On the evening of March 4 I took part in a public discussion about the government’s consultation on establishing a Development Corporation for Greater Cambridge, organised by the Cambridge Room, of which I am proud to be a Trustee.
We were joined by Peter Freeman and Beth Dugdale from the Cambridge Growth Company and Cllr Dr Tumi Hawkins from South Cambs District Council. Also on the panel was Eleanor Riley from The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government who talked through government context and details of the consultation.
Each of us was given a chance to outline our views, and these are the speaking notes I used – though I may have said something slightly different on the night.
The consultation on the Development Corporation runs until the end of the month and I urge you to read the papers and make your own contribution. And perhaps my notes will be helpful.
Notes towards a talk
Thank you all for being here. Today, I want to share my thoughts on the proposed development corporation (devco), and I have three main points to make: one is a common-sense point about democracy, one is a practical concern about the planning service drawn from my own experience, and the third is a more radical proposal for the future of Greater Cambridge, because the challenge today is not just acknowledging the devco and the government’s ambitions, but defining how we use it to deliver our wider objectives rather than just “business as usual” expansion.
First, we must address the democratic deficit that is too easily built into a centrally-led Urban Development Corporation. The government’s proposal relies on a top-down model where the board is appointed by the Secretary of State. While the proposal invites local council leaders and the combined authority mayor to sit on this board, having a few seats at the table is simply not enough for true democratic integration. To meet our challenges, the board must also include specific expertise in ecological resilience, local food policy, circular economics, and community or youth engagement.
If we are to maintain the trust of our communities, what you might call our “social license” to build, then democratic oversight must remain embedded in the day-to-day processing of policies and planning applications not just relegated to high-level board meetings. Civic society must be on the board if it is to be on board.
This brings me to my second point, which stems from my 35 years of experience as an architect and my seven years as the cabinet member for planning in Cambridge. My biggest concern is the future of the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service. We have built the best planning authority in the country, officially recognised as the Royal Town Planning Institute Planning Authority of the Year for 2025, but the current proposal threatens to strip major planning applications away from our local authorities and create a rival, parallel planning team to deal with applications. This could cause a “brain drain” as our talented staff are poached, potentially harm the career development of staff who will not get to work on larger application, and drain vital fee income from the local councils.
My message to the government and the devco is simple: Why don’t we just work together? You do not need to build your own planning department: we already have an award-winning one. Instead of a hostile takeover, we should implement a collaborative model. Under this model, the devco could retain its own separate decision-making team and planning committee for strategic sites, but use our existing Shared Planning Service to process the relevant applications. This keeps our expert team together, retains vital local knowledge, maintains developer confidence, and embeds that crucial democratic accountability we need.
We know this works, because it is how Cambridge City Council and South Cambs Council currently work together.
My third and final point is a more radical one. If we are going to have a devco, we need to be really honest about the future we are facing regarding climate change and resource scarcity and use its powers positively to counter them. The government justifies the corporation on the grounds of “nationally significant growth,” but we must argue that Greater Cambridge should instead be the frontline of “nationally significant resilience”.
Growth is about more than just housing numbers and we need to make this devco an example of the best possible practice for an “ecosystem-first” approach. To do this, I am asking that the devco be given the legal powers of “derogation” from national planning standards. Normally, derogation is used to opt-out of rules in order to weaken them or not to apply them, but we want the power to override the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) to set much higher environmental standards than the rest of the country.
For example, if national policy caps biodiversity net gain at 10%, we want the devco to have the explicit legal power to mandate 20%. We also want high energy efficiency standards. And we must expand the definition of “infrastructure” beyond roads and pipes to include food infrastructure and supply chain resilience, protecting our agricultural land and promoting local building trades.
The devco is coming. Our task is to ensure it is not a blunt instrument for housing numbers and growth, but a precision tool for resilience. By demanding a mandate that goes beyond the NPPF on energy efficiency and biodiversity, and by integrating their powers with our Shared Planning Service, we can use this development corporation to deliver our vision: a resilient, affordable, and sustainable Cambridge
If we want Cambridge to be the best city in Europe, and make Greater Cambridge the best place to live and also a major contributor to the UK’s economy, then we won’t achieve that simply by going for growth on the old terms. We need to think about placemaking on the larger scale and all that implies. Inclusivity. Community. Culture. Being a place of refuge. And working collaboratively across all levels of government. One day the devco will be gone – we want it to leave a legacy that those who design and run it, and all those who come after, can be proud of. Surely everyone here does too?