get improved access and more direct access to that area in the future that obviously is an opportunity which I don't really see who's been talked about in the sector in the broad general sense in your long term thinking the other thing which concerns me keeps on concerning me is that you've got a high area talking about 60,000 people density developed and hoping mentality behind this is that it's going to be self-contained you have already an access in decaying which is grossly overloaded you're worrying about this in terms of how you're going to improve access from water beach and not increase access along the main A10 road so you're now building this development and the assumption is that it's not going to increase traffic into the centre or it's going to be done by public transport but public transport already is congested there's no segregated route into the centre so the segregated route goes out from there but not into the centre and it's not quite obvious at the moment how that's going to take place you're going to be building this up over a long period of time and to get that sort of vibrancy so that it's self-contained it's going to it's not going to happen at the beginning so the immediate effect is going to be an increase probably of traffic into the centre which may eventually become more self-contained decline and so you need to think about how you're going to cope with that intermediate stage and how you're going to get people on the public transport and stop prevent congestion the area around that area particularly by the end of the science part I guess grossly over congested already and I'd want to see how that could be facilitated it's something that worries me that can you really make it sufficiently self-contained and attractive that people don't go to the centre there will be a sort of a certain amount of attractiveness to the centre because that's where most the activities currently take place you're going to have to somehow reduce that magnetism well I think it's a very desirable aim but I have my reservations whether it can be achieved and whether it can be achieved certainly over the earlier stages of the plan plan development so and the Fenrow which everybody's commented about anybody who's been there sees that that as a problem it's not just for the it's not just for car traffic it is pedestrians in particular seeing kids coming back from school and crossing that level crossing, seeing if they can cross quickly behind the gates it's a problem if it's closed that proportion of the time people are going to be tempted to cross it unsafely and I think it's an accident they're waiting to happen those are the key points I wanted to get across thank you very much Martin we now come to Nigel Cathcart thank you very much this has been on the table for the 30 odd years I've been on the council I remember it in 1990 being given a considerable airing and I'm listening to the debate and certainly it seems that many of the points are very valid and legitimate and quite serious and don't really undermine the sensual suitability scientific development of the people for so long just a couple of points it seems that this I think there's been alluded to already that what's been put forward is a skillful marriage if you like of urban and intense development and a more relaxed rural development so it seems to put those two together in a way which actually has a reasonable degree of harmony that we've talked about at the more spaces that are open to space that's also on the table so there's quite a long skill and it's quite obvious just returning to that the last one we're just bringing this question of water which clearly it shares the same issue with local plans which we are under consideration Nigel could I just interrupt a moment could you Nigel, could you put your microphone a little bit closer to you please it's not very clear at this end Is that any better? Yes please, thank you All right The water issue has been alluded to already but clearly I think it needs to be brought in mind the open space especially if you're moving in an area of drier summer the maintenance especially by newly established open space trees, entrones, grass needs an enormous amount of water in order to make sure that they are affected by the water and also we need to put in the strategic measures in place I'll slightly look at the report about well if the the new reservoir is in place then we need to make sure that the planning application is accompanied by the ways to solve the water problem whereas of course water is such an important issue it needs to be handled strategically long before it gets deep on the application stage and I'm sure that thoughts will be brought in by I mean any other major questions Thank you I think it's locked I haven't sorry Anna is it brief and is it going to be different to something that we've logged so far just one point go ahead Thank you chair just two points one is that the Cambridge Science Park currently is used for recreation a lot of people run around the science park and also dog walk around the science park because it's laid out with a lot of green space in it although that is likely to be densified so it may be lost the other one is about Fenrodd level crossing and I just wanted to clarify the council of Timmy Hawkins is right to refer to the Ely area capacity study because this was doing an assessment of the capacity of the line because of course they want to increase both the number and frequency of trains on the line so in future that it is very likely that the downtown time at those gates will be extended not least also because a third factor trains will be longer going up the line we currently were for a long time we've only had six carriage trains or four carriage trains we've recently had an extension at Water Beach railway station which has enabled eight carriage trains to stop there but actually the potential for the future when Water Beach new town is built out and we have a new relocated railway station will be for 12 carriage trains so these three factors will increase the downtime at the level crossing and that is what I'm concerned about thank you chair thank you very much councillor Bradden councillor Hawkins do you want to come back on those final points I'm intending that between Ian Sr and I we will put together a whole series of recommendations which we would like to go to Cabinet for Cabinet to consider in due course so we'll get that done in the next couple of days but if there was something you wish to add on those final points that have been made please feel free to do so thank you very much chairman yes Sir Ward I do understand the concern that councillor Bradden is emphasising and again adding any more vehicular traffic to the north east Cambridge will completely change the requirements of the trip budget that we have and the problem that is caused by network rail is outside of the AAP area but we are aware of the requirements and we do have contact with network rail and officers and from the last briefing oes a meeting that we had which I think you were at the network rail officers made some comments which we will be following up over the next few weeks just to touch on councillor Dr Richard Williams point about prematurity I think we did say earlier on that prematurity is being prepared now but it's not for adoption at this stage we have to wait until the DCO process is complete but the AAP has to be created now in order to support the DCO process itself this AAP will form an evidence base at the DCO hearings to show that the NEC can actually be delivered if the examiner is reminded to allow the relocation to take place so it's not premature not in that respect on the water issue yes water is a big issue we have very clearly stated in the first proposals that it is a deal breaker but what we cannot do is to hold off of doing our local plans we have governments saying to us you have to create your local plans you have to move on and do this so we cannot afford not to create the plans if we then have to pause it then we will do so if the solutions for water do not come forward as it should it's not down to us to provide the solution but we are working with Anglia Water and they are giving us in terms of actually providing the solution to the water issue I will defer perhaps to Terry regarding any examples that can provide empirical formula I'm not sure about that you mentioned Tafnianog the wording on where biodiversity is on the side we do have a cascade process which is on the side whereby it has been built or near the side and then as a last result off-site and what I'm hoping is that the area of green infrastructure that we are providing between on the north east across the A14 with one of those areas where as a last result biodiversity could be provided there is a cascade if you say must for the second step then you can't go further can you so we are carefully we are carefully considering those wording noted I don't know about the governance issues regarding drawing the boundary drawing the boundary that's something we'll have to look at at the time when it doesn't but we do note that thank you on the intermediate issues on traffic perhaps I could refer that to Matt of whoever else is able to solve or provide answers to that thank you very much chairman and thank you all for your comments and your questions thank you very much indeed Dr Hawkinson Members thank you all very much Councillor Daunton did you want to come back briefly and then I'm going to come to Councillor River yes there is a reference on page 225 of the document 254 of our agenda evident supporting this policy community and cultural facilities audit provision cultural placemaking strategy Greater Cambridge Creative Business and Cultural Production Workspace study I don't see much in the document about cultural spaces or about culture in general I do see quite a lot about community facilities in community spaces where are we going to be able to have concerts, recitals, plays are the community facilities going to be serving space faith space craft workshops are we going to be trying to get too much out of these community facilities where is culture we've talked a lot about green spaces that's and very much in support of that we've talked a lot about sports facilities we haven't talked about culture thank you Claire I will add that to the list I'm going to come now to Councillor Rippeth thank you chair there's one two points I just wanted to really make particularly clear because I thought maybe I haven't been clear initially I understand that Network Rail is not part of our own process here but I feel so so strongly about that bridge and it's just a certain irony that Chesterton Fenn Traveller site there the two things they haven't got is main sewage where we've got currently a sewage plant down the road and they haven't got a bridge and yet Network Rail is wishing to close level crossings because they are dangerous I know that's probably naughty of me to bring that up here but I feel very passionately about it as regards the green space I'm sure planning is aware that there's a very usable site just in Norfolk Milton where there have been planning applications previously which have not come to anything and the Sports Lake Trust have been interested in using that space for extra water sports facilities and indeed walking area so there needs to be some drilling down on this Section 106 I know it's very difficult in an area of action plan to do but it's just something that would be an opportunity and I think an opportunity not to be missed and just finally my point on heights I said it was very unpopular and I kind of put myself out there by saying well designed tall buildings can be good I don't like urban sprawl I think if you can do an urbanised area you know don't sort of not really attain that and you know design something that's good it doesn't have to be a ton of tower blocks it's just the image that people have in their minds I think often and that does create more space and be careful with the lighting and how that's designed I just don't think it's actually unattainable to do something good without sort of not using that land you know to the best advantage that you can and I also thought what Councillor Cym made a really good point about the landfill site there will come a time hopefully not too distant future when that is not sort of like a band piece of green space and it could be you know developed it won't be a landfill site forever thank you very much chair thank you very much Judith and councillors I think we've spent over two hours on this I think we've really gone into it in a very deep way we will put some recommendations to go forward to cabinet in due course but could I thank you all for your input on this very important matter and with that we can now move on to item 7 on the agenda which is the housing revenue account asset management strategy which starts on page 317 of your document pack and I will invite I believe Councillor Bachelor is going to introduce it for us. John thank you very much chair I'm desperately hoping that this is not a contentious issue it's a straightforward business plan we all share your hope I can assure you I'm sure so this is about building strong foundations for the business of our housing stock I'll be brief let's just get some context here we've got over 5,500 houses currently with more than 10,000 tenants in the open market this is an asset base of something of the order for billion pounds this is a big business and this strategy is about managing that over the medium and longer term 5 to 30 years it's about an investment of something in the order of 450 million pounds in maintaining our stock improving it and bringing it all up to a zero carbon standard before 2050 put this into context again it's interesting to note that for the first time we are now starting to add to our housing stock back in the 1980s we had more than 9,000 houses but with the introduction of the right to buy we've lost something of the order of 4,500 over the years as they're steadily declined in the number of our stock that is now starting to change last financial year we managed to add 34 houses in this financial year we're looking to do about 87 houses and much more in the coming years so that's all I want to say by way of introduction I know that Peter Campbell has a brief presentation up his sleeve if you would like to see that chair Members would you like to see the presentation please I'll try to share my screen give me a second please are you seeing that we can indeed okay then if you could go to slide show mode we could see all of it there you are thank you very much for the prompt excellent so as John's stolen my thunder a bit this is the HRA asset management strategy which is a really important document for the housing service so what's it all about what's in the metrics as John said we've got the 5000 properties and they're growing we are now building more than we're selling we've got a value of 1.4 billion open market value and that is growing both as increasing numbers increasing value and of course we're one of the major housing providers in the area this isn't just about asset this is about providing a home to people so an asset management in our approach is more than just a getting the best from the assets and what the strategy is trying to do is to look at the context it's look more than just what we're doing but look in explaining why we're doing things we're very clearly placing the customers front and centre in everything that we do we recognise that by retaining the council housing stock it's having significantly more influence over over people and over our communities than do organisations who've either councils have got their housing stock or housing associations aren't rooted within the communities and of course what's important to me is that we're striving to their best we're not complacent we want to improve year on year and in doing this we've come up with what's important to us in providing the service we want to it's more than bricks and mortars it's about creating a place where people are safe and communities thrive and we've got the values supportive accountable customer focused professional staff with high quality energy efficient homes the drivers behind this is that we don't live in an operating in isolation we are part of a wider society a wider housing industry and we recognise their influences outside the organisation such as HRA reform self financing the reform of social housing the new charter of social housing residents arriving from the fall work from Grenfell where we've got to provide more demonstrable safety to our customers the increase in homes in England in place shaping the decent home standards and the promised future home standards driving up standards for social housing and of course the homes fitness and human habitation act all legislation which has helped to shape this new strategy the strategy itself the first few pages contain lots of background data to me that's really important it's about setting the scene it's about setting the context and it's an illustration that we're adopting approach where decision making is based on facts we want to improve our intelligence to allow us to make better decisions and very clearly involving customers in delivering their and our priorities we've got an overall strategic priority provide good quality steadable homes affordable to live in and where people choose to live but behind that we've got about a dozen other priorities I'm only going to go a few of those the first one and the most important is ensuring the homes we provide are safe and secure and meet and exceed all security safety standards absolutely essential the fall out of Grenfell has shown us what happens when people don't listen and across the country housing going on organisations who don't manage safety properly are the ones who get into trouble the ones who don't carry out the safety test don't carry out the fire risk assessments we're going to make sure that we're absolutely perfect in doing this priority B to having placed well-designed repairs and maintenance systems to ensure homes and well-maintained and kept a good state of repair the big one we've got five and a half version properties we maintain and look after them well we're currently out to tender for repair service and that will influence the provision over the next up to 15 years in the contract course well and the final one I want to cover here is the importance of having a long-term programme to improve the thermal efficiency is greener with the aim of being carbon neutral by 2050 and that's a combination the initial years we're going to spend on reducing energy usage in the properties and then we're going to we are in the process of testing out technology so we're involving several national schemes where rather than just the salesman spiel we take take the kit fit it in our properties and say it survives contact with real life so we're actually building real examples and work with our tenants to make the houses more and more green as we go forward and recognising that this may include some education for people as well it's been struck recently the contrast between wanting to make properties airtight to make the more energy efficiency and needing to have properties that you can ventilate to get rid of the coronavirus that sort of challenge moving forward so what next so this is a substantial piece of work it's taken a long time to get to this and hoping what it shows is our commitment to have a strong approach to asset management and our strive to be the best we want to make sure that we've got strong data to allow us to make informed decisions so you'll see there's a lot of actions there about carrying stock conditions survey involving tenants in their setting standards can you get a tenant survey etc which is about we're going to be setting targets and we're setting up groups with joint groups with officers tenants and members to do that to make sure that we've got a very clear methods of communication that there's no surprises for members or customers develop our long term plans set our standards and monitor standards towards that and as I said it's about all stakeholders working closely together but also this is not a no way a document that we're going to believing that on a shelf it's one that we're going to be acting on and monitoring its progress and almost as soon as it's signed off we're going to start work on the action plan and working towards the next iteration thank you thank you Peter I have a request first of all from councillor Peter Fane so I'll come back to you shortly so Peter thank you chair yes I recognise that as John Batchel has said we are just trying to make up for the massive reduction in council housing that has been suffered over a period of time and there is a limit to the extent we were only able to add small numbers to the total as compared with the vast numbers that have been lost so we have to take in my view a very flexible approach to the various avenues for meeting that need and we have to look beyond our current stock obviously this is about asset management it's not about our overall housing policy as such but we have to find ways of meeting the unmet needs those needs which are not met by the market what we refer to in our business plan has set out on paragraph 26 page 324 truly affordable housing because we must recognise that even when we do achieve the 40% on new developments and that may be affected by a viability those houses are not truly affordable because of the general house price in this area to many of the people who need them so I think we need to recognise that we have to extend this policy set out here by looking for instance at rural exception sites recognising that will be few new homes whether council or market houses in our smaller communities and that may make it very difficult for them to maintain viability and sustainability of those communities sustainability obviously in social and economic as well as environmental terms so that's one gap we will have difficulty filling clearly our own stock is now being supplemented as you expect me to say I mentioned earlier I'm a director of Herman Street and Shire Homes as of course is Peter Peter Campbell and I think there's a very valuable role in being able to take on houses and rent them out to those who need them without necessarily having to own those homes ourselves I think we also need to look at priority F which is set out on page 320 and consider where we can acquiring both land and existing houses to increase the number of council owned properties and in some cases we should consider there may be a good case for buying back the equity share in part owned homes where that provides good value for money this council took a decision in 2005 not to do that anymore I think in some cases we may be missing opportunities to meet the needs of our residents by our decision not to buy back the equity share which could offer very much better value for money than seeking to build new and so on so I think we need to recognise in this document that whilst managing our existing assets and expanding our existing assets is important we have to take a flexible approach and look at other avenues alongside that and I'm not quite sure that that is currently sufficiently reflected in this document Peter thank you very much indeed I'm going to go to the remote members first and I'll come back to the ladies if I may so we have Councillor Henry Batchelor Nothing particularly exciting for me other than the fact that I realise I should probably have declared an interest at the start of the meeting in that I am South Camsa's board member on the two investment partnerships they are mentioned at various points throughout the appendices has been a potential supplier of housing so I thought it was better that I had an interest now chair Thank you very much Henry Claire, over to you Thank you very much for oh gosh it's quite an echo no that's not echoing now Thank you very much for the document I think it's a really good document I've got two comments questions really one is that in order to put this into practice as you said both John and Peter it needs professional staff or we already have good professional staff will we need more staff to put this asset management strategy into practice and will we be able to afford those professional staff and then secondly I might have missed it but I don't see any concentration here on the estate, the land and the surrounding area in which our house is set and I think it's really important that we maintain not only the built stock but the surrounding areas, the green stock so to speak the estate in general so that we can really be proud of the location for our council houses Peter would you like to come back on those two points from Peter and from there Yes, first of all the council of fame this strategy is specifically about the asset management within the HRA yes I agree there are Irmene streets and Shirehomes play an important and distinct role for the council but that they're operating under a different regime and different finances and I think it's more appropriate that they develop their own asset management strategies which may be likely reflective of this document but should be distinct nevertheless and in particular in the case of Irmene Street being an independent a company or be a council on company I do agree that the council needs to look at abilities to to grow on flecks and we need to make sure that they deliver value for money and bearing in mind the recent changes to the right to buy receipts for local authorities make it much more difficult to purchase any existing properties using right to buy receipts so we need to make the better money that we've got to buy the most appropriate properties where there's a demand going on to the second point we will have we do have a very fantastic team of staff I think we're sufficient there are times when we're going to have to buy services in so if we're doing a stock condition survey I think that needs to be that's a service that we'll have to buy and try to do it ourselves but some confidence on the normal running of the services after that we can do that ourselves if we find differently when we analyse the results of the stock condition survey that of course will be subject to a separate report with regards to the regards to the estate I agree entirely we have tried to cover that albeit in rather less detail within the strategy on pages 63 to 65 I think they are towards the end of the document we've not gone to a great deal of detail there but we certainly recognise that our assets are much more than just the houses thank you very much Peter I think I have two more speakers Councillor Bradenham and then Councillor Richard Williams Councillor Williams Councillor Bradenham has deferred to you that's a very kind chair thank you I'm not taking your point at the start of this not being controversial as a challenge or anything first of all I think the document was really well put together so thank you for that it was a really well constructed document the questions I had are not entirely directly from this but they are related on planning committee this stream over the last year of applications coming from the council looking for outline planning permission for areas that we own usually they are garages for self-build houses which presumably are to be sold off privately I kind of had two questions really one where does the money go if those sites are sold off is that money that could be plowed back into the housing revenue account towards buying other council houses but my second question is actually will be my preference which is instead of us selling off these sites to private for private development which is what seems to be happening it would be much better if we were building new council houses on them ourselves I can't really make that point on planning committee because it's not a material consideration but I did want to make that point here thank you can answer that one please do please you're entirely right the idea is that when we sell plots off we're getting rid of land we're creating a seat which is used within the HRA we're currently reviewing those sites with the view of making them more retaining more of them ourselves for our own development realistically if a if a plot is only big enough for one or two properties usually the overheads make it unaffordable for us to build the odd council property there unless we can cluster several sites together and treat them almost as one site we're in the process at the moment with a new built team just going through that and see if it can rationalise that stock with the view of bringing a paper to members in the coming months thank you Peter and now I come to Councillor Bradman thank you chair and the reason I wanted to go last is because I have a good new story for you I just wanted to commend this absolutely it's an excellent report and very accessible so thank you very much for that and I commend the vision to be customer focused and supportive which we can see on page 8 on page 29 we see a wish to achieve tenant satisfaction and on page 34 we see this identification of priority A to ensure that our housing stock provides homes that are safe and secure and that we meet or exceed all statutory safety standards and Mr Campbell has explained exactly the practicality of that but I also wanted to commend our council because what is embodied in this report is not just a commitment to the bricks and mortar but as Mr Campbell said it's to the health and happiness of our tenants in those homes and the reason I wanted to talk about that is because that whole culture comes from our leadership but also from our staff and I wanted to commend the housing team for their approach to this and I can give you one particular example which I will keep anonymous where a couple contacted me because they were frightened in their housing which was not through our tenancy it was not district council housing they were frightened they had a nice flat and they had spent anordinate amount of time and effort to make it a nice development they had moved there because they had been terrorised elsewhere they were then terrorised again in this new flat and I got in contact with the housing team firstly I got in contact with their landlord and I even had I had long communications with them I had face-to-face meetings with them when you could do such things and they didn't listen and they didn't do anything about the concerns this couple felt threatened in that locality so I went to the South Cairns team and they suggested ways that they might be able to help they suggested ways that that couple did not seek for alternative accommodation on home link and they assisted them we had to wait quite a long time until stock became available but that couple are now housed in a completely different locality the home that they are in is smaller than their flat but they're happy there because we are a better landlord than their previous landlord we are a kind landlord and we have made it possible for them to be there safe in the broadest sense of the word they feel safe in the community that they are now in and I was very happy to be able to go and visit that couple and just on an ad hoc basis and I dropped in and said is it alright if I come and visit you and they were delighted to see me and said how pleased they were to be in their new location so I just wanted to thank the housing team and this document embodies that safety you know in the broadest sense not just in the bricks and mortar and I wanted to thank our team for that thank you chair lovely story Councillor Bradden thank you very much for doing that we do have one more speaker I'm sorry to say you weren't last you didn't get the last word this time Councillor Bear Park my apologies thank you chairman yes I just want to repeat a comment I made on the environment advisory committee which when we would discuss the net zero ambitions of this and I mentioned that the energy price cap has already risen it's likely to go up a lot more next year and it's going to hit a lot of people very hard and I appreciate it's difficult to identify necessarily people who are likely to be in fuel poverty but wondered whether it might be possible to prioritise how insulating homes may be done particularly because we don't know how long these high energy prices are likely to persist so I appreciate maybe a short term issue but I think possibly it's likely to be a long term issue and whether there's anything we can do to help those most in need basically thank you Councillor Bear Park I think it's a bit like fish and chips really the price goes up to never seem to come down could you address that please chair it's relatively easy we have got we're just working on two ports at the moment to do exactly that to do money advice and energy advice to both tenants and people who are not our tenants who are at risk of losing their homes so that will be one service the second thing that we're doing is more long term is recognising that when we do the stock conditions survey we're going to have the survey designed to meet our specific needs so rather than just the box standard one that you buy from a contractor we're having a specific focus on energy efficiency measures in order to use the information to better come up with a longer term fabric first building response plan so we've got a clear pathway a pathway forward so although we can't do the energy prices we're responding as quickly as we can thank you very much Peter we have a final speaker Councillor Cathcart Nigel Nigel, you are mute Nigel, if you are talking to us we cannot hear you Nigel, are you talking to us we cannot hear you can you read the text I think Nigel cannot hear us we cannot hear him so I think we'll have to move on so can I thank you all for your comments I think as Councillor Bradman and Dawn to have both said an excellent report and we'll pass on the additional comments that have come from the discussion this evening and we can now move on to item 9 on the agenda which is the work program could I just invite members to take note of that and I would just add that I have asked for that very early in the new year perhaps as early as the January meeting that we will have an update on the 3CIT status it seems to me that it's been going much better than it had in the past but it will be nice to hear that confirmed in a report to the scrutiny committee if there are no questions on the work program could I invite you to take note of the date of the next meeting you will be relieved to know that he's not now going to be on Monday evening because we have concluded our business today and it will therefore be on Tuesday the 18th of January 2022 starting at 5.20pm and with that, Councillors can I thank you all very much for your contributions this evening I think we've done some very, very sound work and we have some excellent recommendations which we can take forward to Cabinet and may I wish you all a very, very merry Christmas and a happy, safe, healthy and prosperous new year in 2022 and let's hope it's better than this one thank you all and good night thank you Chairman sorry, can you hear me now? I'm sorry, there was a technical breakdown in my system can you hear me? yes we can hear you Nigel but I've closed the meeting sorry, my office has failed no, I just want to very briefly on the housing issue I just want to say I think it's an excellent document it's something we had many, many years ago and it's well worth doing