Cambridge has been highlighted as one of 15 cities in the UK that could collectively provide five million new homes – if developers are allowed to build on green belt land.
Influential think tank Centre for Cities identifies land within commuting distance of the UK cities that it states should be the target for major housebuilding and new towns, but nearly two-thirds of the land is in the green belt.
Centre for Cities is urging the government to reform green belt rules
And it says this large increase in housebuilding could net £6.4billion per year to fund infrastructure and community facilities – such as public transport, social housing and schools – if the government secures a share of ‘windfall’ increases in land values for the public purse.
Now Centre for Cities is urging the government to reform green belt rules and other measures to release this land for development within the planning system.
But Cambridge city councillor Jean Glasberg (Green, Newnham) warned that any extra development on the green belt was “magical thinking” in the face of the unresolved water shortages faced by the area.
The Centre for Cities report comes amid government pressure for Cambridge to maximise its economic potential, with Cambridge Growth Company set up to accelerate housebuilding in the area.
In the report, titled ‘Restarting housebuilding III: New towns and land value capture’, Centre for Cities estimates that “a total of £193billion could be generated over a 30-year period if the government combines increases in housebuilding with more effective tools for capturing and reinvesting the revenues from the development.
“If split between funding affordable housing and transport upgrades, for example, the annual amount could cross-subsidise the building of 18,500 social homes and 50 miles of new tram lines every year.”
These calculations are based on the idea that the government should buy or compulsory purchase agricultural or other inexpensive land close to cities at its current value before it becomes more expensive due to planning permission being granted for the site. This is termed “land value capture”.
The report says: “The land value uplift would be captured by the development corporation as it assembles land at close to existing use value, prepares plots with planning permission, and then sells them to housebuilders at market value.
“Any difference between the revenue from sold plots and the cost of assembling land, preparing it with basic infrastructure and running the development corporation, would be used to help fund the rest of what the new town would need – schools, GPs, major transport infrastructure upgrades, environmental improvements, and affordable housing.”
These are the sites for potential new towns around Cambridge identified by the Centre for Cities think tank.
This report identifies possible locations for large-scale urban extensions, each with good access by public transport to one of 15 least affordable cities in the UK. The selected cities are London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle, Nottingham, Bristol, Brighton, Bournemouth, Exeter, Oxford and Cambridge.
On a map released by the think tank, 26 per cent of the viable development land identified around Cambridge is in green belt. However, if one starts with the locations nearest to Cambridge, this is much higher, as the map shows. Development on all of these sites would lead to a 11.3 per cent reduction in the total green belt area around Cambridge, the authors reveal.
Cllr Glasberg said: “Opening up the green belt around Cambridge will not address the housing shortage in this area and this employment-led development will exacerbate it because of the thousands of people who will come to work in all the new labs and offices.
“In choosing this region, the driest in the country, as the area for greatest growth the government, egged on by powerful interest groups, is disregarding the serious concerns of the water regulators, Ofwat, Defra and the Environment Agency, about the ability of Cambridge water to meet this greatly increased demand without ‘risk to the environment and security of supply’.
“‘Water credits’ have been invented by a new ‘Water Scarcity Group’ to allow development to go ahead regardless, but how these might work is not known. New reservoirs and pipelines are proposed, but a recent report by Stantec says it will be years before they are functioning even if the huge amount of funding needed can be secured, and ‘water credits’ cannot be relied upon to ‘fill the gap’ in the meantime.
“In this city, famed for its scientific research based on data and evidence, why are the voices of experts not being heard, and facts and logic being being swept aside in favour of magical thinking?”
Wendy Blythe, chair of the Federation of Cambridge residents Associations (FeCRA), echoed these concerns, saying: “Until the water shortage in the Cambridge area is resolved there is no point in entering into any discussion about opening up the green belt for further housing expansion.
“The Centre for Cities report proposes that the government should open up green belt land around Cambridge to enable urban expansion where it would be most profitable and could fund the most public transport etc through developer funds.
Wendy Blythe, chair of the Federation of Cambridge residents Associations (FeCRA) Picture: Keith Heppell
“But the development plans for the Cambridge green belt are not about funding the best public transport. If that were the case better transport alternatives with a much higher benefit to cost ratio would have been considered, rather than the damaging Cambourne to Cambridge busway which requires the destruction of Coton Orchard, or CSET, which impacts the River Cam and Nine Wells [Hobson’s Brook] and prime agricultural land. The best transport options are not being considered because they do not offer developers the possibility of developing the lucrative Cambridge green belt close to London.”
The Labour leader of Cambridge City Council, Cllr Mike Davey (Lab, Petersfield), said: “I think it is important to ensure that you have a nature belt, or something that preserves green space, because otherwise people won’t want to come to Cambridge. So it is self-defeating, unless you protect our environment and our nature.
“One of the reasons why Cambridge is attractive to people is that there is so much green space, so the one thing we mustn’t do is then destroy it. Alongside proposals around housing there has to be proposals around what green space we keep, and that therefore is inherent within any decisions that are made.”
He also acknowledged that currently there was not enough water supply or national grid capacity for more development.
“The Labour government’s number one mission is growth,” he said. “We can’t do all the nice stuff we want to do unless we have got growth. Cambridge is the number one place in the country to deliver growth. So that’s why we’re doing it.
“We now have to find solutions for water (shortages), and equally important is going to be the grid. We now have to find solutions, to find the route whereby we can achieve that while taking into account the water shortages, and taking into account the green space issues, and creating a sustainable future for our city.”