 Hello everybody and welcome to our webinar about North East Cambridge Area Action Plan. Thanks everybody for coming today. We are going to be talking about walking and cycling and connectivity and transport generally today. I'm just firstly going to just introduce all the fantastic team members that we've got here today from various parts of our service and in fact not just our service today who are going to be here to answer all of your questions and then I'll do a little bit of housekeeping but first just to introduce everybody maybe we can start with Terry. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Terry DeSousa I'm a Principal Planning Policy Officer at the Greater Cambridge Chair Planning Service. I've been one of the officers that's been involved in preparing the AAP and a number of the evidence-based documents that underpins it. Thanks Terry and Matt. Afternoon everyone. I'm Matthew Patterson. I am one of the project leads on preparing the AAP for the shared planning service. And Claire. Hello everyone. I'm Claire Spencer, Senior Planning Policy Officer in the Greater Cambridge Chair Planning Team. I've also been part of preparing the Area Action Plan. Thanks Claire and John. Good afternoon everyone. I'm Jonathan Brooks, Principal Urban Designer in the Greater Cambridge Chair Planning Service and I've been involved in helping to prepare the spatial framework and supporting policies. And Sarah. Good afternoon everyone. I'm Sarah Hatcher. I'm one of the officers from the Transport Strategy Team at Cambridge County Council and I've been helping the shared planning service and colleagues on the call today with the development of the transport side of the plan. Thanks so much. So we've got all the people who know lots about transport to answer your questions. Just a little bit about how big webinars work. We will give a very short presentation on some of the kind of key themes and issues around the topic today. It's an hour long. You'll see at the bottom of your Zoom window there's a Q&A button and if you press that you can enter any questions that you have for the team and then we'll start going through them at the end live and give as much detail as we can on them. Just so you know it is being recorded today and we do put these up on YouTube afterwards so that anyone who couldn't attend today for whatever reason can watch them back. You are all invisible and anonymous for that reason to protect privacy and your names won't be read out on screen either when we read out the questions. So do feel free to please start asking any questions you want and we will answer them due course. Just so you know it is just an hour. If we have questions left at the end please don't worry. We will answer them online as well. What we do is we put them into the FAQ page on our website so again we can let you know where that is at the end of the presentation. So without further ado I can see actually just one question someone has asked if their speakers are okay. I hope everyone can hear okay. I see that one of the other attendees has said they can. I'm sorry if you're having any audio difficulties we do know of course sometimes internet isn't brilliant but we will we do record them and usually the quality is quite good so if you do have any problems you can come back and watch them back as well on YouTube. So Terry is going to oh no oh hold on a minute no I am going to give the presentation aren't I Terry apologies. I am going to give the presentation today and then Terry I think is going to moderate all the questions. I've got all our roles back from today. I'm going to just share my screen. So just a bit about the North East area action plan in general terms and then we'll also go on to some of the specific parts about walking and cycling and so forth. Just for those of you who aren't already quite familiar with the site it is a really significant area of brownfield land in the northern part of the city and one of the things which we will obviously be talking about more today is about its good transport accessibility and how that's going to improve. That's really one of the key reasons why we are developing an area action plan for this site because it is such a fantastic opportunity to create genuinely sustainable development in a very accessible part of the city. It has a range of landowners hence we do need this coordinated planning framework which is what the area action plan will provide because it is this strategically important site as well as a very locally important site and it is very important that some of the communities around North East Cambridge which are some of the more deprived ones in Greater Cambridge are genuinely at the heart of this and do benefit from the jobs, the services and the housing that's going to be created. In case you're not familiar with what an area action plan is it is basically similar in status to a local plan so it sets out a spatial framework for development alongside the thematic policies that will guide new planning applications in the area and how we determine them in the future. It has a very very extensive evidence base of studies that support it because it does have a very large level of weight in the planning process like a local plan would do so it goes through this examination process with an independent inspector as well so it does take a little bit of time to get through the system and you can read a bit more about that if you're interested in our website in terms of the time scales that we're looking at but once it is in place it's a very powerful tool for us and we would be expecting applicants who come forward in this area to show that they are meeting the policies and the requirements set out in the AAP. This is the vision that we are consulting on as part of the draft area action plan at the moment and it is very much about what a forward-thinking new low-carbon city district really means in practice so that is absolutely centrally about walkability and about sustainable transport. It is also about this mix of uses that is fully integrated with our surrounding neighborhoods and that is another way of making sure that it is not just socially sustainable but it's also economically and into carbon terms environmentally sustainable as well with people able to walk and cycle to everything they need on a daily basis. A few headline figures are currently inside the AAP site boundary there are 15,000 jobs on the science parks and the business parks and the industrial areas but only three homes so a key aim here is to rebalance that and provide more homes within that walking and cycling distance of jobs in the area. So the headline figures are that we hope to create around 8,000 new homes for about 18,000 people and the target is for 40 percent of those new homes to be genuine and affordable. There will also be more jobs in the area as well we're looking at intensifying employment in the site but then it isn't just about jobs and homes it is very much about what the green spaces and the services are that come with them. There are over 10 hectares planned large-scale public parks and squares and that's not including the smaller neighborhood spaces as well that we'll be creating like playgrounds and street spaces as well. So just a bit about walking, cycling and reducing car use in the plan it is really central and I think one of the things that is so important and that why this we're glad to have you all here today is that actually this vision for sustainable transport is central to the plan. We have put this at the heart of how we've developed the plan from day one and that is not just about meeting our climate change commitments but of course that is really important. That is also about the impact on local communities. Milton Road is at capacity anyway so we really can't be planning for anything that increases road traffic along that as a key artery but really you know it is the right thing to do for so many reasons. Climate, we can't meet our zero carbon targets without this fundamental shift away from car use. Air quality, we know how important that is and of course COVID-19 has highlighted that again for us about walking and cycling and people's health and well-being in their own neighborhoods being so critical and of course creating a community that really feels like a genuine neighborhood here. It's got to be somewhere that doesn't feel carved up and segregated by massive highways anymore that actually feels really well integrated with its surroundings. So you can see some of the sort of headline measures that are in the area action plan here including really reorientating the streetscape towards pedestrians and cyclists first and cars very much down the pecking order, improving connections into surrounding areas, more public transport as well and then how do we control parking and vehicle movements. One of the key drivers here is about everything being on within a short walk or maybe a very short cycle ride of your front door and that's a very key measure because it means it reduces the need to travel out of the area to meet daily needs. So if you're going to school, if you're popping to the shops, if you're going to the library, if you're going out for a meal in the evening, you shouldn't be needing to get in your car at all to do that. The converse of that is that we also don't want northeast Cambridge to be, if you like, a destination for people from a much wider area around the site which would create car trips into the area. So this is about meeting local needs in the local area, not creating somewhere that is going to have lots of people wanting to drive in from outside of northeast Cambridge or the surrounding communities and bringing their cars with them. One of the key things is of course that commuting in and out of the area can be done by bike, bus and train because of the really good public transport that exists and they're being improved as part of the plan. As we've mentioned that the location is key here so you know it is 15 minutes cycle ride from the city centre and of course for things like the Chisholm Trail it means that cycling north and south down down to the south of Cambridge and so forth will become much easier as well and it is a 15 minute walk from north to south across the site and the 30 minute walk east to west. So one of the things is at the moment you would feel Milton Country Park is absolutely miles away from you know from the busway and so forth because you have to cross quite a lot of barriers and so forth to get there but of course what we're looking at in the plan is to break down some of those barriers to movement to create new ways of crossing across from different parts of the site and around its boundaries so that it really does feel incredibly accessible to go from north to south and east to west across the site. This just shows some of those potential connections that we're consulting on and this is where it's really important that we hear from you as well. If you think these are in the right place we need to hear that if you also think we've got some of these things wrong we really want to hear about that too but as you can see there are several really significant connections that are being made either new ones or improving some of some of the existing ones like the Jane Costin Bridge. So the Jane Costin Bridge for instance we're looking at improving the length either side of that so that it becomes as well used as it possibly can but we're also looking at a new underpass between Milton Country Park and the site itself as well so that the greenway cycle route down from Water Beach can actually come into the site very seamlessly under the A14. You can see that there's a pedestrian and a cycle bridge over the railway line being proposed to Chesterton Sands so that would meet up with the co-path cycle routes there. Better connections across Milton Road and also a lot of better connections across the Valley of Usway as well to really break down those as far as to movement. So it is about switching if northeast came into its context and meaning that if you live in King's Headgears or Chesterton or Arbury it's really easy for you to move through the site, access services, access the jobs and so forth there without using an impasse. This just shows again a little bit more simplified the primary sustainable travel routes that are being proposed and again these are consultation at the moment and drafts so we really want to hear what you will think about them. The yellow are the primary strategic routes for pedestrians and cyclists so those are the routes that allow you to get across the site through the site and connect up with the other off-road and protected cycle routes around the area. Then we have the proposed bus route through the site as well so that will meet up with Milton Road and then what we're looking at are really integrated mobility hubs so not just a bus stop where you can get on and off your bus but also actually cycle higher and all of those other really important things that allow you to continue your journey from when you get off your bus or your guided bus and we're looking at a new guided bus way stop as well just here. The street hierarchy is really important so we're saying that whilst the thicker white lines on this map are what we're calling the primary streets and they will allow motorised traffic through traffic if you like to come through the area and service businesses and so forth or the thinner white lines which are we calling the secondary streets are basically no through routes so we are really discouraging people to use them unless they absolutely need to take a delivery and so forth. You can also see that we're proposing a rather different approach to parking in this in this image here so rather than parking at your doorstep which I think a lot of people are obviously used to we're looking at consolidating parking for residents in what we're calling car barns so those are essentially more consolidated multi-storey car parks that will probably be wrapped with homes or offices or other development and they will be a short walk away from your house but it is about saying they are somewhere you can store your car if you need a car for the weekend or if you want to hire a pool car or a zip car or something like that from a car club you can have that in those car barns but you're not encouraged to use them on a sort of daily basis. So just a little bit more about how these new sales streets could look and feel this is showing the primary streets so these are the sort of three routes if you like where we're looking at a fully segregated cycle and pedestrian routes which you can see running down to the side here away from vehicle traffic which would be buses and so forth and you can see really the generosity of that street section and how it is about prioritising walking and cycling and ensuring that vehicles have to go slower have to slow down and allow people to cross and say forth as well as some of the greening that is obviously going to be really important to making this a wonderful place to live. You can see here again the idea about the mobility hub which is that if you get off your bus you could then hire a bike you could then cycle your kind of last five minutes or ten minutes or however wherever you're going in the area so again you're not having to rely on a car or any other sort of form of motorised transport for those short kind of trips. This is showing those secondary streets so this is a higher density version and here we're really taking many cues from our colleagues over on the other side of the channel in Holland and Belgium where they have mastered the art of making streets where you're not banning cars this is absolutely not about banning cars from the area you'll still be able to drive like the delivery van here you know drop off things if you are a blue badge holder you'll be able to park outside your home but it is about saying that those vehicle movements are subservient to the walking and the cycling and they have to go really slowly and that makes space for play that makes space for people to informally socialise on the street as well as much more space for greening the street as well. Just a couple of sort of examples from other places about how that can look and feel when it's a mature and finished place so you can see that cars are allowed but they are very much second fiddle to the cycling and the walking and the kind of green space creating a much more attractive and much more family friendly pedestrian friendly environment and this is showing how a slightly different version of this might work in a residential area with medium density street. So we have a few questions that have been coming up regularly on social media and things like that which we thought we would answer first and I now need to start my notes because I actually can't remember who's answering the first question here I think it's Matt isn't it. Lots of people have been hearing this word the trip budget which we haven't really mentioned yet so far so I think Matt was going to unpack this question about what is a trip budget and how will this work in practice. Thanks Anna yeah so a trip budget is quite unique really it's about ensuring that you can enable development to come forward without having an impact on the surrounding road networks well we know the local road network on Milton Road in the surrounding areas at capacity therefore to enable development come forward on at northeast Cambridge we need to ensure that it does not have a net increase in that in those trip movements and how we do this is by allocating the existing trips if you like that already happen within NEC to each of the development areas so each of the developers therefore have a cap on the number of trips that they can make and overall those trips cannot exceed those that are already carried out on the network. We have ways and means of doing that obviously first and foremost is ensuring the places is designed such that it facilitates a trip budget approach we limit can limit the number of car parking spaces on individual sites as well to ensure that that happens but primarily it's about driving up the level of sustainable transport that's made so it's a huge shift away from vehicle movement through to about a 70% share of all movements being made by sustainable modes across the area as a whole. So at the moment we did the county did lots of modelling for us originally and our consultants did to determine exactly how many vehicle movements there are at the aim and pee and peak on Milton road so we know exactly how many vehicles are coming into the area at those times and that's what the peak capacity is and that's what the trip budget set upon if you like and then that's allocated out to each of the development areas for existing sites it means they have to significantly reduce the amount of vehicle movements into their area and for those new developments that are coming on board they need to stick within their budget and ensure that there is significant sustainable transport measures put in place to facilitate that that mode share that needs to happen. All of this means that we don't have to do huge amounts of new highways engineering works around Milton road around the A14 as well to to get more traffic and vehicles into the area which just makes it unsustainable that northeast Cambridge already benefits significantly from sustainable transport whether it's cycling train the bus we've got Cambridge Metro coming as well and we can build on that and ensure that it is a sustainable place. Thanks Matt. Okay so the second of the three questions that we're going to just cover now are won't everybody park on streets outside of the northeast Cambridge area and so I think that's Sarah I believe that's going to be picking up on that one. Yep thank you Terry that's that's a really good question and it's important because clearly by restricting parking at northeast Cambridge we don't want to simply displace that problem into neighboring areas so we know that the availability of parking is a big driver in people's decision on whether to drive or not to predominantly work at the moment obviously at northeast Cambridge even if there are alternatives so we know that the science park and the other business parks in the areas have pretty much unconstrained prolific parking on their sites so there's no real incentive for people not to drive to work if that's what they want to do. So that then feeds through into the clearly into the sort of issues with traffic and congestion on Milton Road and around the area. So just in answering the question there I think the first point is that the development won't happen all together overnight it's the site is going to be developed out over a number of years so we're not suddenly going to be faced with hundreds of vehicles that can't park on the site and are then looking to to park in neighboring areas it will be done in a phased manner and as the plan progresses a parking strategy will be developed for the whole site which is phased in such a way to make that parking more equitable about across the site but it will be phased in such a way that it matches when the new transport offer comes on board so you know it would be unreasonable to take parking away if there's if there aren't alternatives in place for people to use. I think that the second point to make is that obviously you've got an employment element and you've got a residential element of a new development there isn't any residential development there at the moment so people moving to the site are going to be moving there in the knowledge of the type of area it's going to be and the vision for it and the type of place that we want to make it so I think probably if you're a house four car household you might look at the site and think it's not for you whereas if you're a household that perhaps doesn't need a car for so many of your journeys then you might consider it so I think there will be an element of moving into the site in the knowledge that there are other options and I think that's the key to it as Hannah said earlier it's not about no cars allowed because clearly people do need their cars and there will be blue badge provision and there will be car bonds so it's not it's not a question of not having a car at all but there are other options and there will be car clubs as well so it's not anti-car it's just trying to make the other options the easier choice when you walk outside your front door so it's not trying to put off people who need a car but it is trying to make the other options kind of more equitable to the car I suppose in terms of the employment side of it that will be more of a challenge I suppose because you do have people who are obviously already coming to the science park and the other business parks who are driving at the moment and over time a good proportion of those people will need to change their habits so that will be a more of a challenge in terms of changing that behaviour over time and I do acknowledge obviously there is the concern that those kinds of trips could spill over into neighbouring areas but what we will be doing is we will be monitoring doing parking monitoring in surrounding areas so areas for example like like Milton like the areas to the south of the site and as those developments come forward if the monitoring shows that there are there are there's increasing parking on those streets then we will have other steps that we can take another intervention that we can take through the planning process to to deal with that I think that probably answers that for the time being. Thank you Sarah that's really helpful I think you also picked up on some of the questions that we've all really been leaving in the in the chat which is great but we'll come back to those so just the last question before we come on to the ones that have been asked and there are quite a few actually so thank you everybody who's asked questions so far is what about the weekly shop people will still need cars to do to do things like this so John I think is that you that's picking up this question. Thank you that one very thanks I mean I think this is a really good point you know people need to be able to live and enjoy living in this area we're not trying to create some sort of police state so I think you know we need to make sure though that we think about what is the character and quality of the place that we're creating and it comes back to the vision for the NEC which is about kind of everything you need is kind of very local to you it's sort of on your doorstep so that's whether you're hopefully you know working and living in the area or whether you need to go to the shop or to the school and I think you know that the basis of this of the framework and the vision is around a kind of really good series of kind of connected streets which are kind of great for walking and cycling and really put those two modes right at the top and that's then supported by a really good public transport offer so the campus station clearly kind of takes you out of that area and connects you kind of wide more widely in the region the guided bus stop and the extent that you increase provision of the guided bus stops to serve the district centre again a really really important component so all of these kind of key moves are supported by the draft policies and by the spatial framework and I think the other the other side of it is about you know car ownership patterns are changing both nationally and it's sort of reflected in the Cambridge context and it is increasingly about having access to a vehicle should you need it rather than you know owning a vehicle and leaving it in a kind of car parking space or in a garage for the majority of the week so you know as has been mentioned earlier in the presentation um so access to a car club or to a you know a pool car is really important so if you need to go and do your Ikea run or if you need to go and do your weekly shop these things are available to you and but you may choose to use that rather than owning your own private vehicle and the other key component is and it's again reflected in in the draft policies it's about this idea of a last mile delivery or a delivery hub so if you buy something it can be delivered and dropped somewhere locally which you can pick up even on your way back from work or if you're out making another trip somewhere that can really help to reduce the number of vehicle trips in and around the area but also mean that you don't need a car to go and pick something up so I think and obviously you know your your local kind of waitrose Tesco's other supermarkets are available deliveries which may be part of how you can deal with the kind of weekly or the sort of bulk buy shop so I guess in summary you know it is a more radical approach but it's born out to this need to really think carefully about the kit budget also reflects in the kind of ambition to make this a different kind of a place and I think you know what is radical we believe that through the draft policies and and some evidence that we're finding it's one that can really work in northeast Cambridge. Thank you John that's really helpful I just wanted to start picking up now on some of the questions that are in the Q&A feed so the first one or somebody who's got health implications and unable to kind of walk long distances and essentially they're asking the question that how would I get to other towns and villages locally without my car and would I be unwelcome in this development. I think hopefully John and Sarah's kind of answers have hopefully picked that up as an industry no we really want this to be a very inclusive development you know we want you know young and old and everybody to feel very welcome here to live here to visit this place so no we don't think to feel unwelcome but really we want to make sure that you know people people feel like they can use other modes of transport and not just have to rely on the car for every journey whether that you know the school run or whether it's you know like John said you know doing your IKEA run so hopefully that's helpful to address that question. There was also a point about parking sorry about management of displacing parking in neighbouring villages such as Milton and adjacent roads so hopefully that's already been covered as well by Sarah. I think one that's a really topical question which was asked earlier as well was about COVID and whether COVID related sort of transport issues are being explicitly factored into these plans EGA shift to work from home so is high-density development less favourable moving forward Matt is that something that you might be able to pick up on please. Yeah sure I think what it's highlighted in particular the the latest COVID lockdown is how important our cycle and our walking networks are and so essentially we're trying to build on that at this point in time and ensure that that's you know part and parcel of what we're seeking to do here certainly that those kind of transport options where we see Northeast Cambridge taking the lead we understand obviously the implications currently of using public transport and people are put off by getting on the buses and things like that at the moment within North East Cambridge you will still have sustainable transport modes the go to busway and others but it's more about those strategic cycle and walking connections too we don't really know what the long-term implications will be of COVID or whether there could be another pandemic that may follow in the future so we've got a kind of watching brief at the moment to understand where we're going to go with this certainly around the development form we're working with landowners and others to understand more what it means for new office buildings in the area do we need as much we're certainly working with our colleagues around what is required for people's mental health and well-being in terms of the access to open spaces and also we all appreciate most of us still working from home and we're looking at whether actually we need to make provision within new housing to accommodate that going forward and ensure that there are spaces set aside specifically for needing to work whether that's us or the kids or whoever it might need to be it just can't be at the kitchen table anymore so like I said we've got a watching brief at the moment and we are looking at all the implications and they cross every spectrum really from the transport right through to dwellings but also to the types of community facilities we may put in and we'll look at government guidance and we'll look at this practice as well. Thank you Matt we've got a couple of questions here about about Fen Road and this was something that has come up several times both at the last round of consultation and since so there's a lot of support for a road bridge rather than just a pedestrian or cycle link across the railway connecting into Chester and Fen this would make the route into the city centre and the Chisholm Trail much safer for the high numbers travelling from northeast Cambridge and free up the topo for pedestrians as Fen Road would be more attractive for cycling it would also help solve the current issues with delays at the level crossing which Network Rail highlighted to us is an issue at the north area committee a few months ago and anti-social driving in east Cheserton has a road crossing being looked at and it's so kind of where Matt that be possible is that something Claire you might be able to pick up on or is that a question from Matt Matt I'm happy to yeah I mean it is an issue that we're aware of obviously and we obviously want to address as local authorities the potential severance of a community due to the increased train use on the line and therefore the closing or potential closing of that level crossing however the area is outside of the AAP and that specifically because area action plans are meant to focus on areas of development solely so when you put a red line boundary you you're expecting development to come forward the Chester and Fen area is flood plain but it's also a green belt and it's a travel community as well therefore it was never appropriate and it wasn't intended I don't think through the of the local councils to look at further development there however we realised that and some work has been done and looking at options if you like for providing road access alternative road access should the level crossing close there's further work that needs to be done and in particular with Network Rail and others who the combined authority who are the transport authorities for here and have a significant role to play in in determining which of those options is the preferred what we have however done is looked at whether one of those options could be coming through into northeast Cambridge if that's one of the options that is taken forward we are looking at setting aside a route to facilitate that that would be just north of the aggregates depot at the moment so north of the station and would need to obviously come in and connect through it would add to our trip budget obviously but the Cyclone pedestrian bridge proposal into that community is to help facilitate both people living at northeast Cambridge to access the river and the towpath and and the fin but also for those travel communities and others to access the amenities and services that will be provided northeast Cambridge so yep thank you Matt I'm just looking through the question there was one I wanted to ask Claire about regarding mobility hubs I've just lost it that's so many through mobility hubs include cycles appropriate for those with mobility issues like e-bikes and tricycles yeah thanks so yeah so mobility hubs are designed to assist people with their whole journey so whether you arrive or leave by public transport and then want to pick up another form of transport for the first and last mile of your journey so the hubs themselves re-intensify there will be some cycle parking so and people will be able to leave a cycle of whatever form they need whether that's a conventional cycle or a less conventional cycle like a tricycle or some of the other other cargo cycles other styles of bikes that we get these days we're equipped that we need to provide appropriate space for all types of cycles um so it also um so it's about interchanging with different modes and um of course we don't know what the future might bring in terms of um whether that's autonomous vehicles or autonomous pods for example that might be able to act like a like a taxi for your own journey perhaps if you're getting off at the station you want to go to the science park then maybe there'll be little shuffles that will take you to those that are unable to walk or cycle for example so yeah we're trying to build in in flexibilities but for truncated for everybody feel all inclusive whatever mode of transport you might want whether it's a cycle whether it's a scooter any bike e-scooter and whatever the future may bring with us thank you very much Claire um there's a question here about what's planned for me away um is that something that Sarah you might be able to help with and I know that there's some plans for me away at the moment um that are coming through as part of another scheme is that right uh that's right Terry yeah um there was some improvements to the mere way secured through the water beach um development um possibly not the place to go into a huge amount of detail here but I'm sure that we could pick pick it up um outside in the FAQs or um perhaps provide some some further links um yeah I don't I don't have too much detail to hand at the moment but happy to follow that up I think effectively I think what the plan is saying is that all of the kind of planned and sort of under construction routes that are happening within the area whether it's the Chisholm Trail or the Milton Road um cycle improvements or the mere way um works that they would you know northeast Cambridge would effectively kind of be that that place in the middle of a lot of those schemes so where some of those schemes would come to an end um you know um we think that it's you know it's really important that northeast Cambridge uh you know actually facilitates connecting all of those routes up together and we've tried to show that in the spatial framework and a lot of the kind of connectivity plans within the AAP um but I suppose what would be a really good opportunity despite this consultation is if people think that actually we haven't got all of those connections right so I don't know if the mere way scheme and um the Milton Road improvements that are happening through the GCP whether you know if we could do something better to connect those two schemes actually maybe that's something that people could sort of tell us as part of that as part of the consultation process um so we can look at that in a bit more detail to understand you know the journeys that are really important to local people um and and how we can actually try and try and join those thoughts together really uh Hannah did you want to ask the next question? Yeah we were just going to pick up we're seeing a number of questions here about um people working on the science park and the modal share for commuting so there's a question how many people currently work in the science park and what is a share modal chef commuting how much does that need to shift to meet the commendable objectives in this plan and just along the same theme there are a couple of other questions so someone has said people who can't get their staff to the science park easily with easy parking they will just move location many people come from far and wide often with quick client meetings etc not everybody wants or can work from home and live life on zoom um and I'm just trying to pick up the ones that are also slightly related I haven't seen there might have been one I think those were the two that were about that I think they are really interesting questions about how we we work and what we um want from our workplaces and one of the things that we're aware of is that you know Cambridge and the science parks have an amazing reputation for attracting talent and retaining talent in the area but what those talented people want is really changing and if you look at the tech industries and you know you look at what life is like in Shoreditch or in San Francisco those are the places that Cambridge is competing with for talent so we need to make a place that feels as accessible and as wonderful to live in as those places and they actually don't depend on people driving they don't depend on people having to get in a car to come to work and lots of the new generations of people who are coming into those jobs we are hearing from those employers and we are hearing from those employees as well that they would like the lifestyle in Cambridge that they can enjoy in some of these other really important cities so yes I mean there are and I'm sure probably some colleagues can pick up on the modal shift stuff about this in a bit more detail and perhaps we can provide rather than read out lots of statistics right now we can provide a written answer on some of that but I think we do need to be aware that the world is very much changing and if we're going to keep attracting the great employers the great tech companies we've got to make Google and HQ and all those sorts of employers want to be in Cambridge and not move down to other places. Thank you Hannah. There was a question that I wanted to pick up on about bike theft which I know is a big issue not just in Cambridge but also in North East Cambridge as well so what consideration will be given to the security of park bikes as the current levels of theft discouraging many people from cycling North Cambridge has particularly higher levels of theft. John could you could you pick that one up please? Yes okay thanks Terry I mean cycle theft is a is a big issue across the whole city clearly and we want to make sure that we kind of minimize that so there are a sort of number of approaches we can take and I think about having kind of activity and good surveillance on streets so actually you've got people walking and moving around it is a key deterrent to making sure that things aren't kind of done out of sight out of mind but I think you know the policy as well in the draft AAP is very specific about the requirement for safe and secure cycle parking that's well related to the either homes it serves or to the businesses and that's really really important and we've mentioned or talked very briefly earlier about kind of off-gauge cycles those non-standard ones which are increasingly part of that kind of Cambridge offer making sure that cycle storage accommodates these things making sure that cycle stores have space where you can put maintenance stand in you can have a bicycle pump all of these things come down to the some more technical requirements through the actual kind of design of buildings but they're as important really as making sure that the streets are active and well-surveilled the other point is around the mobility hubs these are areas of where you will be able to change from one mode to another so you might park your bike and get on a bus to get out of the area again really important that these things are covered by good CCTV and they're in areas which are again supported by the activity and people around which will help to deter kind of bike theft thank you john and then there's two questions here which i'm going to roll into one Matt this is going to be coming your way so will properties be actively marketed as suitable for low or low car ownership and will the spaces within the car barns be free or be paid for in places where this has happened e.g. broadband in Freiburg Germany it's successfully reduced car ownership levels to 164 vehicles per thousand people compared to 600 vehicles per one thousand people in the wider area so will they be actively marketed as low car ownership or no car ownership and will the car barns be free for people okay so on the marketing yes we will be working hard with all of the developers around actively marketing the culture of the place that we want to see embedded through the AAP itself the expectation is that this is a walkable cyclical neighborhood people coming to live here we want to and should be fully engaged in that enterprise really and shouldn't come with an expectation that that it's it's business normal or as usual and we want certainly where we can promote low car development that's what we're aiming for in particular around office buildings and things like that we certainly see you don't have to have the huge amounts of car parking associated with every office development to make them attractive to the marketplace to make their attractive to tenants in fact the tenants want something completely different they want all their local amenities and other things like that and if you've got good sustainable transport there's no reason to have those in terms of the car barns themselves like we said a lot of it will be just car storage more than car parking for the barns I envisage they'd be operated on a lease basis and that lease basis would be would require payment really and it would all depend on the specific circumstances that each individual has in terms of how much you could afford to pay or are required to pay and it's not so much about putting people off like we said it's not so much putting people off owning a car but there are better alternatives to everyone to owning a car whether that's having a pool vehicle and or or access to a car by other means so we're still to work out the details I think on the exact nature of the how the barns would work in reality but essentially that's where we see it going thank you Matt so I've got a design question now I hope that'll be a good one from John so can the cycle a walking bridge over Milton Road be a green bridge like that on Mylin Road which is in London which is wide with grass and trees rather than a narrow steel structure the underpass near the roundabout which I think is the April team on being referred to will be very long and unpleasant so two parts of that question John yes I mean I think it's fair to say we're not at the sort of design stage for these key connections yet so I don't think we can kind of categorically say it's going to be like Mylin's although that is a fantastic example I think what we found through the typology's work which is part of the evidence base of supports the AAP is that there are a number of really good ways of providing high quality connections whether they are through kind of underpasses or over bridges I think the key thing is about the quality of the connection and so we need these things to be convenient and easy to use they need to be kind of seamless and I think that's one of the key reasons why we've changed the kind of emphasis of what Cowley Road does as it kind of bridges over Milton Road and and towards the science parks and we don't want to create very securitised routes we want them to be high quality if they can be widened and they can be green and they can extend the landscape across that would be fantastic but we're not quite at that stage yet thanks John I've noticed that we've got around 10 minutes left of the session I just wanted to say that if you do have any questions please do put them in the Q&A at the bottom and any that we don't manage to answer within the time we will put a written response online so when the video of this recording goes online there'll be a written response to all of the questions that we weren't able to get to so if you've got any burning questions and we can't answer them then don't worry they will be answered they'll just be done in words rather than visually and audio right now okay Hannah there's a question which I'm going to send your way hopefully you might be able to help so at what point in the future does the council expect its carbon reduction plan to produce notable effect on the global climate I understand that at best even the net zero carbon across the globe this will not have any effect before 2020 so 2020 100 at the earliest how will the public be able to review this progress so I think this is a really brilliant question about how small things add up to big changes in the world because of course Cambridge and South Cambridge are councils on their own aren't going to stop climate change in their tracks but we are working towards this kind of wider government target of net zero by 2050 and that will be monitored um and and the government is put starting to put in place I mean this is obviously a very new target for us all to be working to but they are going to start putting in place ways for that to be monitored I'm sure that we are going to keep arguing about the science here to some degrees and and how much impact that genuinely has and I think there are some unknowns here but we know that is the right thing to do and it's just so important that we embrace this challenge and we do the most that we possibly can we have a lot of discussions in the team about what net zero really means and we're constantly reviewing some of the science around that and we actually have some really great studies going on on exactly this to support not only the AAP but also the local plan so I'll probably try and dig out a link for you but there are um there is a wide net zero and low carbon strategy and study being done which will actually start to quantify some of this stuff it's not all kind of ready yet publication but I'll dig out a link and put it in with the FAQs that we put online as Terry mentioned um so that the person who asked that question you can definitely have a look at that evidence base and see what you think about the way we're measuring it and see whether you think maybe we could do better on that as well. Thanks Hannah it turns out I can't say the number 2,100 it's so far into the future I can't even say it okay um I've got I've got another question yeah I don't know if it's a question or whether it's actually a suggestion actually to go in um as someone's consultation response has the council ever considered building a monorail system that could literally go over the top of existing roads it seems the whole development is about slowing people down making things local which could be great for some as you say but transportation should still be fast and efficient the concentration on bikes and walking seems disappointingly I really realize it's very Cambridge I'm surprised the future is looking so slow even the park and rides are tediously slow um I think that's I think that's a fair comment um I think yeah like I said um you know that we have looked at a range of sort of different different approaches for northeast Cambridge and um if you look at the the transport evidence that kind of sits behind the the draft plan at the moment it sort of talks about how you could improve connectivity not only to the wider area um and the kind of you know the city centre and adenbrooks and places like that but also about how you can improve internalization so that's about how people move around and stay within the site as well so how do you get across from the east side of Milton road to the west side of Milton road and things like that so um I think that's um that's a you know a good point but um I think a monorail is something that we haven't really looked at in too much detail at the moment I think one of the things that does feed into that is also a cam um which has been looked at at the moment by the combined authority so obviously it's not a monorail in itself but what they are proposing at the moment would be a tunnel or portal at Cambridge north station um that would then feed across the site along the existing guided busway uh most likely uh and then go north one towards water beach and also towards St Ives as it does at the moment from the guided busway so yes there are there are a few ideas in in you know that are possible at northeast Cambridge but if you've got any other suggestions then please do respond to the consultation I should just say that um all of the all the questions and that that we've had them have a great uh and all of the other sessions but we do really need your comments in writing through the proper consultation channel um oh and just like that Joe's going to share the screen that's a really good plug um so uh yeah so if you've got any suggestions any ideas um if you um support elements of the plan your objective elements of the plan or or your neutral when you just want to make comments then please please please do um submit your comments to us before the 5 p.m deadline on the 5th of October uh we also have another Q&A session which will be the last one the eighth one and final one um coming up and that's just a general one so it's not going to be themed like this one is um and there's more information on that slide there but we've got about five more minutes left so I'm going to try and get through some more questions um so where are we so uh let's have a look uh how did how do people manage bite theft in the Netherlands um because and it you know is bite theft a problem there and if not how do they manage that John or Matt I'm happy to I mean I've spent time in the Netherlands and it's prolific unfortunately it's prolific everywhere uh it's just that um everyone goes for it for the cheaper sort of bikes because of the understanding that um it's still the easiest way to get around but obviously they're less desirable to be stolen um but it's just the nature of of it it's really unfortunate and there are lots of things you can do um in particular about the types of locks and things you put on but most of it comes down to to surveillance at the end of the day and people being more vigilant really yeah thank you um and then there's a question here and this is actually from a recent article um saying that the development at North East Cambridge will be amongst the most dense in terms of population in Europe higher than London is this true and it does suggest that there's too much being too much housing being planned here I think Hannah wanted to pick up on some of that and I don't know John wanted to as well but Hannah I'll start with you yeah I mean yeah I mean I think that this I had to did see this comment come in I'm in an article recently and I think if I'm really honest there's a little bit of a misunderstanding here between some of the figures we did have a webinar on housing and density actually last week so there's more detail on some of this stuff then but just in really broad terms we're looking at around sort of 200 to 50 up to 300 homes a hectare across most of the residential development areas in North East Cambridge what that means because I know that people say well what on earth does that mean well it is quite difficult to understand but I think a good comparison would actually be somewhere like Notting Hill in London if people have watched the movie or been there themselves those sorts of mansion block kind of taller you know mid 19th century buildings are about 250 homes a hectare and they have a really great amenity space they have wonderful shared gardens in the back and in a way whilst obviously we're not building 19th century style blocks here we are looking at many similar themes so in terms of the density if that helps you visualize it that's what we're looking at London is quite low density so if you took the entirety of London inside the M25 and you averaged it out you would get quite a low density and we are going to be looking at a higher density than that but what we really are looking at is something much more comparable to some of those more central areas is Linton Notting Hill you know some parts of South African places like that and it is definitely not going to be one of the most dense in terms of population in the whole of Europe if you look at you know central Paris and places like that much much denser in terms of population. Thank you Hannah I know we've reached half past but I'm going to do one more question so it says here you mentioned weekly waitrose deliveries here have deliveries coming into the site been included in the trip budget calculations or all deliveries expected to go through the logistics hub? Sarah is that something you might be able to help with or is that a question for Matt? I don't mind I'll take it yeah they have been in terms of what the trip budget requires is that all trips that are taken into account really so that's all the servicing arrangements so that's people coming to you know put in your new washer freezer dryer whatever it is all of those things to deliveries at the local shops to you know people coming in to to do other things within the area all of those trips have to be accounted for in the trip budget so that includes you know deliveries by your local supermarkets too ideally what we're trying to do is intercept those at the fringe cut off as many as possible through the use of logistics hubs on the fringes of the area and ensuring that that last mile is a last green mile last three green miles really by cargo bike or others yeah thank you Matt okay and on that one I'd just like to say thank you very much for joining us apologies we haven't got around to very big question there were a number so it's great to see everybody really involved and engaged with this topic in particular like I said we will be responding to all of those online within within the next few days hopefully by the end of this week so if your question hasn't been answered then then you you'll see a written response shortly I'd just like to thank all my panelists and technical support joe as well for for helping with this session and yes thank you very much and please don't forget to make your comments on the on the draft plan by the 5th of October and yeah hopefully we'll see you all at the next Q&A session in about a week's time thank you