 Thank you very much so when our live members are taking part online kindly mute for the time being Thank you very much and I'll invite you to speak as we go through the meeting. Thank you for joining us so good morning everyone muchwives. My name is humility and I'm the chair of this committee I would like to welcome you to the Joint Development Control Committee meeting taking place at 10am on Wednesday the 15th of November 2023, and we're in South Cams Hall. Firstly, could I ask you to introduce yourselves, and I'm going to go around the table firstly. Starting with Councillor Martyn Cahn. Martyn Cahn, Councillor for Houston and in P risen. Thank you, Councillor Thornborough. Councillor Katy Thornborough, City Councillor for Petersville. Thank you. Councillor Stobart. Thank you chair, I'm Richard Stobart, I'm one of the members for Gerton Ward which includes the villages of Madingley and Riderator. Thank you. I'm Corin Garvey from South Cams, and I work with Richard, so I recover the villages of Gertan, Drydweighton, Madingley and Parteddington. And I believe you're substituting for a councillor Hawkins today. Thank you. It's treating fit to me. Yeah. Thank you. Councillor Levine? Councillor David Levine, City councillor for Trumpton Ward, and I'm here on behalf of councillor Fabard. Thank you very much. Councillor Porro? Morning. I'm councillor Katie Porro for a market ward in this city. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Fane? Morning. Peter Fane, councillor for Shelford Ward. Thank you. Councillor Smart? Councillor Smart. I'm one of the councillors in Kingsurch in Cambridge. Thank you. And councillor Smith? Andy, can you look at councillor Smith's microphone, please? It doesn't seem to want to come on. The technology is ahead of me, Chair. I'm councillor Simon Smith. I'm councillor for Castle Ward in the city. Thank you very much. Just temporarily, just to let the lovely people online know that we have a wonderful big view of your faces on our wall at the moment. Would you mind turning off your cameras until we ask you to speak? Thank you very much. And just going through the, sorry, so we're Cawruch in terms of members. And I'll proceed to agenda item one because I'll introduce the officers shortly. So we've received apologies, as we said, from councillor Tumie Hawkins, who's being substituted by councillor Garvey. And councillor Levine is substituting for councillor Flobert. So thank you very much. We also have apologies from councillor Vagent. So the officers permanently at the table for this meeting are... Good morning, everyone. I'm Philippa Kelly, the strategic sites manager for the shared planning service. Thank you. And our legal advisor Keith Barber. Good morning. I'm Keith Barber. I'm the legal advisor. Thank you. I'm Sarah Steed. I'm the community manager for the meeting. Thank you. And today we have Claire Tarniff. Claire Tarniff is producing for us. We also have two planning officers with us. Very good to see you here. And we'll introduce you when we come to those applications. Thank you. And those details. So, for anybody who is watching this meeting, copies of the agenda can be found on the city council's website under committee meetings, minutes and agendas. So, members, please, would you try to refer to the page and paragraph numbers within the agenda if you're referring to a specific part of the agenda? Members will have taken part in meetings long enough so that items on your desk might appear on the video link if you show them, so just be aware of that. If you wish to speak, please raise your hand. For those participating in the meeting via Teams, be reminded that the meeting chat is neither confidential nor private and can be subject to an FOI or GDPR request. So please don't use that. But please can participants keep their microphone and cameras turned off until we come to the application. If you wish to speak, please raise your request in the chat. So, the process for the consideration of the planning application will be...actually, I might come back to that when we come to the planning application because the first item is the pre-application. So, I'm going to come back to that part. So, moving to agenda item 2, please, would councillors advise if they have any declarations of interest with items on this agenda? Councillor Fayne? Thank you, Chair. In relation to the application number 5, I'm a member of CPPF, but I am not influenced by that in considering the application. Okay. So, what? I think it's become customary to mention... being a mention of Cambridge Cycling Campaign. So, I feel duty bound. So, I'm a member of Cambridge Cycling Campaign. The absence of councillor pageant. It's very good to hear someone making this declaration. Thank you very much. So, agenda item 3... I couldn't see any others, no. Okay, so agenda item 3. Minutes of the meetings on the 16th of August and 20th of September have been submitted to this meeting for approval. So, are you happy members that I sign those minutes as a true record? Okay, thank you very much. I'm going to sign the first page here, and then I'll come and do the rest afterwards. And the 20th of August is everybody... 20th of September is everybody happy with that? Those minutes are a true record. Just regarding the August minutes, I wasn't at the meeting, so I'll be abstaining. Okay, I'm sure we can make a note of that. Yes, in fact, I wasn't present for the meeting on the 20th, but we still received them. Councillor... Like Vice-Chair, I wasn't present for the 20th, so 20th of September. So, it's sort of my affirmation anyway. So, members, are you happy with the minutes of the 20th of September? Yes? Okay. So, we then come to Agender Item 4, which is the pre-application developer briefing for the 4V site, Robinson Way in Cambridge, which is the redevelopment of the West 4V building, and the applicant is the University of Cambridge. So, would the four main speakers like to come forward to the public speaking table, and I will ask you to introduce yourselves. Right. Now, I have an instruction here that says, thank you, Sarah, at the beginning of each item, please verbally run through the speakers list to ensure that everyone's present and that no one's been missed off. Now, I have quite a long list of members, so it might be easier if I went through my list, if you wouldn't mind saying who you are. So, I have Rosie Garvey. Is she here? She's not here. She's online, I believe. Oh, she's online, is she? She might be. She might be online. Okay. Eric Martin, that's yourself. Thank you. I think you're leading on this, I believe. I believe I am, yes. Good. Okay. Nick Green. Yes. Thank you. Iona Campbell. Hi, yes. Thank you. Nick Neil Ricketts. Yes, I'm here. Thank you very much. Rebecca Saunt. Yes, I'm here. Jamie Ward. Hello, I'm online. It might be online. Okay. And Roberta Romaci, possibly also online. Yes, I'm online. Hello, good morning. Lovely. Thank you. And Lizzie Marchant, also possibly online. I'm also online. Good morning. Good morning. And Anna Holding. Morning, yes, I'm online. Thank you so much. Emily Chatwin. Thank you, I'm online. We heard you very distantly. Thank you. Stephanie Tyson. Good morning from online. Splendid, thank you. Stuart Gray. I'm online as well. Great. Lovely. Thank you very much. So, I'm sure, if we need you, I'm sure your colleagues will ask for you to speak. So, great. Excuse me. Okay. So, thank you very much. So, please do present your application or your pre-application to us. And then I'm sure members will ask you questions about the application, which hopefully will inform any final version that you come to. So, thank you. So, Eric, do you want to? Thank you. Chair, I'm going to hand over to Rebecca, who's going to do a brief introduction about the planning strategy. Good morning, councillors. So, we are looking at a pre-app, which is the redevelopment of the West 4V building. And we are looking at bringing that forward as a full application in March next year. And that will be submitted alongside an indicative master plan for the wider site. And then it envisages that then that would follow as an outline application for the rest of the site. The reason that it's being done is this way is due to the potential regulatory failure of the current MICL facility, which is housed in the West 4V building. So, that's why we're looking at bringing forward the full application that we've been working hard on the master plan so that you can see how it indicatively would sit within the site. So, all of our pre-app meetings have been with the master plan as the initial focus and then looking in more detail at Building B1. And that's what we're going to go through today for you as well. You said the failure of something. Failure of MICL. So, it's the people that are housed within the West 4V building at present. MICL is falling into disrepair. It's one of the oldest buildings on the site. So, it needs to be replaced. And that's why we're looking at doing that and pushing forward that replacement. That's helpful. Thank you. Thank you. So, Chair, I just want to say that there's going to be a few acronyms in this presentation. And MICL is one of them. Nick, do you want to explain what MICL is? So, MICL is a university department. It's a molecular imaging chemistry laboratory. They develop new traces or views in very scanning equipment. It's a unique department within university but it's also relatively unique in the country and the world. They do some very unique kind of work. We'll cover a bit more in detail later on. Thank you. So, we are going to go through first the MAST plan in order to provide context to then the MICL project. So, I'm going to go through the MAST plan then I'm going to hand over to Neil who's going to be talking about the technical aspects of the MAST plan and then Sondra's Waston's are going to talk about the MICL building itself. I hope somewhere early in your presentation there's some words that say what MICL stands for. Is that? If not, I know you just explained it but it's quite hard to hear that speak. Sorry, I'll say molecular imaging chemistry laboratory radiochemistry effectively. M-I-C-L M-I-C-L Yes, we turned it all word where it's actually an acronym. Thank you. I think the screen is working so I'm going to go through a few things first of all providing a bit of context to where the 4V site is the 4V is located within the Cambridge Biomedical Campus some of you may know and the CBC has recently been proposed as an area of major changes part of the local plan for its proposals and what you see here in the map is in orange the sites that have been allocated already and in the blue line are the sites that have been considered for allocation particularly expansion of the Biomedical Campus to the south not part of this briefing but important to mention that we also as mass plans are working on the emerging CBC framework informing being informed with officers which has been backed by evidence guess scenarios that hopefully is going to go to members at some point in the new year what we've been looking at is how the structural place is going to work street hierarchy open spaces biodiversity net gain blue and green infrastructure and essentially how this becomes a new neighbourhood of the city including green belt enhancements the important part of this mass plan that we've been looking at or the framework that we've been looking at is creating a series of open public spaces that are located within five minute walk from each other and this is the structure of the place these are areas where amenity is going to be located where blue and green infrastructure is consolidated with amenity spaces and transport hubs etc and one of these places is within the 4V sites and we've been calling it the 4V garden and we're going to discuss in more detail as we go through the presentation what this means the site itself this is 4V site it's a site that sits in a transition between different scales and different characters of the place from residential to the south and the east to more large buildings that are part of the hospital or Arunbrokes hospital to the north and the north west we can see on the left hand side the children's hospital site which has been consented it's going to start inside immediately there's four existing buildings on the site the existing Miko building is on the lower left hand side there where my cursor is and there's other three buildings on the site at the moment with different degrees of occupation from university users they range from the 60s to the late 70s to the early 2000s in different degrees of need of replacement it is a very car-focused area so the access to the site is from the north there's about 180 spaces in the site at the moment and the idea is to transform this gradually into a place that is more people focused as you can see one of the main characteristics of the site is the existence of mature trees mainly around the border I think that we're taking into consideration from the university's point of view the idea is to create a new world-class research centre focus on new sciences and mental health this is a great opportunity for the university to collocate academic users with like-minded compatible commercial R&D users so it's going to be a very rich ecosystem of both companies and academic users here on the site as I mentioned before trees are very important on the site so we've been surveying, understanding and cataloging these trees to understand their value not only individually but as a group and this has informed from the start the proposal so we've created a landscape lead approach to the master plan where we celebrate special characteristics of these groups of trees or individual trees in order to create a concept to landscape these are some images of the existing site it's a really special area and almost like a green island in the CVC and where we're trying to create here our areas are more open accessible, permeable and that starts to break the barriers of the site physically and also from the perception point of view one of the key areas is what we call the poor regardant which sits at the north west of the site the new station opens where people are going to come from so it's a very important place in the site and this is how it could be this is an illustrative image showing the transformation of that site at the moment it is a car park so the idea is to introduce pedestrian access cycle access and work with new planting and retain most of the existing trees on site with the buildings in the background and this idea that the buildings are going to be then replacing the old buildings and this is going to happen gradually over a period of time with the Miko 2 building happening as a face we've been nestled among trees and with paths leading to the different blocks the idea is that this is a scenario where the mass plan is complete so it's three blocks Miko 2 is in the middle so it's the B1 block that you see right in the middle and there's another two blocks one in the west and one in the east the idea this is the roof plan and this is the ground floor plan these are indicative layouts we've done a lot of work in order to establish constraints in order to route protection areas etc where they blocks and the areas of development could be so there's a lot of information in the back of this, this is just illustrative drawings but you can see that the idea is that the north is very permeable with new pathways for people on cycling and the south and the southeast remains much more green forming a green edge we're starting to establish an architectural language for what the blocks could be as a design code along five principles from animation of the ground floor to legible entrances facade hierarchy that responds to different orientation and locational blocks etc shared amenities spaces both in ground floor and in different places in the building and very importantly a roof form that is not that is sculpted in shape so this is an indicative section of what one of the blocks could look like divided into three strata stratification one is the base which is where people are going to ride is more permeable, a middle part which is within amongst the trees and then atop the replacement buildings are going to be larger than existing ones about four to six stories and the idea is that what is above the tree canopy then has setbacks and gets sculpted in a way that it's interesting to form this idea that there's a science village here so anything that skylines above the tree line then becomes an interesting skyline to avoid flat roofs and blocks which are prevalent at the moment in CVC and we're trying to change that and this is an early concept sketch that describes how that could be achieved by stepping the top and working with plants on the top there's a lot of kids in these buildings because they're science based so it's the idea of celebrating science as well so the idea of they're working rather than against things like going with the roof and this is a view from the north that might be then nestled amongst trees and most importantly achieving a transition in scale from the large buildings in the hospital to the smaller buildings on the south and there's going to be a phased strategy so this is a model that we did, a physical model that shows how the phasing could work starting at the top right hand side with the nickel 2 building and then gradually and carefully replacing buildings along a period of time as and when needed and this is just for showing a model I'm going to hand over to Neil who's going to be talking about the technical aspects of the master plan thank you thank you Eric so I'm going to talk quickly about the engineering technical aspects so Randall I'm presenting here we're covering the discipline shown on screen could you just bring your microphone up close is that better? please take your time so I'm aware I've got a lot to get through here in quite a short period of time so I'm covering lots of disciplines here and lots of detail over the last 12 months that we're going to talk through so this is a master plan so we're quite high level here in our thinking on the strategic design and planning of the site so one of the most important aspects of the site is to consider the site-wide services and consider how we're going to feed these new buildings which obviously will increase the demand on the utilities so what you're seeing on screen is an indicative early scheme for bringing in utilities reinforcement with a new high-voltage ring power new coms and also renewing and extending the incoming water I'll talk more about civil engineering in a minute but that's obviously a crucial part of the site-wide service and it's one of the most space-hungry elements of the site-wide services which is what I've shown here but I'm going to talk more about that in a minute we are looking across disciplines so the 4B site is a relatively constrained site because we're trying to do the right thing around the trees and the greenery and protect the tree protection zones and the root zones so we have to think quite early on about how all of these services stack up and how they integrate and coordinate with each other so you can see here the various colours of shading as I say I'll talk about the civil scheme in a minute but this is just to give you an idea of the sort of the level of thinking that we're at and there's a lot of thought and a lot of time's gone in to the coordination the reinforcement and the phasing of the utilities to serve these buildings as they come online I'm not interrupting you but I just want to say that there's going to be a fire alarm in a few minutes time it is a test it is not an actual one so we'll pause when that happens just to warn you thank you so sustainability there's a lot of detail behind what we've done so far in sustainability but on the screen are the the KPIs, the K-Performance Indicators for the sustainability strategy so we've set early on and we're quite early on in our design process but we've set the operational energy targets for offices and laboratories and renewable energies so we will comply with obviously the local plan 10% renewable generation we're setting challenging but hopefully achievable and embodied carbon targets and considering quite carefully the types of structure and the type of buildings that we put in place and as we move through the design stage we'll be doing more on that I don't need to tell you water is an important issue around Cambridge I'm sure you're all aware of that and that's something that we are very conscious of and are setting off with no illusions for how challenging actually that's going to be to achieve so we'll talk about Briam in a minute but we know that we're going to target all of the credits under the water category for Briam which is quite challenging so to talk about Briam currently targeted scores 77.45% so Briam rating of excellent with the potential to achieve 88% and we'll target all of the water credits in there this is an early Briam assessment obviously this is on a master plan level not a building by building level so as the design and the scheme progresses the Briam assessment will become more targeted on a building by building basis but for now it's about setting the design parameters and understanding what the outputs are and what the targets we're trying to hit so I promised you a civil engineering section the site runoff and the surface water treatment of the site is probably one of the most technically challenging aspects that we're dealing with we've got very very low runoff of 2 litres per second a hectare and in order to achieve that we have to put lots of attenuation on the site so we have a combination of blue roofs on the building so another technical term I suppose but a blue roof is essentially a zone on a roof that can hold on to water and release it more slowly into the drainage system rather than the traditional way of doing things where it just all pours down the drain and off it goes and she's all about capturing the water and slowing it up as much as possible so that we don't overwhelm the local network we've got a very low total discharge of 5 litres per second there for the whole site so there's a combination of blue roofs attenuation, tanks and holding crates in the ground which are the hatched areas and they will be on a building by building basis as the buildings are built out but also on the master plan we've also got porous paving permeable surfaces which also help to retain and obviously the 4v garden so let's talk quickly about mechanical there's quite a lot of detail in here which is kind of for your information as a pack really so I won't necessarily read every single thing that's on every slide but you can also always refer back to it so this is a master plan we're not actually designing the buildings themselves yet we've got all of the detail inside but what we do need to do is we need to be able to size the primary plant and understand how the plant will fit within the planning envelope essentially so within the building envelope that Eric's team have drawn coordinating with them with these nice chamfered roofs that lessen the visual impact of the buildings and make it attractive so in order to do that we do some preliminary calculations based on a number of assumptions for now so these are going to be as Eric's describes in the laboratory buildings so the laboratory buildings have quite a high plant requirement so the plan on the laboratory buildings is an important aspect of the design and they need to be considered early on so the site will be an all-electric fossil fuel site so we'll be removing natural gas for heating and replacing it with electrically powered air source heat pumps good to know it works and just to remind you in total you have about 20 minutes I'm going to speed up a little bit so this just to give you a flavour of the kind of design stage of Barat which is essentially planning blocks of plant to enable Eric and his team to define the shape and size of the building we've also considered some of you may be interested to know we've considered a centralized energy strategy for the park shown on screen is an early diagrammatic plan of what that plant would look like if we were to essentially house all the plant and link the buildings up with a pipe network presently that's been deemed not really practical given the size and constraints on the site with the number of trees but it was a good exercise to work through and assess the pros and cons so electrical I talked about all-electric buildings that require quite a lot more power in order to power this all-electric fossil fuel site so we will be applying for additional power approximately 7 mba and there will be electric vehicle charging on site and with 112 spaces with a mixture of active and passive and what I've got on screen here now really is just showing you the phased development of the electrical infrastructure so I'll just I've just been through exterior lighting we've done a very early exterior lighting design but rest assured it will be designed in accordance with all the current regulations and guidance to not bleed light out of our site unnecessarily so maintaining that darkness so that we don't annoy any neighbours but enough lighting on the central of the site there to make sure that people are safe and that we've got a correct balance of lighting there for everybody wandering around fire suppression so our initial studies have shown that we will need to extend the fire hydrant system into the site to make sure that we're close enough with the hydrant to meet the minimum distances and currently proposing dry riser systems per buildings but not at this stage sprinkled so COOSIX is an important part of this site we are constrained by neighbours we do have residential neighbours on our boundary so we've done some quite detailed modelling and shown on screen you probably can't read all of the images but I'll let you look back at your pack later on we've especially modelled all of the noise levels and the effect on neighbours and I've got some better graphics on that coming up so green on the boundary there shows that we meet the city council planning noise limits and we can do that on day and night with the plant running and then we've also assessed it for Briam and the red receptors mean that we are missing the target slightly and green means we're meeting so we have a little bit of work to do on the Briam pollution 05 which is a tougher criteria to hit than the council in it but we think because we're at such an early stage of design there's lots of design development detail to come out and we think we can optimise it and achieve the noise levels very quickly building physics so for those who don't know building physics is about the optimisation and it's about the minimising operation or energy required to run a building we've done some good detail on this at this design stage and daylight studies we've used parametric modelling we've looked at massing orientation we've looked at shaving, daylight across the floors and we've also checked against the pile building regulations so just a few images here so we've looked at the the shape and the orientations of the buildings taking some typical spaces and using these to inform Eric's team on the percentage of glazed ratio that they can have in the building and the specification of the glass we're always treading that balance between natural daylight and reducing lighting energy in the day versus excessive solar gain in the summer and having to cool the space down so we're always treading that typerope creating the balance point essentially so most graphics on screen are just showing how we achieve to our design specification so you can see the glazing ratios on the screen for different orientations of bays can I just ask how many other speakers are planning to speak just one, okay thank you just be mindful of the time shall I wrap up in the middle of the screen of our daylight modelling getting pretty close to the end now so this is the part that helps compliance modelling again it's in the pack if you want to look at it in more detail it just sets the performance fabric of this one last slide on transport so in terms of transport the plan of transport is to make sure that the site is accessible for all users and to make sure that more vulnerable users have good access and are prioritised so on screen are the metrics that we've used so in essence this is going to be a reduction in parking and an optimisation of the walking and cycling routes with lots of nice secure cycle stores attached to the buildings and I think we'll end it there, that's okay and just members so you know the pack that is being referred to was emailed to us yesterday by Sarah Steed but it's a very large a very large document so it may have disappeared into your spam folder or not got there but do carry on, thank you so this is the master plan we just heard about which kind of sets the context, we are the architects so it's on to Boston for the B1 Ash Mikle building so I appreciate there's not a huge amount of time so we'll kind of run through it quite quickly but try and give you the key points about the kind of proposals for the building that we're at so I think we've seen the context so the B1 building is occupied the bottom bit there one of the complications we have is that the Mikle department are currently within the Orange building so there's a sequencing problem with the building so this drawing here just shows how we can consolidate them in how we can use them their department have to keep working so they can't stop because their research doesn't work if it stops and this building will take a couple of years to build probably and these drawings here just show their location within the building they are a relatively small department they are a really critical department for the university they do some very unique work they are growing and their type of work is changing which is part of the need for this project, the other part of the need is the fact that their existing building doesn't perform well environmentally and it is very much the end of its life so there's a very pressing need to provide them with some new accommodation as part of this kind of wider building so we'll skip maybe through some of this context because we looked at the context a little bit before with Eric there's a lot of work we've had to do around the trees some really key trees we've worked with and this is about how I retain and that's how Eric developed some of his strategy around the landscaping in the gardens we talked about earlier so a lot of what we've done is based around how we keep those key trees and we actually enhance them, we work around them and we create better spaces than they currently are around them because there's some real opportunities on this side which are currently kind of missed by a lot of the car dominated stuff that Eric talked about earlier so how can we use those to enhance that design and to kind of make it a place on a slightly weird 1980s bongolo land that you can't use at the moment so my colleague Owen is going to talk a bit more about some of the details so we're looking to enhance the green space as much as possible you saw some of the trees that were restricted the elm in particular a really large tree is within a few metres all the way around it of the current building so we're releasing it and opening up as much green space along the south is possible to connect into the rest of the south that's already there that's the landscape design as it is and so the Michael building will be half retained whilst construction takes place of the B1 building and then the rest of the building is demolished to make way for replacement car parking for what's already on the site and a few more spaces, about 20 spaces in addition to cater for the new occupancy numbers this is a diagram of the access so you've got keeping the vehicle access to the north and then showing how we access the new building and this is how when the master plan is in place, if it is designed how it is currently proposed all of the pedestrian routes will be from the north and cycling as well and minimised vehicle access to the site there's options for cycle parking either to the south in the wooded area or to the north on top of the service there's a service wrap that goes around the building which we'll explain later so that's the preference there but we're just seeing if that's really feasible car parking is here, this is just diagramming how most of the spaces are replacement spaces and there's only 20 new spaces coming onto the site the arrivals court is key for the design both for the first building, for B1 itself and also for the master plan so the arrivals court is highlighted for the development of the building and how it's designed this is showing how the focus of the building is onto that corner sorry it's on the northeast corner north west corner sorry so bringing out the canopy open up onto the entrance and looking for the flow of people and the visual flow to be right across that space filling it with places for people to stop and collaborate or have their lunch that type of thing so seating and planting the Elm Garden is associated with the Elm Tree is going to be focused and at the moment it's not publicly accessible the design would mean that you could go and sit there and the design of the garden around that is key to increasing the biodiversity at the moment that's completely built across all of this land is built on and then it's continuing the woodland on the south that already runs along most of the south but not behind the current building so they would increase that and again for people the entrance space of B1 has been designed to be a collaboration space it would be publicly available at the moment so we're looking at designing in a way that people would work their talk and cross-pollinate ideas that's a visualisation of the two visualisations of the space and the type of furniture which would bring in natural materials as much as possible textures that are very warm moving through into the building then you have a central staircase which is the key vertical circulation and so we're looking to sort of there's a light well at the top of it to bring light into that space again it's a space for people to stop and the tenancy of the building is designed to be up to 12 different companies or research groups so these spaces would be to allow people to meet and coordinate collision space there's also a spine that goes through north to south which would open up the building visually to have as much glazing as possible and even though these spaces could be tenanted they might be sort of shared tenant spaces with meeting rooms and seminar rooms that type of thing and entrances to the tenancies otherwise the building is being left as flexible as possible so it's actually smaller someone could rent a quarter-half full floor depending on their needs and it also would be we're looking at a 60% laboratory 40% office type of space and there'd be full flexibility on that the character of the building we've explored here a stone base so there's a plinth base on the ground floor this is where Mickle and other facilities like it have there so they need high levels of shielding protection so very thick walls and not really many windows the entrances explored there and we're looking to bring again on the floor of that area the solid stone work through into the entrance that kind of feeling to the ground above that the middle which was the tree line you have it from the tree canopy base and top so looking to have a completely different language at that level as you saw discussed before so with the housing to the south to make sure there's no overlooking into their gardens and also no acoustic interference for them the cladding on that wrap is looking to be angular and playful the idea is also to give as much shading to the windows on the south as possible using that and increasing the daylighting so having the angles coming in and out as appropriate the canopy is looking to extend that façade out to create a sun sheet for the large amount of glazing on that corner and also a rain canopy for when you're entering the building this is a concept design and more looking at how that could work technically and then up on the top there's a large amount of plants to service which is a very heavy laboratory building so there's actually two levels of plant up there and the acoustic baffling is then angled to minimise the visualisation of that space here's an impression of another building designed by Aliza Morrison and the views from the Mcog down this is a representation then of the whole building together construction we're looking to enhance the performance as much as possible make it as efficient as possible this is how the shading would work so there'll be studies happening on to maximise daylighting while minimising overheating and then all of the different strategies sustainability strategies that are being included including a lot of water management as already mentioned blue roofs, green roofs PV panels along the south it's extremely good exposure so we're looking to maximise the amount of energy generated on site that's the final slide thank you very much indeed everyone and thank you very much for endeavouring to put the information into the time I'll kick off with some questions and I just want to remind members that we should be asking questions to seek clarification on the developer's presentation and I'm reminding you not to express any opinions on the presentation or proposals which might suggest a closed mind so I'd like to start myself if I may and I'll come to councillor Porra and then I'll make a list and I'll come back so the first one was can you just remind us the height of the current building on that site and because this looks to me as if it's going to be five or six stories now or possibly more could you advise us there current building is a bungalow it likes one story but with plants above so you consider it a two story building and suggest there's flues as well above that height as well we don't have any exact and the new building is five stories plus plant four inhabited building stories and one plant level which is tall approximately five metres height right and the second one I had was can you just I know this might sound trivial but what proportion of the new building will actually be used by the Mikkel facility so the building is going to provide space for a number of facilities so that the Mikkel is going to be circa kind of two thirds of the ground floor and then the rest of that ground floor space will be for a similar type of user which is undefined at the moment so similar kind of heavy chemistry which has a number of the constraints around it the remainder of the building will be for allied science users whether that's a kind of biology type user or we've also provided provision for a chemistry type user as a sorry I don't know what the proportion is over all the building but hopefully that gives you a sense of the scale okay and my last is have you we've seen the shape and obviously the are you planning any variation on the facades of the buildings perhaps that's come to the later stage but that was just a thought in terms of different orientations different treatments different orientations facades is that the question are they all going to be the same or will you plan some variation so the answer is there will be some variation but they will be through a common theme so we've got this idea of this kind of wrap which is that kind of faceted thing you saw so the intent is that that will be a kind of continuous approach around the building but that will vary quite considerably depending on where you are on the facade so that's primarily a result of the orientation and the environmental conditions so as I was saying on the south we need greater depth of shading on the north we really want to have more transparency and then east and west is a bit of a combination too so the building will not look different from different facades but you will be able to tell the difference if that hopefully makes sense and the theme will cover the three buildings the final I think so certainly this is the case for the B1 building the other buildings on the site are further behind in terms of where they are in design they're kind of more at the master plan stage so we have been working so we are two different practises which is not a unique situation but it's not massively common we've been doing a lot of cross working between us and also with officers around how we develop some key themes for how the buildings will approach their design across the site so Eric talked about that a little bit in his presentation about some of the key levels we're setting and those kind of things so again the intention will be materiality will be some continuity through the site but allowing some materiality that's what I was driving at whether there will be a common theme around the site Councillor Thornborough how much time do we have for members to ask questions and debate because it just seems like a very comprehensive presentation but we I think we need more time generally so I'm a bit disappointed we've got so little time yes I apologise for not being stricter so we'll allow another 10 minutes for discussion so right can I ask my question I'd like to nearby on the residential housing nearby the subsystems was really difficult to hand over and in the two year period before it was handed over the subsystems had it worked it did the one in 50 year flood and the one in 30 year flood situation about three times so I think I really worry that the design parameters for the sustainable drainage is not keeping up with what we're actually finding as far as rain and the heavy rains and storms we're getting and I think we need to I think we need to over design the subsystems and make them a real feature but it's really heavy soils there and it's really difficult to get that right and the design tolerances were almost impossible to build so I'd like to know what the design parameters is for that and also for the overheating design a few years ago we were Cambridge was the hottest place in the whole country and we had south facing elevations which were four or five degrees hotter inside than they were outside and I checked the temperature range on which the buildings had been designed and they had been designed as required but the temperature range stopped at 30 degrees and we experienced 40 degrees so again the design parameters is not keeping up with what we're finding in reality so maybe you could come back to chair and spokes and let us know so that's just a question so you don't have to answer it now so I was going to say that's perhaps not one to answer now but just to take away as concerns because we've obviously just explained to us what you're planning so if you will just take these as thoughts away to inform your planning that you can't you talk about using air source heat pumps the building will have a large south facing wall so you will have lots of solar gain even with all your design improvements when I was generally when using heat pumps for cooling it's much more effective to have a ground source heat pump because you can use it in summer you say more energy in the summer from that cooling gain basically save it in winter for the heating had you considered using ground source heat pumps and on this side because it would seem to be something you might might be worthwhile thinking nowadays for large buildings like this in particular rather than for small houses so have you thought about that? Yes we have we have looked at it it's not being definitely ruled out however as I mentioned it's a constrained site with very little area when you actually take the tree root protection zone out there's not a lot of site left so the space to actually get a ground array in it is very limited it's not completely ruled out it's something that we'll look at more at the next stage I would also say that the advancements in simultaneous heat including heat pumps and the efficiencies are getting pretty good now and ground source in the right conditions could still be better but actually over the year the simultaneous heat including we get pretty close Thank you Thank you I should just raise a series of questions maybe not for answering now so first of all on optimisation you talked about optimisation I was wondering if you'd included the trees the contribution to the trees and the optimisation and is that a gathering science because we'd be very interested to get a feel for how that's done my first question second the car park car parking space why isn't it underground you speak of a constrained site and let's put the cars underground for lots of good reasons I know it would add to the cost but there's I've not understood because there is surface car parking in the plan what is the onsite generation because we talk often about solar PV but vertical axis wind turbines compact vertical axis wind turbines are increasingly available and you talk about a very heavy energy consumption 7MVA to offset even some of that is going to be helpful to grid capacity demand so again one other question and just a final comment on the collaboration space which I was really good you must never underestimate in that context the importance of collaboration space those academics love to hang out and drink coffee so I thought I was very welcome but there must be some mechanism for keeping it open a lot and that oils the wheels of innovation great, thank you councillor Porill thank you chair, thank you for the presentation I won't dwell on the positive bits because you're probably more interested in knowing the bits where I have some questions so would it be fair to characterise some of this as a speculative development as in commercial lab use I'm just interested obviously normal hospital applications Adam Brooks, the CBC relate often to research or development I make no comments whether that's good or bad, it's just interesting that actually the nickel bit is a very small part of one floor so I suppose the note I would make is it's considerably higher I appreciate the stepping up it's slightly more leaping potentially and it is coming above the tree canopy and that is to provide more commercial space so I'm interested about the balance between how high you're going I didn't quite understand you're replacing the parking plus 20 will that be permanently on that small site or will it eventually move to the it will eventually move just because obviously my other thought is I would almost rather one could argue there's a balance between a lower building but taking over some of the parking spaces I think Councillor Stobart also mentioned if you've got a constrained site again I always mention there's cargo biking, cycle parking you know I think generally our committees are keen to find different ways other than having parking spaces or shared parking spaces car clubs because again a lot of your users I imagine will be cycling to work and may have their children with them or may need accessible cycles and I suppose we've talked to lots at City about tree value so if you are taking down trees just sticking another new one it isn't necessarily replacing the same value though I do note you are obviously using that as a big constraint on the site and working with the trees but again I think it would be useful for the committee to see if you are removing trees how you're planning to add that back in but I suppose my main concern what main issue I would raise is the massing and the height versus the users and the social benefits so thank you chair I'm going in the order that people put their hands up. Councillor Smart I should just say the applicant isn't Attenbrooks but I do work for Attenbrooks so I want to speak about the architecture of the building so I think you made a strategic error in your presentation you took it too long and spoke about energy and trees too much not about the architecture of the buildings I'm interested in that so that's my opinion maybe only possibly I know lots of other councils are more interested in trees so you said it's a bungalow from the 80s the one there at the moment but what is this also what's it made of you spoke a lot about stuff that you didn't say what it's sort of made of and why is it three buildings you took the optimisation but surely one building is more optimal than three so I'm not quite clear on that and labs 60% so where is the water coming from thank you councillor smart alright then councillor Fane thank you chair I have to start off by saying I haven't seen the plans back yesterday so some of this may become clear to me later obviously couldn't pick up all the detail from your presentation but very helpful it looked to me as though the step back roof will be partially perhaps 65% I'm not sure PV on the south west maybe east sides obviously not north sides and you referred at the end to the views from mayhog down and the hills I guess you'll be producing your VIAs at a later stage to see this but if there is a significant amount of PV then clearly it may be you'll be looking at if I can see if you've already taken all of this into account as we expect and then on the blue roofs perhaps this will become clear to me from reading the pack I just wasn't quite clear to me what techniques you're going to use for reducing the rate of rum off from those roofs but don't worry about answering now no doubt that can become clear later thank you chair thank you councillor Smith thank you chair, thank you for the presentation you said was I correct in hearing that you are you are the same firm that's preparing the master plan for the entire campus yes I'll as I was working on the framework so in that context is there a transport master plan for the site and then so how does the parking and the model mix fit with this with this proposal fit with your emerging transport strategy because we know there's pressure for development on the entire site and that it's pretty much at capacity already so how's this going to work movement just a short answer on that but yes there's a transport strategy that's been developed as part of the CBC framework and that is based on a trip budget on increase of area but it's also in terms of users so not all users are they require all the spaces as it were so that's been at the moment been developed as part of the framework and as we develop the strategy for four of these sites then we've been obviously coordinating that in how the spaces are going to work so as Iona and Nick presented there's going to be phase one there's provision of car park but that eventually moves out into centralized provision of car park elsewhere as part of the framework which is going to be a series of multi-story car parks the nearest one is on the side just south of the Children's Hospital so we've been sort of working together with the transport consultant of the CBC framework and our transport consultant who's a ramble in order to develop a strategy a phase strategy for the future so we'll make sure that that's all covered in the application of the building and eventually the outcome of the master plan Thank you, did you have any other questions Councillor Smith? Okay, thank you I think it's worth pointing out that we'd very much like you to bring your master plan to JDCC we've been asking for this for many years and I would very much like to see how the planning for the whole site is being phased and progressed with consideration of all the parameters that you've already thought about in terms of water transport electricity etc Councillor Thornborough Yes, just going on for that it'd be really good when you talk about the transport can you use the transport hierarchy and tell us about people walking first and cycling then public transport and at the bottom private car use and as well as the fitting into the overall transport plan I'm really interested in the overall landscape plan as well and how this fits in with that Thank you Okay, so thank you very much what we'll do is we'll write up those questions and send them to you and it would be very appreciative if you'd come back with some answers for us and also but most importantly think about that in your evolution of your plan and also we would very much like you to come back to JDCC with a master plan for the whole site Councillor Smart I've lost track but don't we get answers to questions that we ask isn't that helpful to everyone concerned? Yes, but unfortunately because the applicants took rather a long time and in rather great detail we didn't have time to go through the answers We're all still here Are you ready? Can I ask you we have another applicant waiting Can I ask you whether you're happy that the questions are answered online or would you like the applicants to answer some of them Councillor Fionnborough? I have to leave at one o'clock and I don't want to miss being able to vote on the next application Okay, so we will look forward to you if other members are mindful of that too and we all have time constraints we'll look forward to receiving your answers to our questions in due course Sorry Councillor Smart, we'll get that on in writing, thank you So thank you for that and we'll move on in that case So thank you very much indeed for coming and we look forward to your answers in due course Thank you Members, would you like five minutes before the next application? Okay, thank you So we're at 11 o'clock We're going live now Members, thank you So we're returning to the Joint Development Control Committee and we're on to item five which is 23 01487 FUL 23-1509 FUL which is the Vitram Building St John's Innovation Park Cowley Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WS and the Principal Planner Cymru Sorry, Meraid Sorry, I do apologise Meraid We'll introduce the report Thank you, Meraid Thank you Chair So we're dealing with two planning applications today with two reference numbers but just to highlight that it is one single proposal but with two decision notices to be issued and just to flag I will get on to the amendment sheet in the next slide but there has been an amendment to the description of development just to tweak that the cycle parking is no longer in the basement I will explain this as part of my presentation as well and the proposal before us today is about the demolition of the existing Vitram Building and replacement with a new research and development building So moving on to the amendment sheet there are a few minor items on there as I say development is tweaked to remove reference to cycle parking being in the basement so that's the first two items as there's two descriptions there is a minor amendment to the text at 13.11 as the plant level was incorrectly referred to as being level six there are five levels in the building and it's at level five and then there's a couple of minor tweaks to conditions which are there twice as I say and there would be two decision notices so condition 20 incorrectly referred to reserved matters applications so the trigger on that has been amended and then on condition 36 which is the bat and bird boxes that incorrectly referred to dwellings so that has been removed Can I just clarify that the reason that the reference to reserved matters is inappropriate is because this is a full application Yes that's right it was just a drafting error with a standard condition and then just verbally I have an additional update so the last condition condition 35 around water conservation measures we've just reworded this condition and added a little bit more detail and I've included the wording here with there would be two separate conditions but I've given the reason with both policies at the end we're recommending a similar condition to what was originally proposed but with more detail it's around compliance with the water conservation measures put forward so the application site where in the notice Cambridge area on the edge of the city the site edge red is here is a vitrum building just to provide a few of the kind of contextual elements the Jane Costin bridge is here we've got the Cambridge Water Recycling centre or the wastewater treatment centre as it's sometimes known here and then I refer to in my report the adjacent St John's site which is here which has planning permission for tree new buildings but this has not been implemented yet I will come to that in a bit more detail later on in the presentation and then just a satellite view the purple line here represents the administrative boundary which Cambridge city being on the south and east element and south camps north and west so you'll see that just the very edge western edge of the building is within south Cambridge here at the moment hence the need for planning applications and again just to go back over those contextual elements of the Cambridge Water Recycling centre Jane Costin bridge to Milton St John's site where the direct building is coming forward and we're generally in this St John's site here the Morris Wilkes building which has been the first plot to be redeveloped is here so this has actually been built out again later on in my presentation and then the Merlin Place site which was at JDCC last committee is just down here so the site lies within current strategic policies within the existing local plans we've got the Cymru local plan covers the area around the train station and the rest of the allocation is within the city council area and is covered by policy 15 Cambridge, Nardin, Fringe, East Indy railway station area of major change and this is the sort of precursor to the area action plan and then just to touch upon the site lies within the area that is covered by the proposed Nardin's Cambridge area action plan as I outline in my report the AAP currently has limited or little weight but the development is not considered to prejudice the wider development of the AAP although as I welcome to that there is a discrepancy in terms of the heights proposed going beyond what is set out in the area action plan so I believe you had a look at this slide in the last committee as well but I thought it helpful just to touch on the different applications at different stages that are coming forward in the area so all of the orange plots are free app at the moment the core site being the kind of biggest one and closest to the site the red sections are current live planning applications we've got the Brookgate site which has been appealed the Merlin Place site which was at ADCC last month and the veteran building site here and then as I've mentioned the blue site here being the St John's site with the Dirac building which has planning permission so the the application was subject to a pre-application developer briefing to JDCC in January of this year as well as Cambridgeshire Quality Panel and Disability Consultative Panel I'm not going to go through every element that responded to that in this slide as that would be very textual forward within section 10 of my report and I'll try to weave it through my presentation areas where members express their interests and changes that have happened as a result of those and to flag that since the application has been submitted there have been amendments scheme there were originally an objection from the urban design and landscape officers and additional setbacks have been included on level 4 to try and overcome this objection and have removed those objections there's also a small extension in this lesser sense to part of the building to try and make up for some of the floor space lost and as I've mentioned the four cycle parking has been relocated from the basement to the ground floor so I have a site plan here to illustrate the form of the building it's two interlocking block forms we have in terms of the kind of landscape features a public square here adjacent to Kerly Road and the Jane Costin bridge there's the Colonnade as well a ground floor which is a covered area part of the layering of the building design which we'll see when we come to that element in terms of access pedestrians and cyclists can come from Milton area via the Jane Costin bridge as well as from Cowley Road cyclists would then come off and be actually on the road and Cowley Road here and access the cycle store via a dropped curb here and the cycle parking is in this area vehicular access is further to the west with basement car park access here servicing further within the site and there's also space for a cargo bike for servicing for the last mile deliveries and this element in the dog leg of the site here is a single story structure for generators so in terms of the ground floor plan pedestrians will access the building via the public square with the main entrance area being here there is level access to the building and lifts provided to all of the floors and all of the terraces will have level access as well the yellow areas sort of communal space with cafe and kind of breakout space and the green areas are lettable areas the building could be occupied by a single occupier or could be in multiple occupancies and is laid out with different lettable areas then moving on to the cycle parking as I say cycle parking is now a ground floor this is considered to be a positive change as it provides a more welcoming entrance for pedestrians and there's a large amount of cycle parking provided 40% of the mould chair so that's 280 cycle parking spaces within the secure store as well as 28 visitors cycle parking spaces which are within the public realm the breakdown of different stand types provided is considered to be policy compliant there is a large amount of two-tier spaces but appendix L of the local plan does allow for this in non-residential developments where a large amount of cycle parking is provided subject to 20% spaces being Sheffield stand and that's what we have here as well there are supporting facilities for the cycle parking which should be accessed in this kind of core here there's a stairs and lift which leads to the basement where there are showers lockers drying rooms so moving to the car parking which is provided in the basement there are 99 spaces proposed this has been reduced since the application has been submitted from 102 there are 5% blue badge spaces provided the overall level of car parking is compliant with the NEC transport evidence base which requires a maximum of 29% mould chair and what's being provided here is 24% mould chair it's also a reduction in the number of existing car parking spaces as there are 108 car parking spaces on the site as it is and then in terms of potential displacement car parking there is a section 106 contribution requested for parking restrictions in Milton should they be required as the site is within walking distance of Milton so just briefly to touch on the floor plans level 4 shows the terrace areas here which would include planters should the Cambridge water recycling centre be relocated these could also be amenity spaces and would have level access to them but use of these for amenity purposes won't be possible while the water recycling centre is in situ and then just to touch on the plant level which has a green roof and then plant being set back from the edge of the roof plant would be covered by a mesh screen that would be planted with greenery so I'll touch on the elevations but I'll move on to more CGIs and visuals from the landscape and visual impact assessment as they're probably easier to understand but just to identify some of the key features of the building so the top elevation being the north west which is where we have the basement, care park access and servicing area you can see the terracing and the plant level which would be quite green as it will have climbing plants the bottom elevation is to the A14 the dotted line which you may be able to see here is the line of the trees and when I come to the more CGIs we'll see the amendments to the scheme which introduced this additional element of terracing here and then we've got the south west elevation to Cowley Road on the top here you can see the colonnade of the building blazing underneath you can see the way the fenestration changes as it moves up the building larger elements of blazing lower down the different areas of terracing that we've planted and the public square here and then similarly the elevation towards the sort of Jane Costin Bridge with the public square which has a feature tree here and the main entrance to the building here and then in terms of the sections we've got basement care parking a larger floor ceiling height on the ground floor generally the floor to ceiling heights allow for flexibility in future should another use come forward and I know that was something that members were interested in as per the briefing the lab and office space divide between the building lab space would be provided on the less active areas so towards the A14 blazing elevation with the office spaces being closer to the colonnade and the public square so I've got some visuals to illustrate the amendments the scheme so what we're looking at at the moment is the elevation as submitted in April and as I said there were concerns about the impact of the proposal as submitted from the Jane Costin Bridge and Cowley Road and there were concerns that it appeared quite overbearing so this elevation the key area to look is here where the additional setback is provided so if I move to the next slide you'll see the additional area of terracing here and the setback which provides some relief pulling the massive building back and adding to that kind of layering if I just go back and forth one more time just for clarity so here we have as submitted and as proposed and then again the Cowley Road elevation as submitted there were concerns about the length of the facade and it appearing quite blocky so here as of the last slide you'll recall there is a setback in this area but also there is a further setback here on the other end of the building as well those are the two areas to look at so this is the scheme as amended so as I say additional setback here and here this is generally considered to reduce the overall length and kind of blockiness of the building and then finally moving on to the views from Milton so this is on the other side of the Jane Costin Bridge towards Tesco looking across this is as submitted and then as you'll recall it is in this area that the amendments are and as submitted as amended so here we have a site section showing the height of the proposed building in comparison to the St John's area so as I mentioned the Morris Wilkes building has been built out and then the key sites and building that the massing has been informed by is the Dirac building on the adjacent site which has planning permission and you can see that the heights of the buildings are very comparable and then to note that the green line on this plan which hopefully you can make out this is the NEC height level and this is just a helpless slide to show the kind of point around the length of the facade and how it compares to other buildings so it's quite comparable to the Dirac building which is this area here the Dirac building here and the Morris Wilkes building and also just to pause and reflect on the fact that the St John's station park is subject to a master plan and the master plan has been prepared by the by St John's and doesn't hold any actual weight in our decision making but it does tell us the intention for that site to be redeveloped sort of regardless of status of the AAP moving on to trees so the proposed building sits further back in the site and requires some tree removal in this tree buffer that runs between the site and the A14 and runs beyond the site also so there are 31 trees being removed and 70 trees being planted I should point out that all of the larger trees within the site have been retained and were seen as a constraint to development and the trees being removed in this buffer are generally the kind of lower quality trees the tree officer has raised concerns but not a formal objection to this impact in terms of the relationship with the tree buffer the additional planting proposed in the tree buffer area here is quite large semi mature trees which will help with the screening of the building shown on the visuals the tree officer has noted some concerns about the inclusion of these kind of large semi mature trees and their impact on some of the existing trees but a condition is recommended requiring replacement planting should any of the existing trees shown to be retained fail within five years and any new trees those would be required to be replaced should they fail via the landscape condition that bus protected in that sense but overall the tree impact has been considered to be acceptable moving on to the order impact as I noted the site lies Jason to the Cambridge Water Recycling Centre and the city council commissioned a study into the order impact from the Cambridge Water Recycling Centre in this visual from that study so the site is this black star here approximately and it lies within the order contour is five and six which mean that it does require it says development may be suitable as you'll see in this element of the table here which is new in extensions or expansions of existing business and research and development uses and it requires that there are no external meeting areas and sealed external sads to the building with mechanical ventilation with order abatement technology so the applicant has demonstrated that the building will be a sealed building with what they've submitted they're providing mechanical ventilation with filtration and the environmental health officers is satisfied with these measures subject to a compliance condition and then the areas around the building cannot be used while the Water Recycling Centre is in situ and a building management condition is recommended to be provided and this would have to explain how these areas will be managed while the Water Recycling Centre is in situ which further provision should the Water Recycling Centre relocate that further details will be provided and sort of seating and further public realm measures can be introduced at that stage but ultimately the development in terms of the public realm around the building and the amenity to occupiers is considered acceptable in its own right so moving on to sustainability the building is targeting Bream excellent and is comfortably meeting that at the sort of free assessment stage as well as targeting the well standard it's taking an all electric approach with a 37.8% reduction in carbon emissions using the heat pumps and solar panels it has an EPC rating A and a whole life carbon assessment has been submitted with the application and then on the water conservation area there's a water conservation strategy which we've recommended a compliance condition around this as I mentioned off the site of the presentation and the Bream calculations show 74.87% improvement over the baseline condition with all five WAC01 credits and in terms of water use it's estimated that it will be very much comparable with the existing building so the estimated fresh water consumption for the use is about 9,400 litres per day the existing building which is under occupied uses about 9,000 litres of water per day but should it be fully occupied it's predicted that it would use 13,600 to 17,000 to 100 litres per day and then in terms of how the water conservation strategy has achieved it's this hierarchical approach to minimising water consumption starting with point of use efficiencies low water fittings system efficiencies and then also having alternative sources of water for grey water so grey water recycling rain water harvesting as well as collecting water from the air commissioning units so to touch on the adjacent site thought it would be helpful just to include some slides showing the Saint John's and development which is consented it's these three buildings here so this top view is from the landscape and visual impact assessment associated with the Saint John's development and the massing of these two buildings is included in some of my slides later on in the landscape and visual impact assessment for this application and then the bottom side just to give you an idea of the sort of architectural treatment of that scheme and how this building would relate quite well to this sort of environment and then again just briefly to touch on this for information that this is sort of how the adjacent site would appear when should it come forward so here we have a CGI of the proposed building just to highlight some of the kind of key design elements we've got the public square here this is the Jane Casten ridge and it's kind of looking from Cowley Road public square here with the colonnade which sort of wraps around the building here you've got the different areas of terracing as well and cyclists would come off the the footpath over here and access the cycle store down here which should be this well it's further down the colonnade on this plan this is just further along Cowley Road you can see some of the cycle parking in the public realm for visitors I should highlight that there is some seating shown on these plans and as I flagged earlier it's not possible for there to be sort of areas of seating while the water recycling centre is in situ but these areas and the detail could be provided at a later day through that building management plan condition and then so this is the same view that we saw just a moment ago but this is from the landscaping visual impact assessment so this is a verified view like a rendered view of the proposal in terms of the architectural treatment as well I don't have highlighted the materials basic building will be brick with aluminium padding on the upper floors and then this is a view from Cowley Road as you'll recall it was sort of we had amendments in this area here with this additional area of terracing to reduce the length and again as well in this area here and this is the view from the Jane Costin bridge so this planting here is taller than existing and this is the proposed planting being shown in situ but again it's this area here where the setback has happened and then from Milton again sort of area here where the amendments and then this is from the bridge towards Milton Road you can see this is St John's scheme as I mentioned as shown in the visual here and overall the visual impact is very comparable to the St John's development you can see that both do you sort of break the skyline but there is lots of tall planting that breaks it off and it's generally in line with that sort of relationship and then this being a slightly further view you can see the two buildings at St John's and the Vitram building and see how that sort of skyline the relationship is very similar and again just at the bottom we've got a kind of longer view from the Jane Costin bridge which again shows the St John's so just to conclude that the recommendation is for approval the planning balance is included at the end of the report and that is subject to conditions and informatives and a section 1 of 6 agreement thank you very much Morade and thank you also for those members who attended the site visit on Monday and just to remind members that we also had a developer briefing from the developers in January this year and I think the things that were raised then have been incorporated in this revised plan so thank you very much so right we have for the developer Adam Vlodicech Black if you'd like to come and present the application to us and I should say Adam is the director of design and construction UK and Europe for breakthrough properties who are the applicant and would you like to introduce your colleague or would she like to introduce herself Hi I'm Woods there is a microphone in front of you as well thank you so Adam would you like to proceed thank you chair and thank you Morade not just for today but for a collaborative pre-application process over the last 14 months which has supported the evolution and refinement of our proposals I'm Adam Vlodicech Black director of design and construction at breakthrough properties applicant for the scheme breakthrough properties was founded in 2019 with the vision to become a world leading developer and operator for life science real estate put simply our mission is to create sustainable environments that leads to scientific discoveries that improve human health breakthrough properties is a developer and investor that's a long term asset holder meaning we aspire to hold this balling for its full economic life so why Cambridge investing in Cambridge has been a top priority for us driven by the quality of the city's knowledge economy the vision of local and national government and the university's pedigree in developing world leading talent base and in generating novel intellectual property our facility will complement and support the growth of the life sciences ecosystem by providing critical real estate capacity scale existing businesses and attract world leading life sciences companies to Cambridge now our approach for vitram has been founded on three key principles first to deliver a respectful architectural landmark for Cambridge vitram features exemplary design quality longevity, well-being and sustainability at its core design thoughtfully by world renowned architect Henning Larson the building will comprise a modern and flexible workplace with a lively and inclusive community the sustainable architecture blends together with its green surrounding promotes biodiversity the design features an active and transparent ground floor to integrate with the innovation part now we've listened and addressed concerns on landscape and visual impact this included a reduction in height so vitram is lower than other approved buildings on the innovation part and a softening of the massing in key views which has successfully appeased concerns our second key principle is exemplary sustainability vitram will be built to exceed local and national sustainability targets including an 11.7% by diversity net gain 26% improvement over part L of the building regulations a well rating of platinum and a pream rating of excellent we've respected the importance of the woodland to the northern boundary understanding it provides a protected buffer along the A14 and as such 77 mature trees will be planted as part of our proposals we understand the challenges of water infrastructure vitram will be highly water efficient and consumes no more water than the existing smaller building this has been achieved through minimizing consumption efficient system design and maximising water recovery our third key principle of sustainable transport we understand the concern of parking in Milton as such we're committed to no net increase in parking provision or no additional pressure is applied to peak our trips we've also agreed the mode share discouraging single occupancy car drivers including a reduction in car parking provision the use of booking spaces and regular monitoring we believe our plans present a significant opportunity for the city to enhance its global status as a life science superpower with an iconic new building that's been designed collaboratively to address community feedback thank you thank you very much one second short of three minutes so thank you very much indeed well done you so members remember that we ask our questions of the our case officer so would anybody like to kick off with questions so Councillor Thornborough I just want to ask about the water because the we're saying we're being told that the water will be no more use than the existing but how I think we're in a new area about thinking about water and what's provided and information about whether that can be met and I is there a way to be sure going forward that the figure the design figure is actually met and if it's not met do we have any enforcement powers so Councillor Thornborough I also have asked that question because we're talking about a building that has four times the current floor space and we're being told it will use no more than the current building so I think at this point it will be appropriate to refer to Merade on that question please thank you chair so the applicant has provided a lot of information about all of the different measures they're going to use to reduce water consumption so these are as I outlined in that slide around design elements so like around how the system works fixtures and fittings use and then having sort of rain water, grey water recycling and you know bringing in less fresh water in that sense so you're reusing water what we can do is we can have a condition that requires them to provide that information like to provide what they've set out in the water conservation strategy they would need to comply with that but in terms of the levels of water that they use we wouldn't have any enforceability around monitoring that's not something that could be done through the planning system that wouldn't be enforceable so we just before you come back that we proposed a condition did we not at I think was this an additional condition thank you chair so it's condition 35 and it was a condition that was recommended but some additional words have been included just to make it more sort of copper bottom the condition so condition 35 is on page I'll include the amended wording because it is an amended wording so this is the wording I'm suggesting so it's prior to occupation of the building all of these fixtures and fittings and the water recycling measures that are outlined in this water conservation strategy document which would be an approved document will need to be installed and functional and maintained thereafter and and that sort of as far as the planning system can go it can require those measures but not the sort of actual monitoring of the water levels because we are informed about the needed usage in the existing building and we had asked whether we could meet the usage in the new building Councillor Thornbrough would like to come back so my understanding is so it's your dream to be dream requires commissioning after the building not just design standards which is very good so I'm assuming that if dream 5 credits for water must be commissioned in the same way they have to show the energy efficiency they will have to show the water efficiency so that's very good but I think that my concerns about this condition is it's prior to occupation I think water is so important that I would suggest that the design information should be required and signed off before construction in my opinion thanks I've also got just to clarify that so you're saying you're requesting whether it can be before construction okay thank you can Maread come back on that please this water conservation strategy document that I have referenced here this has been provided with the application this is an existing document and there is a design stage and post-construction condition so there is that two phases as well I don't know that we would be getting any further information on true having a kind of prior to construction element to the condition can I through your chair there is a problem with prior to occupation if the design is not not to expectations in this respect it can't be modified so I think the measures need to be fully understood I may be not understanding the condition but it I think it if it doesn't meet it there is nothing you can do because the building is already built so thank you so the water conservation strategy has been submitted and has been agreed and confirmed as acceptable condition 35 as amended which is on your screen in front of you requires the installation the implementation of the measures that are set out in the strategy to be implemented within the building therefore it wouldn't be appropriate to have that as a free commencement condition it needs to be installed tested and operational before the first use of the building and if the usage transpired to be higher than was predicted how would that be monitored or is there any way of monitoring that as Merade explained earlier the challenge is in relation to the the enforcing of that and the assessment of that is not something which the local planning authority can have control over it is the building operator the owner that would be responsible for that the building would be smart metered so they would have the ability to see the water usage but it would be within the remit of the building operator and it's not the local planning authority's responsibility it's an issue that we are challenged by it's something that we are having further discussions in respect of in respect of the Cambridge Hall of Discaresity group we're hoping to push and get clarity on this issue in due course but for the purposes of this application we believe we've gone as far as we can with this condition Councillor Thornborough I think in the same way we are wanting transport strategies for one site set in the context of a larger site really we should be asking for a water strategy for one site set in the context with a larger site really that's what we should be asking in this time because of the situation we are in and it's fantastic that this building is not making the situation any worse but what we do want is overall to make the situation better and we know that the overall current use needs to be reduced so if this building is not if this site doesn't provide a reduction and it's not making it worse that's great but overall collectively, collective responsibility of this land owner is that we look to reductions so I'm just saying it really it would have been good if it was if there's a kind of wider site wide understanding about this can I just for one other point is the replacement tree issue it's condition 19 I think replacement trees also need to be maintained for five years I think that's what the condition says I was going to ask whether it is I think it says the within five years they have to be replaced but those replacement trees then need to be maintained for five years because we are finding in some cases that they're not maintained and then new trees are put in and the obligations finish then and those new trees are not maintained and they die absolutely and in fact I was going to ask the same thing that the condition to replace should not only apply to the newly planted trees sorry the existing trees but it should also apply to the newly planted trees because these are going to be large trees going in which with all due respect are more likely to fail so we need to have a because 19 refers to if any tree is shown to be retained so could we add in phraseology that enables that to extend to replacement trees or newly planted trees as well the hard and soft landscape condition condition 14 part b if within a period of five years from the date of planting or replacement planting any tree or plant is removed operated or destroyed dies another tree or plant of the same species and sizes that shall be planted so I think that that's sorted, lovely, thank you very much sorry the replacement tree should also be maintained for five years it says period of five years from the date of planting oh you're saying and for the subsequent period of five years also that's true, we have said that in the past that when there's a replacement tree that should also benefit from a five year protection so and I know we've done that on other sites so 10 year commitment folks can we amend that accordingly are you okay are you members are you keen that we should give that 10 year protection yes okay good everyone's nodding so can we add that in please that any replacement tree should also benefit from a five year protection thank you make two more short comments one is the well being rating I'm really pleased that the applicant because it's platinum I think the well being standards are really good and we don't require them but it is coming in and it's really good to understand what level on each building that's been achieved and also because land values are so high my general feeling is that we should be building as tall as a feasibly appropriate so in all the right locations in Cambridge so I think the height is good for me thank you councillor Thalmer councillor Porra thank you chair firstly I would like to congratulate the applicant on the aim to maintain the same level of water despite quadrupling the size I think this is the kind we really want developers to be doing take out to Thalmer's point not making it better but it could be a lot worse so and I would really hope the developer would actually be quite open with us about how that works because I think we need to learn from these kind of early stage schemes if we're struggling let's find out why and let's make sure we pass on that knowledge to other people because it will be so critical and we know the earlier you go the more likely there might be some problems I hope not though so I had two minor condition amendments 3.7 paragraph refers to the large feature tree I would just like to the planning office to consider letting our tree office have some oversight to make sure that is the right species because obviously we can stick a massive tree in but it might not thrive so I just wondered if Merade would accept that and secondly the planters and greenery on the upper levels which I have to say to me do enhance the design considerably with the levellings that's taken place since we talked in January can we condition that that greenery needs to be maintained because I wasn't entirely sure if that was covered by the tree condition because I don't think there are necessarily trees implanted so that was just two questions to the officer so my biggest concerns at the moment is the narrowing of the buffer between the A14 and the building because that screening to me is very important so I don't know if the officer could talk a little more about the 70 trees that are going in because obviously to bring the building line back a lot further than the existing site there is going to be some loss of those trees I appreciate but it is an important visual and acoustic barrier actually though I note obviously it will be sealed anyway second thing it's disappointing that only 20% of the cycle stands as Sheffield I appreciate the local plan we can't object but again just a note and my usual request about cargo bikes you'll probably need more than you think people will be cycling to school and with their equipment with them and the showers are still in the basement which again is slightly disappointing not I think the reason for rejection but again you have to park your bike and then go downstairs normally we prefer them to be at the same level I definitely support aiming for bream outstanding not excellent I mean excellent is the lowest standard we should be going for we should be pushing towards outstanding the other concern I have is the height I do take council Thornborough's point that you know sometimes we do need to build high that this is a substantial expansion of the footprint so it's all going high and big so I suppose I'm still weighing up how much that concerns me whether or not it's enough to vote against or not and finally I think 18.17 talks about the infrastructure delivery plan for the heartry site and about this fair and equitable proportionate acceptance of each developer for power and water I just wondered if the officer could kind of comment if this is within those bounds I mean certainly I think for water I would hope it may well be but I know it doesn't have significant weight but it would just be a useful guide to see how far out or not this development is, thank you Thank you, so Maread can you address I can prompt you so number one is water better not better but not worse was that just an observation and was there a condition to maintain the planters on the upper level I wondered if that came under the landscaping so I think the detail of planting and if being maintained comes under the landscaping condition so that has that kind of five years and then there's also the building management plan so that's condition nine so that area the terraces and the planting has a positive visual impact but also those spaces could be available for immunity purposes for employees should the Cambridge Water Recycling centre relocate so I think it's important to have some flexibility so that there can be some maybe tables and chairs in space there for people to use that space as well and the building management plan deals with all of the external areas around the building both before and after should the Cambridge Water Recycling centre relocate Sorry, Maread, on that one Councillor Poror was asking about whether while the certainly while the water treatment centre is still operational will there be an ongoing commitment to maintain the green the plantings in that on those terraces? Yes, so under the landscaping conditions as we touched on earlier around trees there's a requirement to maintain planting for sort of a five year period of time and then in terms of the building management plan that sort of looks at how all of those external spaces are used so it's a sort of two fold there's another condition narrowing of the barrack I just want to check the other condition about perhaps with the species of the large feature tree and then I think is it helpful if I run through again the buffer and how the tree planting will damage or reinstate that the basement showers the height being considerably higher and then whether it's fair and equitable to quote from the infrastructure delivery plan I think they were the four points So the large feature tree can the tree officer be involved in? So the again the home and south landscape condition allows if it requires planting plans to be submitted so we would have a final site of that so that detail could be agreed to that condition I lost track of whether some of yours were comments or questions So it's asking the officer about the buffer planting because I'm concerned about the narrowing and the other was really about this fair and equitable delivery The narrowing of the buffer So the narrowing of the buffer So as we saw on the site that is obvious in the plans the building does protrude much closer to this tree buffer and requires trees to be removed So the buffer most of the trees within the buffer are category C can lower quality trees They're sort of benefit and the positive of the buffer is more around the amount of trees there What this scheme is doing is removing some of these smaller trees and replacing them with larger trees, semi mature trees that will help with the screening of the building Now the tree officer has raised some concerns about the larger trees coming in and their impact on those existing trees but we have that condition 19 which seeks to should any of those trees shown to be retained failed but they would be required to be replaced within five years Okay, and we've already said that those replacement trees should also be covered by a further five years Yes Great Councillor Horro also mentioned cycle stands disappointed that only 20% were Sheffield So for these high volumes cycle parking non-residential buildings those allow for a high level of double-tier spaces to make best use of space They are providing the 20% Sheffield sands and we have recommended a condition requiring details of the cycle parking so we can have sort of assurances around gas assist lift for the two tiers And the other point I would say it's a very different thing getting a cycle a bicycle into an upper tier if you haven't got enough space to step back and get it up there so we need to know that there is sufficient spacing between the stands to enable people to get their bicycle onto the second tier The application implies the applicant will be aiming for Bream outstanding not just excellent doesn't it so I think covers that part you were saying that Councillor Plour that the footprint is not only a much taller building but it's a bigger footprint but you were reserving your thoughts on that and the IDP the infrastructure development plan and the relationship between that and other developers So I mean as it stands the IDP doesn't have any way it hasn't been consulted on by any projects or it wouldn't be still compliant to use the IDP in terms of the transport mitigation so Cambridge County Council have suggested transport mitigation based on existing projects and that's still on the review So just back to my list Councillor Bing Thank you chair I just wanted to check my understanding did I hear that the construction of this building will not take place until movement of the water treatment plant has been permission has been given and it is going to go ahead Did I hear that correctly I don't think so Marraith would you like to No that isn't the case so the development would go ahead regardless of the situation with the Cambridge Water Recycling Centre it has been designed in a way that it has a sealed slide with filtration to protect against odour for users of the building and that building management plan is around controls the external spaces around the building because those can't be used while the Water Recycling Centre is in situ but then it does allow for details to be provided should the Water Recycling Centre relocate but the application is considered acceptable as it is in situation with the Water Recycling Centre operation of thank you and councillors March so three things the little one is the important one so firstly I find it a bit perplexing that the JDCC terms of reference in those terms of reference this site is not in there this is not in the established area it's in the proposed area but they were never updated so I think they need to be updated online so the substantive point is I appreciate the work done by officers to improve what's on the table and the developer has said designs by Henning Larson but he passed away a decade ago so it's a practice clearly you're referring to and that's something of a different reference so hesitant to critique the work of an architectural practice that still bears his name but it's a grim looking building so that's a straightforward word to use but in architectural terms I'd say not a thing of beauty not designed well and does not sit well into its context I want to say I appreciate it's difficult it's difficult to design a beautiful building but is it really I appreciate that not every building can be a sterling prize winner but this development is just not good enough in my opinion so that's it really on the other thing that's come up about the heights of buildings I remember looking at the development early on in North East Cambridge and considering the sort of urban aspects of that and what we wanted from the city and from outside of the city to see and to see an urban development would probably be appropriate for a city like Cambridge so to see tall buildings from outside of Cambridge seems appropriate so I think tall buildings is certainly not a bad thing and I agree with Councillor Thornborough on that so finally the smaller point is I'm not sure about putting cycles in the basement I mean there's a huge carbon cost to that decision why not celebrate cycles and put them in a lovely cycle shed thank you the cycles aren't in the basement they're on the ground floor it's the showers that are in the basement I stand corrected if so I think there were cycles in the basement oh okay I'll take that back then okay thank you I don't think there was anything else as clarification yes thank you but others for first thank you Councillor Smith I'll add you to the list thank you chair and first of all I'd like to note that there's been a collaboration between the developer and the planning service and this has resulted in improvements to the proposal I'm just referring to the key issues of height scale and massing we've seen a reduction in the height of the building that there was a concern about the odor impact and that too has been dealt with and the impact on trees I'll come back to that in a moment but I think in planning issues we need to consider the social impact and the environmental impact too and the social impact I'm going to address first the there is a risk of displacement parking arising from this development and it's the reference made to that being within one kilometer of the site although elsewhere there's reference in report to Cambridge North Station which is within 1.3 kilometers so I'm not sure whether the one kilometer area is really sufficient to consider the displacement parking the fly commuting parking so it requires very few commuters to park in residential streets to impact on the sense of place and the residential immediacy of those people living there and this is offensively amounts to an external negative it's a negative externality on the residents there's not no interest in this building but they are interested in protecting their residential amenity now if I just look at the numbers I know we can argue about these but just generally potential 700 people in the building maybe not all of them will be there at the same time but still that's 250 square feet per person which is quite low density 99 parking spaces 308 cycle spaces 501 visitors and we're left with around 320 odd people travelling by other modes so and when we look at what the mitigation for this negative externality is it's a £10,000 contribution to fund additional parking restrictions in the surrounding areas that's at section 226 page 74 but have the residents been consulted do they know this is coming their way and how would on-street parking for their visitors be managed in the future and at what cost to them now in the city we have residential parking schemes where residents have to pay £50 a year to park their cars on the street so I'd like to have further consideration of this impact on the residents and how that is going to be managed and mitigated for them because I just don't think it's socially right to build a huge building like this and have a negative impact on the residents in the surrounding areas so that is that particular point so I just wanted to move then on to the environment impacts and in your presentation I was very pleased that you said that you respected the mature woodland north of the development and that you are a long-term investor, breakthrough properties are a long-term investor just to remind you we are addressing our questions to the case of this sorry, thank you so on this particular point I think the building is made more successful by the trees on the north boundary of the site there's been discussion about the protection of the existing trees the protection and replacement of ones that are going to be protection of the replacement trees but actually we know that planning affords very little protection for trees beyond the life of these conditions and an application could be submitted to treeworks and the whole lot could be brought down so I would like to see a protection for these tree belts and the management of these tree belts in perpetuity for the operation of this building operation of this building absolutely, thank you on that one the other question then is on the environmental impact which is what does it take to achieve the aspiration from going from BreamEx into outstanding and then can that be delivered and the third one is this sits within the section 106 agreement which is going to be negotiated post this decision but it's actually a very fundamental part of our consideration or determination of this application and yet we're not really excited on what the outcome is going to be and I think it's so important that we are aware of that and it's massively important because the scale and the scope of the contribution will form part of a community contribution that will ensure that the trip budget for this whole area can be can be managed and therefore that every developer every company and every employee and all the rest of it has a fair chance of actually getting in and out of this of this development so I think it's a significant question that needs to be that needs to be answered and this committee needs to know about it so that's that question there are three minor elements the first one relates to safety on page 42 and page 43 I think the consultees have said that the EB charging should be outside the structure as far as possible and the fire services are just that they're satisfied but we know about EB cars that just sort of combust and that needs particular fire retardant in our measures and are we assured that they can we be assured about about those on condition 29 travel plan there is a reference to car collapse and pool bikes in the text it's 1824 page 66 and I'd like to see specific reference to those in measures in condition 29 the travel plan it's just very loosely worded and it just is not specific enough about what we're actually going to see out of that emerge out of that condition and then you'll be pleased to hear the last point condition 20 relating to the green roof and it's on the amendment sheet and I can't understand why the word not is in it we might as well strike the whole thing out I'm assuming that's please you reassure me that was an error thank you just on that last one it's simply that the building shall not be occupied until the nest boxes have been provided is that it? so I think that's a I'm happy with that one the addition of the word not right okay so Lorraine do you want to make a start on some of those can I start with just that one actually councillor poor drew my attention to this before the meeting there is an error where an additional not has been added condition 20 it says shall not be submitted to so that is an error and my apologies for that thank you what are you doing there okay so let's go back we do read it chat okay so where are we 29 thank you oh not condition that's travel plan no hang on is that travel plan or is it sorry did you want me to read the one about boxes were you serious did you want me to read the one about that boxes okay which was the one you wanted me to read 29 was it okay so Merate has this been amended because at present it appears to be as it appears on page 105 did were you proposing an adjustment to this it was to I see sorry you were saying it was a reference on page 66 that you wanted to be included in condition 29 okay let's find it was it to do with provision of parking for e-scooters and things or was it it could be if you wished that my specific one was 1824 which was the car clubs and pool bikes and the lockers and things so can we so that 18.24 says the travel plan will encourage the use of car clubs and pool bikes brackets, brompton lockers we might need to take out the product placement there will be provided for staff and indeed why not for visitors as well but anyway so can we add that wording into condition 29 so I think it will read as it is at the moment but it will say the travel plan shall specify polon the methods to be used to discourage the use of the private motor vehicle and the arrangements to encourage use of alternative sustainable travel arrangements such as public transport car sharing and perhaps insert in there car clubs and pool bikes or car clubs cycling and pool bikes et cetera and walking are you happy that that wording comes back to us as chair and vice chair to approve okay okay was there any other condition that you wanted to propose an amendment to Councillor Smith green roof condition 20 was it that you just you've got that one okay safety page 40 oh yes the EV charging we would prefer that maybe to be outside the building what occurs to me about this is that actually even EV charging of bikes probably ought to be outside a building in view of what has happened recently in Cambridge so that was condition is it to do with parking or is it to do with EV charging in your opinion Councillor Smith since you suggested it is it going to come under car parking management or is it going to come under no it's not management it's construction so it's got to come under I think chair if there are this is very very light on condition 10 it's very light on um the relationship between the EV charging and the pulling out buyers so okay may I suggest that under condition 10 EV charging on page 97 where it says prior to the installation of any electrical services an electrical vehicle charge point scheme shall be submitted to and approved in writing the scheme shall provide and I think we need to consider whether it is possible because as far as I'm aware all of the parking on site is underneath the building at present so um yes Mirage would you like to come back on that the council has an SPD that requires a large amount of EV charging to be provided to comply with the requirement and it wouldn't be possible to provide those levels of EV charging outside of the building but I do take your point around the impact but I wondered if the measures that you're talking about would be covered by building regulations they don't seem to be comfortably covered in the planning appraisal Councillor Thornborough I can see your hand is up I'm just wondering where the placement of the EV charging locations might be aware around this but Councillor Thornborough my understanding is that the requirements by insurance companies are way way over anything that we or building control can ask for as far as protection insurance of buildings insurance of buildings will require an exceptionally high standard of fire protection and fire escape and all of that to cut for underground car parking so we don't need to cover that because it would be covered by building regs building insurance is much higher than building regulation requirements so can we just then alert do we need to put any wording into this condition just to alert people we need to make sure that the fire resistance around any EV parking needs to comply with any insurance requirements or something of that no would you like to speak please no no I'm being told that it's unlikely that we can put that as a condition however people at the back what we're saying right I'm sorry I didn't mean to be rude um our esteemed applicants from bytrom cancer smith have we covered well I want to pick up on parking which I will do but was there anything you wanted to pick up the S106 to be negotiated yes it was going from what does it take to achieve the aspiration of green outstanding it was the imperfectuity protection of the trees of the long term investors the operational life of the building um and it was that question about 1.06 I don't think it really can be answered now but I think it's something that might be I'm going to pick up on that I think it needs to be brought back right so can I just check 1.06 as it's drawn up we come back to the officers obviously for consideration as it's drawn up so the just the sort of final summons are being agreed but I think we're generally at a point where we're in agreement so it will be that 1.06 would be drafted shortly should these be approved and is it based on the heads of terms that we've got in the paper yes that's correct right um I'm taking councillor Cohn and then I'm going to come in after two points I want to go and talk about one is water and one is parking first in terms of water that we have a problem here at the moment there's a critical problem in terms of the supply and effect on the aquifer which has resulted in for instance Darwin being to phase 2 and 3 being refused on the objection of the environment agency and that's to do with the effect on the aquifer which is we are told it's going to be resolved by the water management plan when newer supplies provided to about 2032 and then a new reservoir in the late 2030s so which and this from the look of that from that point of view you're looking at the water consumption over the period from now until the new supply comes into place the total water consumption in the effect on the aquifer you also you also want from a longer term which is less critical is that you should we want to reduce the amount of water used from the point of view of general water resources and the carbon impact of all the the process from my therefore I'm interested at the moment you've got a supply which is being used there will be a period when it's being constructed when I would presume and maybe I'm wrong but I presume the water consumption will be less and then you'll have a new supply the applicant has done a lot to in terms of what it can do for the common services that they can reduce supply but in the long term the actual consumption will depend upon the tenants that they find and what their demands are and we can't know that they can't know that until they've actually got the tenants in place so there may be a it may not be achievable the final demand may not be achievable overall of the building until we know who the tenants are so I really want to know whether you've looked at the actual the change in consumption between if the existing building continued at full use until the time and what the new building will do over that period until the new supplies come on source because that's the critical immediate issue and I'm very glad that the other information have you got that supply information available the second thing is about parking when the previous application I can't remember the name of the building that we did last month we looked the comment was made about the fact that lots of people are likely to run in place are likely to park in the park and ride at Milton and I was concerned about that that might be over so that's the least used park and ride so there appears to be capacity there and we've got another building to greatly increase the employment so it seems to me likely that quite a lot of people will use that it seems to be unfortunate that we have various applications coming in which increasingly might have employment on this site and there is scope for instance for a specific service to supply between the park and ride and this site I think that is something that ought to be the travel plan ought to be looking at on a comprehensive basis for this site in terms of provision because that will be important in terms of accessibility and I wonder whether that has been considered and will be considered in the travel plan and whether that ought to perhaps be put as part of what an objective you're looking at in the travel plan does of course mention public transport does it not were those your two questions okay so firstly before we go ahead water supply I just wanted to remind you that it has had a scoping document for EIA environmental impact assessment which has deemed that is not it does not require an environmental impact assessment but I'll hand it over to Philippa Kelly thank you chair, yes thank you certainly the water resource issue is incredibly topical and important at the moment in Greater Cambridge officers are satisfied that the water issue funding application has been well considered and addressed we've got enhanced mitigation for water efficiency which goes over and above our aspirations which is we're very pleased to have secured the other application that you've referenced you'll recollect it's gone to a non-determination appeal on water resource grounds there was an objection from the environment agency in respect of that development that was EIA development we're comfortable that the environmental impact of this scheme is not going to be significant it's got appropriate water efficiency mitigation so it's a very different situation we have got that package of water efficiency conditions which goes as far as we can go at the moment but we're very pleased we have looked at the use of the water and the future consumptions but again we are comfortable that at those levels there's not going to be a demonstrable additional risk of significant harm to the water that goes for this particular planning application Can I come back to my ride then on the matter to do with parking and whether that can be included in the travel plan or does it need reinforcement reference to the possible use of the park and ride So I think the suggestion is around a private bus service that would move employees from say the park and ride to the site I don't think that's a measure that's suggested in the framework travel plan I think we could suggest it as perhaps an informative that that might be something to look at but I don't think in terms of the sort of mode share that's identified in the transport assessment that that's identifying a need for that at the moment to require it specifically I see a problem that in any case you would want to probably do it collaboratively between the different and that's difficult to apply to Councillor Khan that will have to wait for the AAP will it not I was going to say but it might be well I think informative is possibly the best person to do it I would support an informative of that type of a ride that could contrive such an informative old telephone Just a little request because I use earphones can I make sure that the people on the head table turn their lights because often they're not being used of the typing on the computer comes through loud and clear I'm so sorry Councillor we'll try to remember that don't worry members I just want to come back in myself on parking but that doesn't mean I'm not going to have any more questions so Councillor Smith has already referred to the social impact of the parking and I just wanted to clarify why this concerns me because the building is going to become four times bigger in terms of floor space than it is currently and yet it will have fewer parking spaces than the building currently has and it is a a mere 0.3 miles sorry Councillor Smith I'm working in Imperial to roads in Milton which are already used by people at Cambridge Science Park and elsewhere to park in and then walk back south of the A14 that's literally just a seven minute walk across the Jane Costin bridge whereas it is a mile to Cambridge North Station which is a 20 minute walk from this location so what I wanted to clarify was whether the provision in the S106 which is at paragraph 22.7 whether we can ensure in your let's see 22.7 on page 74 this was the implication is that this is for it says in the surrounding area but the place it's most likely to effect is Milton and I would like to ask members if you would like that to be reinforced to protect the residents in Milton because obviously as a greater Cambridge planning service we're aware that going on in the background is a request for civil parking enforcement in our area the city also already benefits from that but this is coming to south Cams but the implication of that is that then WLR lines and parking restrictions would be put in in Milton but then the residents of Milton who currently don't need a parking permit would be required to buy one in just the way that Councillor Smith has referred to so what I would like to ask is whether it is possible and this might be either to marade or legal officer whether that provision in the heads of terms at paragraph 22.6 could be made specific to protect residents in Milton just one moment let me have an answer to that question okay Councillor Stobart the prime place if you're thinking about Milton is Tesco's Tesco's car park has a CCTV camera on it the Rowan's in Milton does not and is already used extensively so I would just like to take your point but yes Tesco's car park but they have a two hour limit on parking which is monitored in the car park wouldn't Tesco management feel that was a significant burden if we hadn't taken steps to manage the parking situation quite possibly ah okay we've got so Tam I thank you I'm glad to see you're there do you want to come in Tam and give some thoughts on that this is Tam Parry who's the county do you want to introduce your role Tam? Hi thank you yes good morning everyone I'm Tam Parry I work in Cambridge County Council in the transport assessment team so I'll just mention about the parking as this is what you're talking about at the moment so the section 1.6 request from myself was for £10,000 and the purpose of this money was to be able to implement yellow lines on the roads within a kilometre of the site so yes that does include Milton definitely because Milton is as you say the likely place where anyone might seek to park now what we can do is put in yellow lines on in locations where people are parking if they turn out to be parking in places that are not not good places to park so like on junctions or outside people's driveways and blocking people in that type of kind of inconsiderate parking can't stop people from just parking on the road that's a normal thing that people do you know you can park your car on the road very be like what we need to do is control where parking occurs and that's the purpose of this money now control parking zones or resident parking zones are a different thing don't get confused between the two what you've got in Cambridge city centre near the shops and near the railway station are controlled parking zones that's where people pay a permit to have a resident parking permit and they typically pay £50 or £60 a year for that permit and spaces are marked on the streets where they can park that's not what we're talking about in Milton it's a very different situation in Milton to Cambridge city centre you're not going to have in Milton a resident parking scheme like what you've got in Cambridge what you're going to have in Milton Excuse me Tam but isn't that the whole purpose of the civil parking enforcement that's going to be brought in? No it's not the purpose of the civil parking enforcement is so that traffic wardens and park and ticket cars are parked inappropriately on yellow lines and you can't do that at the moment in South Cams you can do it in a city but you can't do it in South Cams that's what civil enforcement does is control parking where you've got yellow lines So if that's what we're going to bring in that's what we'll be brought in Yeah you can't do it at the moment but you will be able to do it in the future So that's why I'm saying could this money be ring ffenst for Milton because The money already includes Milton The reason I'm asking is that one kilometre of the site brings in also a lot of the Cowley Road site which is reasonable but I just wondered whether there is specific protection for Milton Absolutely No problem at all about putting Milton into the text in the 106 asking if it's possible for the amount to be increased if you're worried but it's not enough I think it's enough personally I think if we need to put in some yellow lines in Cowley Road or in Milton that some should be sufficient but I'm not averse to asking for 15,000 and if you're concerned about that but really yeah including me I'll take that time, 15,000 would be great and if we could put in the wording around Milton I'd be even happier Thank you Right May I mention minibuses? Minibuses, yes please do Tom Sorry thank you taking the liberty here but you were talking earlier about the minibuses There is actually currently a minibus for St John's Innovation Park and that goes from the innovation park to the same original station and this vitrium site will be able to benefit from that minibus so the employees can use that minibus as well as the existing employees in the innovation park so that's a really really good thing I'm sure if that minibus strategies you know successful St John's will look to improve it in the future and they may even put bus on it that goes to the park and ride in the future or other destinations so I think it's really good but there's one already at the moment and that's why there is no mention of one in the mitigation strategy Tom do we need to actually add that in would it be helpful to add that into the wording about the transport plan? I think it will be picked up it will be picked up automatically in the travel plan monitoring that takes place I think my raid was thinking about it being an informative I think that's a good thing so yes if that could be added as an informative that would be great, thank you right I think the next person that was my wishing to speak about parking but Councillor Stobart you are next and then we've got Councillor Smart thank you chair so a few things about cycling and then a few comments what is welcome is the fact that the cycle store is under cover on the face of it quite secure so that deals with two big issues but I'm just thinking about if you will the use case for the arrivals in the morning particularly a wet morning and the departures of an evening particularly when it's dark and just the thought of having to manoeuvre your bike in what's quite a restricted space when there are a lot of people around it just strikes me as not fitting with this sort of being concentrated in the corner of the building what's good practice for a cycle store is a uniflow arrangement so in at one end now to the other and space and to some extent we're spoiled by the benchmark I think of the grand arcade parking which is lovely that's what we should aspire to but I would accept that you know there often isn't space for that so I welcome the fact that it's under cover and secure but worry a little bit about how it will work out in practice but I think that is for the for the tenant to figure out in response to feedback now what is more of a concern is that little spot of Jane Coston bridge which is at the end of a slope and where traffic will be cycle traffic that is but there will also be pedestrian traffic criss-crossing I worry about the other speeds with which some of the cyclists come down that bridge you know it's very attractive to whizz along and on to Cowley Road but the situation is going to get a lot more complex so I'm glad Tom's on the line because I'm wondering if the priority structure around that end of Cowley Road to the front of the new building whether the priorities can be managed better you know spills on bikes don't kill people but they're really inconvenient and off-putting and so just making that work smoothly would be great particularly given the number of cyclists we're trying to encourage through this scheme and so third kind of substantive comment here they're just like a reassurance that the cooling capacity that's installed for this building even if it's going to be sealed and we're going to have overheating events cropping up with increasing frequency that there is sufficient cooling capacity whether it's by initial installation or by building in the headroom for new plants and equipment in due course that that can be managed and then just two brief things perhaps to be noted I'm intrigued paragraph 1015 I'm going to give you a page reference as well page 47 just this mention of to keep the vibration levels in the building low we need to use a concrete frame I'm not a structural engineer so I can't comment in detail but I'm surprised that we have to result to concrete to achieve vibration levels I don't think that's necessarily the case and I don't think there's anything we could do here except learn as a committee whether for R&D buildings which cryolo vibration levels quite accepted that we do always have to result to concrete as the construction or method I know that the comment in the papers just that's going to be minimised as far as possible concrete has good natural damping properties but let's be better informed about this and then finally we are living in the era we've just been talking about water a lot of stewardship and the fact that we can't enforce a monitoring regime doesn't stop us talking about it and suggesting to the developer that in the long term we would like to see water consumption hold to those values even at first occupation you know there may be people companies occupying the building that are a bit off the go in their use of water we'd like to be sure that that could be picked up and then dealt with so they're just a couple of comments at the end but I think the cycling provision I suppose it's really a note to the developer to say this could be an issue but I'm very concerned about the busyness of the foot of Jane Costin bridge and what we can do about it Thank you very much and so Murray, can you pick up the concept of perhaps some idea of one way access to and from cycle parking and whether that's something that can be discussed with the developer Yes, so I believe the way the store functions has been modelled in terms of peak arrivals and departures and arrivals would be true here and my understanding is that there is a way out this way so there is a sort of one way system and the store is designed to be able to cope with the kind of peak times at both sides Okay, and the other one just I will point out that at the southern landing point of the Jane Costin bridge there is actually a bollard in the middle of it to stop people herring down there too fast and because there is a wiggle at the end people need to be careful as they come off because it's not always obvious so there are design elements of the southern landing point of the bridge which actually make navigation around this area quite difficult so do you think there might be possible whether it might be possible time for or even Murray to actually look at that whole landing area the access vehicular access and whether that can be made safer ideally with priority for pedestrians then cycles then vehicles Hi, I'm happy to answer that one Thanks, Tom Okay The Jane Costin bridge on the cycle path down Cowley Road is subject to change because it's part of the water beach greenway and the Greater Cambridge Partnership are bringing forward the greenway they have done some drawings and done some public consultation live at the moment actually on the latest drawings for this area and I think one of the considerations that they'll have in their mind is what to do at the bottom of the bridge so it's kind of outside of scope of this application in terms of redesigning that area because it's the area that they're looking at as part of the greenway the contribution being made by the applicants to strategic transport transport is specifically to the water beach greenway because that, as you say, passes the site and is one of the main ways that I think people will get to this location from further afield in terms of access to the cycle park in the future when the St John's innovation park proposals that my raid was telling you about in their presentation come forward then they will actually build a cycle path on Cowley Road adjacent to the building that path will then tie in to whatever the greenway does at the bottom of Jane Causton bridge in the meantime the applicant is just providing a drop curb onto Cowley Road and cyclists will use the short section of Cowley Road between the bridge and the access to the cycle parking but then when the St John's site comes forward in the future then the cycle path will be built by them and the cyclists will have the benefit of using that cycle path so it's a joined up strategy and it should be really really good for this building in the future Thank you very much, Tam Can I just pick up my raid thank you for putting this plan up because one of the other things I wanted to ask about was the access to the car park is down ramps that go underneath the building yeah and the up ramp is the one to the north of that is it or is that two do they both do they go down and up on that ramp where your cursor is it's a two way ramp and I noticed that the access to the service area the vehicles will have to go forward and then reverse into that area and then they'll come out and forward gear won't they that's the way it's depicted on the sweat path then yes that's right that's showing that vehicles can turn and exit the cycle forward gear okay are there any other questions for the case officer okay so members of oh sorry Councillor Sparch yes it was about the thing we spoke about earlier but I didn't get in so you I mean Chair you've shown a particular interest in Milton and potential funding going to that ward but not declaring the interest as a local ward counciller I've note that the site is actually in King's Hedges and also close to King's sorry in East Chesterton and close to King's Hedges where I'm a counciller and I'd hope that any funding that was going to support Milton would also be going to those wards too as they are very close as is Milton sorry councillor smart thank you for reminding me I did discuss my the fact that I live in Milton with the legal officer the legal advisor and I've not taken part in any discussion I should have you're quite right I should have declared an interest in the outset but only in as much as to say that I have seen these plans in the same way as many of the public have I've not involved myself in any discussion of them as a local member and way back when the first application was proposed I think I I think I attended an exhibition but again I'm always very careful not only to ask questions and not to express a view so in that sense that's perfectly fine I'd quite happy to declare that if that's deemed necessary although in discussion it was felt that I didn't need to but fair enough yes if we need to have any works that money should be we were told it would go within a one kilometre area where we not yeah that's all fine chair I was just referring to the earlier conversation about power king and you know what time said I'm getting funding to Milton that was what I was getting on at fine I'll check I'll come in there I think officers have picked up messages about where the money ought to be spent Paris Ward and so forth so I think the terms of reference that we've got or that they're within the report are sufficient and we will go away and work up closer text to achieve what you're all pointing towards thank you very much Keith that's helpful right so members I don't think we've got any more questions I'm minded to go to a recommendation if you're in agreement with the amendment do you want to summarise any amendments and adjustments we've made thank you chair I will certainly have a go so we are taking two votes today there's two separate recommendations because as you'll recollect this is a cross boundary development proposal so there are two separate planning applications so if I can draw your attention first to page 78 of the paper agenda at section 25 of the committee report so we're first taking planning application reference 2301487 FUL so that's subject to and I'm not going to read these limbs out but the limbs relating to conditions and informatives which you'll find on section 26 and the requirement to complete a section 106 agreement with a number of changes which I'm going to summarise now so the first suite of amendments were as presented by Merade in her presentation and are also on the amendment sheet and they are number one modest changes to the description of the development number two updated wording to condition 20 which relates to green roofs number three updated wording to condition 36 which relates to burden back boxes and number four updated condition 35 in relation to water conservation I've also taken a note of a number of other updates as noted by yourselves as part of this committee discussion and I'm going to go through those now condition 14 in relation to hard and soft landscaping an update to ensure any replacement tree also benefits from five year protection condition 29 relating to the travel plan updated to include reference to car clubs and pool bikes an additional informative relating to the encouragement of the applicant to consider provision of minibus services to the site and beyond and then with regard to the section 106 agreement itself an update to table four in respect of parking restrictions in the surrounding area left to officers to review the heads of terms but to also secure an increase in the sum required to £15,000 I would suggest that as the proposed changes are modest they don't need to go back to chair and vice chair or sign off I'd accept that so members I just want to check do we need to take a vote for each yes ok so Mr Clifff this is now in respect of application 2301487 FUL hang on there was a knot that needed to come out wasn't there where was that was that in the amendment sheet yes so that's actually in the amendment sheet it's not in the text the amendment sheet incorrectly and condition 20 of just one of the commissions 23 or 1487 there is an additional mart that needs to be removed ok and so that comes in the amendment sheet ok so members with all those additional amendments and informatives so let's go to the recommendation for 2301487 slash FUL all those in favour with those amendments would you like to show ok that's unanimous is it not oh sorry sorry anybody against the application ok so that's one two three four five six seven eight nine and one abstention one against sorry so that's carried thank you and then the same recommendation but applying to 23 01509 slash FUL all those in favour would you raise your hands that's nine and any objections any what's the word thank you against so that's carried thank you very much members before you go I'd just like to remind you that we received a list of committee dates for the year 425 councillor Porro got a concern I just know that Easter's moved that year so April the 16th is actually the Wednesday just before Easter so it's A in a school holiday and B when probably most of us will be planning to be on holiday I think there's an extra Wednesday in the month so I think that might need to move to the 23rd because I just looked it up on the schools calendar and googled when Easter is because I think we normally try and avoid school holidays 5 that is the Easter bank holiday weekend so I suggest you'd like the date of April the 16th 2025 to be moved to the 23rd if that's at all possible I'm just suggesting because we normally avoid school holidays and I think Easter's jump two weeks later so thank you councillor Smart so aside from the sort of root and branch look at the dates I'd say the most easy fix that would make things better for people would be to have ten meetings in the year 2012 it might make things worse for planning but I mean the meeting in August is always difficult because people tend to go on holiday in August I'm meeting at Christmas during the seasonal break that time of year it's not easy either so that would be my suggestion but planning officers will have to consider that I think the it's important to have the date in but I know that officers would actually try quite hard not to assign applications to it if they don't have to be and that then that meeting could be cancelled but I think it's better to have it in our diaries as a potential date to be reviewed closer to the time does that make sense so members yes I'm just looking at the calendar we actually scheduled your extra planning committee so I'd need to maybe take away if I can do that yes so all of this subject to confirmation but it can be done don't worry we're not saying you have to we're just saying if we can and of course remember members these fit in with planning committee at City which I think is the first Wednesday of the month and South Cams which is the second so we fall on usually on the third one still right members thank you very much and we look forward to seeing you at the next meeting which is it's on a Tuesday December remember next meeting is on a Tuesday in December let me just say