New homes will engulf villages, say campaigners

Thousands of new homes proposed for the edge of two villages would "completely engulf" a community and were a "panic plan", campaigners said.

Grange Farm, near the Abingtons in south Cambridgeshire, could see 4,500 houses built alongside employment space, retail and community facilities.

Anna Ross, from the Save Abington Village Environment group, said the proposals were "very last-minute", after plans for new homes to replace the sewage works in Cambridge were cancelled over cost.

Proposals previously said 6,000 homes would be built at Grange Farm but Henry Batchelor, South Cambridgeshire District Council's lead cabinet member for planning, said "capacity" had been reduced after consultation.

Details of the proposals are included in the most recent version of the draft Greater Cambridge Local Plan, which was published this month.

The plan is a legal document councils have to prepare that sets out the future use of land and will shape how the area grows over the next 20 years.

The plan stated the Grange Farm development would be a "thriving and sustainable new settlement" and play a "vital role in locating high-quality new homes close to existing employment areas".

It added that the plan would be to "maintain the distinction between Grange Farm and neighbouring villages, in terms of character and physical separation".

Ross said after plans to redevelop land near Milton that currently accommodates sewage treatment works fell down last summer this was the replacement.

"This was put in very last-minute. It's huge... it's completely ecologically unsound, for the community it's unsound... a complete panic plan," Ross said.

The campaigners' concerns include water provision - the area is currently subject to a hosepipe ban - and the planning documents stated the settlement was "subject to the necessary water infrastructure being available".

Ross said the group was "not anti-new homes", adding: "I'm 35, I'm of a generation that's also struggled to afford homes. So have the generations below me."

But she said the cost of infrastructure would be a "huge amount of money" and "what we see tends to happen with these types of sites is then the first low-hanging fruit to go is the affordable housing".

Ross added: "It's on arable farming land, it's on a chalk aquifer, it's next to one of the busiest roads which has a really high fatality rate.

"It just reeks of panic planning."

She believed the size of the development needed to be rethought, as the current plans would "completely engulf the community".

Retired architect James Snell has lived in the area for 30 years and said: "As a village, we embrace change and we very much support the idea of a village hub being supported by more people, who contribute more to the village.

"This is not a question of a few houses, 4,500... is well outside an expansion of a village, it's a new town on the side of a village."

The development is near the A11 and A1307 and he said they "can't see how the existing [road] network could support 4,500 homes".

"A new settlement needs to be a new sustainable, self-sustaining settlement with its own junctions off major roads, its own ability to cope with its own traffic. This is not this," he said.

Liberal Democrat councillor Batchelor, whose ward includes Abington, said the Local Plan had followed "extensive public engagement".

"As part of this process, further evidence on heritage, ecology, landscape and transport has also informed proposals for land adjacent to the A11 and A1307 at Grange Farm, resulting in a reduction in the capacity of the site and development of more detailed policy requirements," he said.

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