On March 19 Cambridge City Council held an extraordinary meeeting to discuss its response to the Government consulation on “Establishing a Development Corporation in Greater Cambridge” – please read more and respond online.
Each councillor got three minutes to talk, and these are my speaking notes which i mostly followed. They reiterate the points I’ve made elsewhere. You can also watch the whole debate on the City Council YouTube channel.
Notes Towards a Talk
While we have concerns over the shape, function and makeup of a future Development Corporation, I think we should welcome the government’s recognition that Greater Cambridge will benefit from extra help and support.
We face enormous difficulties due to systemic, national-level constraints in water supply, waste water treatment, electricity grid capacity, communications, and transport.
So, if a devco can provide the national convening power and multi-billion-pound, long-term investment needed, we will embrace it.
However, we want it on our terms, working with elected local authorities not against us.
We want a development corporation to help us to deliver our ambitions, not countering them
To expand what is possible, not limit our potential
And to help deliver our promises to the people of Cambridge, made when they elected us.
So, what does that mean?
First, we must make sure it is properly democratic, with a board drawn from elected representatives and the wider community, including charities and civil society, rather than just the ‘pro-business’ makeup we see too often.
Second, we must think carefully about development and house-building. Unplanned growth outside our current ambitious plans could severely undermine the viability and delivery of the communities we are already building.
That means we should strongly object to transferring Local Plan-making and planning determination powers away from our local authorities.
I was reflecting on the last time that the planning powers of the local people were taken over by a central authority, and I think it might have been in 1068 when William of Normandy just decided to build a big castle on the hill outside town. Let’s not repeat that.
If the devco is given planning powers, it does not need a rival planning department; we already have the best Shared Planning Service in the country.
It should adopt a collaborative model, using our existing service to process applications, while perhaps retaining a shared committee solely for genuinely large, strategic sites.
And third when it comes to the environment we should take this opportunity to ask for MORE and BETTER.
This is an opportunity for government to do something special by properly acknowledging the importance of environmental limits.
I would like to see the devco given the legal power to set environmental standards higher than national policy, such as mandating 20% biodiversity net gain and high energy efficiency.
That way we can build to the highest possible standards and better protect areas like our vital chalk streams.
In conclusion, we may not have chosen to have a devco but I am confident we can make it work as long as we guarantee genuine democratic accountability, deliver exceptional environmental standards, and work with Shared Planning and the current and new Local Plans.
That is how we can deliver a truly resilient and sustainable Greater Cambridge.
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. I know every one of you does too.