1100 into 2022

Welcome to 2022, and let’s hope it brings us all better things.

I won’t be writing a full post this weekend as I’m spending it going over the 1100 pages of supporting papers for Planning and Transport Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday. There are some important issues on the agenda including:

• The Annual Monitoring Report for the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service, which documents progress against the 2018 Local Plan; and
• The decision to proceed to the next phase of approving the massive North East Cambridge redevelopment, which would lead to the relocation of the sewage works into the green belt, followed by the construction of 8300 dwellings and employment space to provide for 15000 jobs.

There has already been some discussion at the Opposition Councillors’ briefing about how fixed some elements of the latter already are, and what meaningful input councillors can make at this stage to elements such as the proportion of open space provided, and how biodiversity requirements will be met (onsite or offsite).

I’ll bring you up to speed with how the discussions go next week.