 Hi, everyone, and welcome to our webinar on the Northeast Cambridge Area Action Plan. Hopefully you can all see us. We're really glad that you've joined us for this webinar on homes and also community facilities that come with them. Just a little bit of housekeeping so forth. I'm Hannah Loftis, I am one of the Teamwork on the Northeast Area Action Plan and I've been leading on a lot of the consultation and engagement work. I'm going to share this. I've got a great panel of my colleagues from policy and from other teams across the councils who've been involved. It's an hour long. It is on this topic and so the people we've got here are particularly involved with that topic. We have got some other webinars coming up as well on other topics so if there's something that you can't get answered here, please do you feel free to join us. The webinar is being recorded and we'll be putting it up on the YouTube channels for both councils as well so you can share that as well and revisit at any time. For that reason when we read out your questions we won't be reading out your names with them before GDPR reasons and just to reassure you that your names won't be visible in the recording of the webinar either. So I'm just going to quickly ask my colleagues to introduce themselves one by one just so you know who everyone is who got here today. Maybe I'll start with Matt with you. Hi all, I'm Matt Patterson. I'm the project lead for developing the error action plan on behalf of the shared planning services. Julian. Good afternoon everyone. I'm Julian Sykes. I'm the principal planning policy officer and I've been project managing the North East Cambridge error action plan. Terry. Good afternoon everybody. My name is Terry. This is a principal planning policy officer at the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service and I've been working on the error action plan and the evidence-based documents that underpin it. And last person from our policy team, Marco. Hi all, I'm Marco Picardi. I work in the policy team with the others and with the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service. And then we also have Julie from Southcowns. Hello everyone. I'm Julie Fletcher, head of health and strategy for Southcamershire District Council. And Julian. I can see we're going to have two Julians and a Julie so this is going to get really interesting when we're turning out the questions. Julian Adams is stunned. Hello, I'm Julian Adams. I'm a growth projects officer with the Cambridge City Council. I work across various services but I sit within strategic housing. And Rob Lewis. Hi, I'm Rob Lewis. I'm from the Council Council and the lead officer for planning and commissioning education provision. And lastly we have Hannah and Jo who are part of our team on comms and engagement helping run the whole show here today. So thank you very much. We're just going to do a really kind of quick overview presentation of some of the themes and issues around housing and community facilities. I'm sure some of you will have had a look at some of the material that's online as part of the consultation but we're aware that maybe everyone has. So I'm just going to hand over to Terry who's going to talk you through some of the headlines from the area action plan that we're consulting on. Thank you Hannah. What's the presentation to come up? I should say that you can put in Q&As at any point, questions in the Q&A panel at any point and we will answer them after the presentation. Thank you Jo. I'm just going to turn my camera off just to hopefully my audio will be a bit better. Can you start the slide show Jo please? I think it's on them. Thank you. So the North East Cambridge Area Action Plan, so the area as shown in Orange on that plan is 180 hectares. It is adjacent to the A14, the guided busway, as well as the Cambridge to Ely railway line. It includes Cambridge North Station and stretches all the way across Milton Road into Cambridge Science Park and also Cambridge Regional College. Previously the area did include Bramble Fields and the Nufford Road allotments but we have taken that out following the last round of consultation last year. The area has got really good accessibility to the local area and wider in terms of trains, guided busway and it's only 15 minutes on your bike from Cambridge City Centre so really good access to a whole host of services and local facilities. There are a range of landowners in the area including some of the colleges like St John's and Trinity and also the City Council amongst others so the purpose of the Area Action Plan is to try and coordinate development within this area. It's also a really important site strategically thinking about not only Greater Cambridge but also much wider than that in terms of the Oxford to Cambridge arc and one of the things that's really important about the Area Action Plan that we think is that local communities must really benefit from development that happens in this area. It should address local deprivation and it should really integrate with the surrounding communities so that includes Milton and communities to the south such as King Hedges and even places like Abbey which will be connected to this area with the Chisholm Trail and other infrastructure that goes in. Next slide please Jo. Sorry, I don't know if I've got a lag or whether it's... No, I'm not sure it's working quite well. There we go. Thank you. Okay, so what is an Area Action Plan? So it's a planning framework to guide development. It's essentially like a local plan but it's a site-specific one so there are a number of policies within it and all of those have to be justified by evidence so I think at the moment we're up to around 53 different pieces of evidence documents that sit behind this Area Action Plan and it has to go through two rounds of public consultation. This being the first one and there's another one which will take place in the future before it goes to examination for a public hearing where it will be assessed by an independent planning inspector. So it carries the same sort of weight as a local plan so it's a really important planning document for this area. Okay so the vision for North East Cambridge, I'm sure a few of you have seen this already, so we want North East Cambridge to be an inclusive walkable, low-carbon, new city district with a lively mix of homes, workspaces, services and social spaces which is fully integrated with surrounding neighbourhoods. So some key headline figures, so as I said about 182 hectares of brownfield land, that's actually bigger than Cambridge City Centre so it's a significant, it's a really significant site. It's the equipment of walking from the Beehive Centre all the way through to the back so it's quite a large area. There are 15,000 jobs on the site at the moment but there are only three homes and they're actually within the sewage treatment site. There are around 4,400 unused car parking spaces on Cambridge Science Park so there's quite a lot of scope there to intensify development and make better use of the land. In the future we're looking at around 8,000 new homes which will be about 18,000 residents and 40% is the target for new affordable housing which is one of the topics that we're talking about today. We think there'll be therefore an uplift of around 20,000 new jobs and there'll be a range of sectors, sectors not just R&D and office space and new provision of open spaces and parks, three new primary schools and new library as well as improved connections walking and cycling through and into and around the area. So as I said there's around 8,000 new homes and that's about 18,000 people. Most of these will be on the east side of Milton Road so that will be the land between Cambridge North Station and Milton Road and we're aiming for 40% affordable housing off which 60% were intending to be social affordable rent. This slide here just shows kind of where those are sort of distributed across the area. One of the key things here is that we're looking to take out a lot of the industrial uses that are in Nuffield Road at the moment and relocate those to Cowley Road so hopefully it would be a sort of a better solution in that area in terms of less kind of HGVs and white bands going past the Shirley School and things like that. We're really keen to create a mixed and balanced community here as well so this isn't just about young professionals who maybe have just finished their university courses and looking for somewhere to rent. We're really looking for a mix of people to live in this area so as I said 40% affordable housing but that can include social rented, council rented, shared ownership, key worker housing, built to rent, self finish which is a really different type of housing type that we're looking at here as well as conventional market sale so a real mix and also we're trying to limit air bnb's and similar types of visitor accommodation in this area because it's been a real issue particularly within the city for quite some time now and we want to make sure that we're not just creating homes but homes that are really high quality and that will last sort of the test of time really so making sure that we have really good internal and external space standards for all of those new homes but it's not just homes this isn't a housing development this is far from it what we're really trying to do is create a really truly mixed use community here where you can just walk to get your sort of day to day local services and facilities so be that a library or your sort of weekly or daily food shop or whether it's those social places where you go and meet friends and colleagues after work whatever it is that's really what we're trying to create in northeast Cambridge at the moment if you go into the area it is a nine to five place you know you go there on a Saturday or a Sunday or even you know beyond six o'clock in the evening that you know it is pretty a pretty soulless place to be fair and and we really really want to change that and that's one of the things that's really driving the kind of mix of uses that we're looking at for northeast Cambridge so you can see there are four centres in the area one is a district centre which is on Cowley Road so broadly speaking it's where the golf driving ranges at the moment and then three smaller centres two local ones one at Cambridge North Station and one at the Science Park which would be opposite CRC so really try and have a kind of like a forward face to the area at that area so people who live in King's Hedges and Oxford Park and CRC go to CRC can actually use the facilities in that area and then a smaller neighbourhood centre up at Cowley Road opposite St John's Innovation Park and in terms of the shops we're really trying to encourage smaller shops and businesses so this isn't a kind of a shopping you know the shopping centre or anything like that you know what we're trying to create is kind of what's been successful in the city at the moment so if you think of that somewhere like Mill Road or Mitcham's Corner you know they're a lot smaller independent uses uses down there in those areas and you know that that really adds to the kind of richness of Cambridge and that's something that we really really want to see moving forward so you know we're not we're not looking at you know big kind of retail warehouses or ideas or anything like that it's a lot smaller scale but one that is kind of appropriate to the size of the development that we're proposing and so just to get us started we've had a number of questions actually on social media and for emails already on the area action plan and some of them relate to the topic that we're talking about today in terms of homes and facilities so we've got three questions lined up pretty kind of pre-recorded questions lined up really so we've got some colleagues that are going to answer those I think Marco's going to pick up the first one which is what kind of homes are included in the 40% affordable housing category? Sure thanks Terry yeah so the 40% affordable housing will be a sort of range of mix that will mix a lot of different tenure types that will include social and council homes to rent intermediate housing and low cost home ownership that including shared ownership we expect that around well that a minimum of 60% of the affordable homes will be social or affordable rent so that means housing that's currently set at social and or affordable rent to provide a balanced mix in the area as you say that is appropriate to meet the vision of the AAP but also prioritising this tenure. We would like to see appropriately sized affordable housing tenure and this will be based on an assessment of unmet housing need based on the latest evidence and the existing supply of affordable housing in the local area and what was key for us I think as you said Terry you know the design-led ambition of the plan is that affordable housing is not to be visually distinguishable from market housing by its external appearance or by the space standards that it adopts and so it's key that this will be well integrated and distributed across the site in groups of affordable homes and that it's not confined to less prominent parts of the site and so it's also key to acknowledge that the respective Cambridge City Council and South Cams District Council housing allocation policies determine the eligibility requirements so that includes key worker housing categories for accessing affordable housing by the respective housing registers so we recommend feeding back formally on the housing allocations policies when these consultations become available as promoted via our respective council websites. We also encourage everyone to feed back their suggestions in relation to affordable housing via this consultation and the best place is section six jobs homes and services policy 13b affordable housing and policy 13d housing for local workers. That's me down. Apologies for my gravelly voice. I'm just coming off that sickness. Thanks. The next question is about the health facilities and I think Julian Adams is going to answer this one because that's always a really interesting one that comes up from communities to say well it's all very well building the houses but you know what about the stuff that comes with that? I think it's actually me Julian Sites that's responding to this one. So yes this is important consideration for the site especially when you've got so many residents plus a large number of employees in the area so to reflect the importance of this we've produced a health and well-being topic paper which will be available on websites but be able to look into more detail. However particularly in relation to the health facilities you appreciate the NHS has had to focus on the COVID-19 crisis so some of the discussions in this respect aren't as advanced as they are on other topic areas. More recently however the NHS has had a bit more capacity and we are now having active discussions with them on what sort of provision could be for the area. The issue indications are that this there's like to be a significant facility on the site not a hospital to a search but a major district facility that probably would go in the district centre that could provide a range of primary secondary and social services for the community. Now the size timing and the range of those services are going to be the subject of further discussions and the NHS needs to provide further advice on this but you can be sure that we are keen to provide appropriate facilities in this area for such a large community and to coordinate them with existing provision in the neighbouring areas. We'd welcome any thoughts that people have on the health needs of the community in there because they can then be fed into those discussions and into the future work we do in the IOP. So thank you very much. Thank you Julian and then the final proof of fair question was about schools and where will the three primary schools be located in the district and how will people travel there? That's a really good question so I think it's Matt who's answering that one. Yeah it is. I think I had a Matt first as well with this one. We've got that. Yeah there it is. So the schools, the primary schools are shown on the map and the purpley colour if you like. Primarily they're located to be well served by the housing developments in and around the area and therefore within easy walking distance really of each of those. What we are looking at is whether we need secondary school provision as well so one of the sites is also capable of accommodating secondary school provision but we will also look at improving links into and out of NEC to ensure that children here require access to secondary schools outside of the area that they are easily accessible by cycling and walking as well but those are the key locations. Again we welcome people's comments on those but obviously what we've sought to do is ensure they are still part and parcel of the heart of the communities really for those areas which will be predominantly the residential areas within NEC. Thanks Matt. Yeah just to clarify it's the three kind of navy squares that were shown on that map. If anyone wants to look at that in further detail then yeah there's obviously it's in the area reaction plan document itself so you'll be able to have a look at that a bit more time. Thank you Matt. Hannah over to you. Thanks. So we've got some questions coming in on the Q&A which we'll start to answer and obviously please do keep on asking questions anything that comes up along the topics. So the first question, well actually the first two questions which are related are about this 40% target for affordable housing and if a developer comes forward with a planning application for a parcel and then claims a viability exclusion are we powerless to actually make the 40% happen? The follow-up to this is as a planning authority you can only comment and approve or refuse the application in front of you not the one you want the developer to submit. Well actually the team has been working I think one of the things to say here is the team has been working really hard with landowners in the area to make sure it is a collaborative approach from day one and I think Matt maybe is going to pick up onto some of that because he's been very involved with those negotiations. Yeah certainly the expectation of government at the moment is that the planning process itself is the key test of viability rather than the individual development. So we have to ensure that what we propose in policy is viable so we are we've commissioned viability consultants to undertake an assessment to ensure that that affordable housing target is deliverable and therefore the full expectation will be that when development comes forward they won't be able to query that unless there are very exceptional circumstances and that may be something along the lines of there's something in the ground really that requires significant decontamination or something like that that will add to the cost or something like that that may impact the viability of the scheme in which case it's a consideration for the local planning authority as to what type of obligations we may see in terms of whether it's reduction in affordable housing or whether we reduce other requirements on the development and maintain the level of affordable housing. So in that regard the planning authority does have the ability always to approve or refuse an application if it's not in accordance with what we want to see come forward for NEC and certainly we would ensure that anything that came forward was in line with the the vision for the area the strategic objectives. We have to consider each on their case and on their merit but in the whole we would expect development to be in full accordance with what we want to see. Thanks very much Matt for that. We also have some other questions that are being asked via social media and so forth and one of the questions that has been coming up quite a lot is around the types of homes that will be built and whether it will be mostly flat or will it be family homes and that kind of thing. I'm wondering whether maybe Marcos is something you might want to talk to briefly? Briefly yeah yeah I think the densities that are being looked at at NEC as Matt mentioned there's a there's a viability process that we've commissioned tends to favour flat development but Hannah I think what you've said there's a kind of contradiction in terms because I don't think that there's necessarily family homes and flats and mutually exclusive and so I think one of the key things that we're trying to address in the policies if you look at them is to ensure that there are high design standards for flats to include and we know now through the COVID times and lockdown how important having good amenities and indoor spaces so are there things like all flats will need to look into dual aspects being dual aspects and having some kind of balcony space so yes while the majority of homes on the site are foreseen to be flats or apartments they are still aiming to build policies and tend for them to be as high quality homes as possible to ensure that family living and all kinds of different types of it can occur on site. Thanks Marco and actually there's a question on the Q&A that's a bit of a follow on from this in the sense of the design questions around flats it says the blocks of flats that are on the plans are so tall and these have so many problems like wind tunnels and lack of private spaces etc this doesn't seem at all attractive well I think it's an interesting point around the question around heights and maybe Teria because I know you've been working a lot with John and the urban design team on some of these questions would you like to just pick up on that? Yeah sure so yes we've done quite a bit of work already on building heights so we've carried out some work looking at the wider landscape character and seeing what development you could achieve at North East Cambridge without having a negative impact on the wider landscape so consultants went out to places like Bendit and Horningsea and places like that to try and understand what development could be achieved at North East Cambridge. Now we are doing some follow-up work too that where we're going to start looking at what impact tool buildings will have on the heritage of the city and the key views from elsewhere so thinking about the areas to the south of the city and the hills and that's a piece of work that we're doing at the moment and Historic England are actually working helping us with that piece of work so where we are with building heights at the moment is we're saying that around the edges of the site you know it can achieve kind of four to five story and then you could increase that gradually up towards the centre of the site but like I said we're doing some further work with that so that's kind of this is where we are at this stage of the process and actually as the evidence comes through that kind of approach may need to be tweaked slightly depending on what that evidence is saying but we do actually have another Q&A webinar specifically on I forgot the name of it now I think it's Density and Design or Design and Building Heights something along those lines next Wednesday evening so if you wanted to talk to myself and Matt who's going to be there and colleagues from Open Design then that's probably a really good opportunity to ask some more questions on that topic. I think just to follow up on some of the points raised there you know we are aware that it's a different kind of development from what has been seen historically in some parts of Cambridge in the past you know it is slightly more if you like urban and I think this is where the vision of a city district that has that really vibrant really lively feel where the public realm is really generous is really important and of course not everybody will want to live you know in a place like that but also not everybody wants to live in a suburb with you know a car where you only can get anywhere by using a car and so forth so it is about trying to create something that's an appealing lifestyle choice for people and has everything on your doorstep you don't need to use a car if you don't want to and it does bring some of that more if you like urban almost continental style living to Cambridge. Just a couple of other questions that are coming up on the chat here so there's a question around factory building I think it's an interesting one. Homes England have a parcel of North Stowe phase two being entirely factory built as part of the government's policy to encourage this to happen especially given the shortage of building skills in an expanding area like Greater Cambridge. Can the AAP include a requirement for factory building as a means of quick and cheap and better insulated dwellings? I wonder who might be the best person to speak to that maps? Waving? Yeah it's me so yeah we've been talking with the developers and they're very keen in particular on the core site the Anglun water site looking at modular build so essentially putting up a factory and doing modular build making use of the aggregates rail here as well to bring in the materials necessary limiting hgv movements on the surrounding road networks and things like that. Also you've got the concrete batching plant so it all kind of works together and then we've been talking with Cambridge regional colleges well about putting a training facility on the side of that to ensure we can upskill those local workforce to ensure they have access to apprenticeships and job training in the construction industry that can make use of that facility in terms of it'll be there for the long term in terms of a buildout and therefore it all seems to work quite nicely together so yes we are definitely looking at onsite provision for a sort of modular build facility. Thank you much. There's a question also about the ground rents and service charges in development the question says given that flats will likely be a majority of housing in the area is there any plans to limit developers proposed ground rents and service charges these seem to have been hiking uncontrolably in recent developments. Matt I have a body here this might be a good one for you as well sorry that's fine yeah and certainly on service charges we are looking at how we can limit those in particular certainly on affordable housing blocks we've been managing to limit the service charging that applies to those and we are obviously looking to do that as well where you've got blocks of flats that are in even market housing as well the ground rents is slightly more difficult in that it's not really a planning matter and it's quite difficult for us but it's an issue that we are obviously discussing with the government around whether they can put a cap on that as well to facilitate will help people with their just the costs of living really which are extremely high normally and yeah ground rents don't help with that so we are obviously looking at all the ways and means part of that is looking at how we do our developments as well and ensuring they're as sustainable as possible and that means ensuring actually the cost of maintaining the development over the long term is reduced as well and hopefully that's reflected in our much reduced service costs to anyone. I'm aware that one of the things that we get asked a lot is about affordable housing and what that actually means we were at a community event the other day in northeast Cambridge in fact our first in-person consultation since COVID it was really exciting to talk to real people in person and that came up a lot and I was wondering whether Julie you might just be able to unpack because affordable can mean something colloquially and of course our government tells us it means something slightly different technically. Yep no problem so obviously affordable housing can mean different things for different people really in terms of what their affordability is so in terms of our affordable provision we are looking for 60% to be able affordable rent or social rent so and as part of that the council Cambridge City Council will be looking to deliver some of that affordable housing themselves and council housing so typically social rents will be between 50 to 60% of a market rent whereas an affordable rent is slightly higher at 60 to 75% of a market rent but for those that are on real low incomes obviously there is the housing benefit that will help to sort of help those lower household incomes so that is our highest priority really in terms of helping those on the lowest incomes that we do also recognise that for many people now who are on sort of average incomes affordability is still a huge issue for them that they can't access the sort of housing market for by home so that's why we are also really keen to look at different tenure types within the affordable provision so we're looking at potentially rent to buy so maybe people young professionals who can't afford to buy their home yet but their career will progress so they can start by renting at a lower rent with the ambition to purchase that property at a later date there's also shared ownership which is a part by part rent product so that helps people who can't access mortgages very easily they will get a lower mortgage on say 50% share and then they'll pay rent on the other half discounted market also is another option for maybe those at the highest sort of level on the medium incomes who want to purchase their own house but can't quite afford it so really i think what we're saying is affordability we're very aware that we need to provide for those on the lowest incomes but we also need to have that spectrum across the range for me affordability also comes in terms of the design and the location of the properties so to be truly affordable we want to cut down on travel costs to work by maybe having some sort of local lettings plans to make sure we prioritise people who work locally to ensure that their costs are cut down in travel and also by sort of energy efficiency so their utility costs are lower as well so we will look at all of that in terms of the housing mix and i think when we do look at affordable housing in terms of the overall mix again it's about getting that balance right within the whole of the community so we don't have high concentrations of one particular tenure type in one area so that it's a cohesive and balanced community so i hope that sort of answers the question yeah thank you a minute it is a very complex area housing unfortunately for something that is a basic need that we all have it does come in many different shapes and sizes and it does change all the time it's just going to go on to the question around schools and so forth and a question for Rob which is will the primary schools include nursery provision because obviously young families people may be coming in to the development with very young children in the first instance who then may progress up the school system yeah that's a good question so council policy and the approach will be to have preschools on each of the primary school sites and they will offer seasonal provision for two three and four year olds meeting the national free entitlement we know that these won't be sufficient to meet all the need and certainly not full day care provision so we'll be looking to secure within the section one of six agreements sites to becoming thought to be marketed for full day care provision and also we'll look to work with councils and community provision to look at what opportunities may exist for seasonal preschool provision within other community facilities thanks very much Rob just on the other community facilities questions people have been asking about what kind of sports facilities and other community facilities will be available and I know there's also been some work that we've been doing on cultural provision as well who might like to answer this one next Matt yeah that's fine so yeah we have been working obviously with local communities and and we've been going out we've got some consultants involved in undertaking an assessment of what's already within the local area what people like in terms of those existing facilities where they think there's deficiencies and things like that and so we're looking at the widest range of different types of community facilities from halls obviously to library provision to sports facilities and the like right through to different types of spaces as well and we're looking at what's within the surrounding area that that people like and we could improve upon and what where there are deficiencies even in the surrounding communities whether they can be provided for within NEC because part of this is missing NEC into the surrounding community much better and easier by walking and cycling and making those strategic connections and ensuring residents within new residents coming into NEC can access facilities that are within the surrounding area and likewise existing residents can come and use the new facilities that will be provided so it's about holistic abuse to what kind of community facilities are needed in the wide area to benefit the broadest community really. I think this is a really good one for people to feedback to us on as well as part of the consultation you know we really want to hear whether you think we've got the mix right of community facilities what you know residents of the surrounding areas know the area best themselves so your best place to say what do you really think that could be usefully provided at North East Cambridge that would fill a gap and wouldn't duplicate what's already well provided at all in the area around it. Just looking at some other questions coming through here um there's a question around um common or recycling and and electric power points and things like that so really some of the sustainability side that comes with housing I wonder about the marker I know you've been doing some work on some of the smart stuff as well whether you might want to just talk a little bit about that um yeah I I don't know if I've got the detail of hand but I'll try my best yeah I think as uh has been as Terry outlined in the vision for the northeast area northeast Cambridge area action plan a key key part of it is is creating this sustainable how can we create development in the most sustainable manner possible um and so we are exploring ways to try and consolidate refuse collection um so that uh in high density locations we have a single single point collection places where the rubbish is taken not not in various locations but a strategic locations where a refuse vehicle can access without disturbing the multiple residential streets and that it can happen you know once a day or something um and what was the second part of the the question sorry public electric power points cars and electric scooters all right I don't I don't have the detail of that I mean the expectation here is that um for the government all vehicles will be electric by I think it's 2030 even though is it later I think but either way um we are looking at 100% electric provision across the site in terms of um that's the future trend so we need to ensure we've got the energy supply the battery storage and all the other things to facilitate both electric vehicle but e scooter e bike all the other electric gadgets that will be necessary to provide um sustainable modes of transport as well so um certainly charging points will be um a key um requirement for all sort of parking spaces whether that's for bikes cargo bikes or cars and I think again you know we're really keen to hear people's views on things like this and what people I I did see one comment on social media I think a week or two ago about for instance mobility scooters and how mobility scooters will be catered for and the more people talk to us about what your needs are specific user requirements the more we can assure that that is built in because this is just a draft plan at this stage for consultation and we know we've got a lot more work to do um to make sure when it gets to the full plan just got a follow up on Julie or affordable housing obviously um very good answer and then the next question is well how do people apply for council homes in this area once it's built okay so um for all sorts of council homes and also housing association properties so all sorts of social and affordable rent um it goes through our home link scheme which is a choice based letting scheme that's administered across the whole of the sub region actually within Cambridge here um I'm happy to put a link as a follow up so that people can if they want to apply I would say apply now because the earlier you get an application in the better really and then how it works is when properties become available they're advertised and people that qualify for those properties can actually sort of express an interest in them so that there's an element of choice in terms of what properties that they want to apply for so yeah I would definitely say if people are interested then it's better to register early and then um you're ready and waiting for whenever the homes might come on board so I'll send that link after um this webinar thanks Julie um just a question around co-housing opportunities I know we've sort of briefly touched on some of these other forms of housing um earlier but will do we expect there to be some opportunities for those sorts of housing and maybe just Julian is this one Julian Adams maybe something to come in on yeah so we know that um we have had some interest around city and southcams regarding self-built and co-housing um it is something that we've put into our topic paper for housing for the NEC in terms of self and custom build and we know that the greater housing strategy has five percent of all new builds allocated for these modes but with the constraints and the restrictions around the type of housing and densities that we have at NEC it's probably more towards two or three percent for a custom build or custom finish um the issue around self build is also intrinsically linked to quite obviously land and the provision of land and uh the prohibitive costs we all know about within Cambridge so on NEC I think it's unlikely that any of the private developers are going to come forward and give over plots of land for self-built therefore we've probably been looking towards the local authority to have it within their plans to allocate some land towards towards that um however that said that hasn't been decided yet and that'll be a decision that members will have to consider as part of this area action plan and future development sites. Thanks Julian and of course you know I'm sure most people have picked up on this but as the city council is both a landowner and also um part of the the planning service developing the AAP there are a number of different routes into how we explore some of these issues it's not always just through the planning framework sometimes it is through the council that's developed for itself. Just a question another question which has come from from social media around community safety will paths for walking and running have properly working street lights so it feels safe to exercise in the mornings and the evenings when it's dark and I think Julian Sykes you maybe could talk to this one. Julian you are mute. It would help put myself up. Yes happy to respond to this question. Again community safety is of high importance and we're producing a topic paper on this area. We're doing this in collaboration with community safety teams at the both councils and with the police to to think about all these related considerations. I think that the place to start with is placemaking. Central 2 placemaking is is to provide a layout with as much natural surveillance as possible and clear areas where where people are private and public areas where people can know know where they should be and understand where they are in terms of the layout. Inevitably though there will be some quieter areas we're looking to link in this area with neighbouring areas five foot and cycle bridges and underpasses and so we will look in those areas to that appropriate lighting for those areas what sort of additional activities we can generate there and if needs be even things like CCTV in particular cases but that will try and be that the last resort wherever we want to we want to try and get as much natural surveillance as possible so it is of high importance. Thank you Julian. Just a follow-up on the schools and this has come up as well in other forums around the secondary school provision with so many new people. Do we are we really sure that we won't need a secondary school on the site right now and I know there's a lot of work been going on here. Matt do you want to speak to this? Yeah so school plays playing is quite a challenge because obviously school roles vary significantly and they tend to go up and down and we've got to look at schools as a broader catchment really so what we can't do is have school roles drop on one of the existing schools and then you provide a new school somewhere else because that will just again reduce roles further across the existing schools so the projections are showing that actually school roles will be maintained at around the same levels and therefore we probably won't need a new secondary school despite the population increase for the area through new development however because we're obviously looking and planning quite a way ahead the AAP plans for the next 20 years um we realise there might be some uncertainty in that in those projections and therefore for good proper planning purposes we're setting aside land sufficient to accommodate a secondary school should the need arise in terms of we get a growth elsewhere in terms of school place numbers and there is pressure on the existing secondary schools to take the children that arise from the new development at NEC and we can look at providing new facility here that can serve the wider area as well and I think that that point about the plans being subject to obviously evolving as time goes on is really important one because this is a 20-year plan and the world is going to look very different in 20 years than it does today so we are really trying to build inflexibility to the plan and one of the things that's been raised often is COVID and that is very much something whose impact we are keeping under review and I'm sure that the next iteration of the plan will take into account some of the emerging evidence around how COVID is changing demand and the way that people indeed want to live so it is an evolving situation here isn't it? Yeah in particular around community facilities as well because um you know normally we have this nice list of types of different types of community facilities that people wash and we've got a standardised format for a new library and a new community centre and things like that but under a new with COVID-19 and social distancing provision and all the other things we're having to really rethink what type of community facilities we would provide should we be in this situation for the long term and so we've got a sort of watching brief at the moment because we really don't know and and we need to um remain quite flexible I think for not just now but for the long term in terms of um ensuring that what facilities we put on a fit for purpose comply with government policy at the time on distancing or other measures and um yeah it could be quite unique moving forward as to how how those existing how our new provision of community facilities emerges in terms of a different model even in terms of how you might access services and other things we just don't know at this point in time so it's yeah and I know that Emma Davies and her sustainability policy has also been talking about flexibility of buildings to be adapted over time as well so it might start as one thing but as things change you know it may well get converted. A question's just been asked about um the uh entertainment sites. Cambridge Junction, Light Cinema's Bowling in the South and Corn Exchange View in the centre areas serve well for those areas but are there plans to promote such commercial entertainment sites as part of this development to benefit existing and future North Cambridge populations? I think maybe Julian you were going to answer this one. Thank you Hannah. This is a question that's been given a lot of thought in this area. It relates to a number of different strands of pieces of work. In terms of some of the corporate strategies particularly that the city council has had in promoting the more cultural type facilities um the advice has been coming to to generally try and focus those together and create a centre of activity but as part of that sort of growing strategy um they do need to have support facilities for people that's sort of new to new and testing out their their skills and um sort of entry level to to um artistic activities so there should be and I would envisage there will be meeting places and activities for probably more smaller scale more appropriate to the scale of the size of this area. The the other aspect that comes to mind particularly relevant to this is that we are we're looking at trying to um as we said previously about managing the the traffic flows into the area it's not practical really to to have large numbers of people coming for cars which is often the case with many commercial large-scale leisure activities. It may be possible you could organise something if it could be demonstrated that it works around public transport um but it's I think it'd be a challenge to have many facilities in this so there's possibly not the right the right location for some of those activities. What we do need to do is make sure that there are good um public transport links to where those facilities are in the city so that people have access to those sort of things. So there will be facilities in this area of that thing for a problem more on the smaller scale. Thanks Julian. Just to let everybody know we've just got five minutes left so if you've been desperate to ask a question that hasn't been answered so far please do just type it in the chat because we've probably got time for one or two more and we'll share some slides in a minute that show the dates of future webinars which will you can join on different topics and we've also got a sort of general one at the end of the series and also the different ways that you can comment on the consultation so please please do comment on the consultation it's so important to us that we hear from a great range of voices here we know that we will get uh answers and comments back in from the development industry and from the statutory kind of authorities and consultees who we must consult with but we also really really want to hear from just everybody who lives in and around the area the villages around the north and so forth as well um so that we hear both what you are really supportive of because that helps us strengthen the case for those parts of the action plan and also the things where we could be improving or taking a different tack so those details should hopefully be up on screen for you now and and you can obviously see them all on our website as well consultation ends on the 5th of October so you have just about a month to get your comments in just a follow-up on the local worker housing question Julie is giving a master class on how to apply for housing and who's eligible and so forth there's a question around who would qualify for local worker housing is it just nurses and teachers or other people as well okay thank you um so local worker housing i think potentially gets confused with key worker housing and they are quite they are slightly different so when people talk about key worker house and then it is generally your your nurses your teachers the police sector the public sector workers and but i think um we're also very keen in terms of promoting as i said previously sort of the the work the travel to work so local workers and government did start to call them essential local workers but i think our feeling is that everybody who works locally is essential to some service or other um so i think within who qualifies i think what we it hasn't been set in stone but i think what we will be looking at is um looking at sort of a radius of where people work rather than what they do and and obviously whether they qualify for affordable housing in terms of their income levels so we're looking in terms of the affordable prioritising potentially people who work locally but there may also be opportunities to look at the key worker sector we know that people who work in adding books um a lot of their staff can't access the the housing market either they have recruitment issues and i think with COVID-19 you know it's really come to the fore with some of these key worker sort of what they do for for the whole of the public really from the care sector to nurses and everything so i think there are opportunities to look at that as well in terms of prioritising housing nothing's set in stone but we will be looking at that based on the evidence and demand at the time thank you very much julie that's really helpful and i believe there has been some discussion about potential um sort of block lease arrangements and things like that haven't there at northeast cambridge are some of the more major employers yep so so i think potentially um we haven't really talked about sort of built rent schemes but um there was an acknowledgement that there there will be um demand for bespoke built rent schemes on the site as well and and they can actually offer opportunities for sort of block leasing from employers as well so that's definitely something that will open to to have a discussion on going forwards thank you julie so i'm aware that our time's about up now um thank you so much for some really great questions um on the topic we're really glad that you've all joined us and we hope you found it useful there is a little survey that will come up after the webinar ends and if you have any comments on the format or anything else please please do let us know via that um do fill in the consultation as i mentioned and we hope to feedback but we will obviously feedback on the comments that we get in from that consultation once we've had time to digest them we know that we've already been getting quite a lot in so that's brilliant but we really do want that great spread so thanks again and please do join us at another webinar coming up shortly thank you you