Councillors: 1000 new homes on edge of Cambridge should be REJECTED
The final decision now lies with the planning inspector
Plans to build up to 1,000 new homes on the edge of Cambridge should be refused due to water supply concerns, councillors have said.
Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council have said the plans for the next two phases of the Darwin Green development should not be approved.
The Environment Agency objected to the application as it said it had not seen evidence the new homes could be supplied with water sustainably.
Despite the council’s concerns, the authorities are not able to stop the plans at this stage after the developer took the decision out of their hands by lodging an appeal with the planning inspectorate.
The outline application proposes to build up to 1,000 new homes, as well as a new primary school and secondary school, shops, community facilities, and a new country park.
The developer, Barratt David Wilson Homes and The North West Cambridge Consortium of Landowners, lodged its appeal on the grounds of non-determination, as the planning authorities did not issue a decision within the statutory time limit.
This means the application will now be decided by a planning inspector.
At a meeting of the city and district council’s joint development and control committee this week (October 30), councillors unanimously agreed to ask the planning inspector to refuse the plans.
The developer has faced problems in the current phases of the Darwin Green development, with 83 newly built properties needing to be demolished due to faults with the foundations.
The affected properties are a mix of fully and partially built houses, with some slab and footings only. The developer said no one had yet moved into any of the impacted properties.