Agenda item

To answer any questions asked by the public.

The deadline for receipt of public questions is midnight on Wednesday 15 February 2023.

The Council’s scheme for public speaking at remote meetings may be inspected here:

Public Questions at Remote Meetings 

The Chair explained that a request to speak from a member of the public had been refused as it did not accord with the Council’s public speaking scheme.

Nick Burton, of the Stop the Arc Group, stated that Councillor Bridget Smith had commented on social media on 28 April 2022 that the Government’s plans for the Oxford Cambridge Arc had been dropped and the reports of a million new homes in the area were nonsense. Mr Burton stated that Councillor Smith was the Council’s representative on the leaders’ group of the Arc and remained on the shadow board. He announced housing figures which indicated that the district’s share of the proposed one million new homes in the area were on target to be achieved but there was insufficient funding from Government for the infrastructure required. He asked if Councillor Smith considered her post on 28 April 2022 to be misleading and to explain what housing the Oxford Cambridge Arc sought to deliver.

The Leader replied that at the time of writing, Mr Gove had indeed indicated that the Arc would no longer be progressed by the Government.  Since then a more locally led pan regional partnership had received government funding, as set out in item 16 of this agenda. The Leader explained that her involvement in the Environment Working Group had been to continue to push for environmental improvements across the region, at a strategic level, to ensure that the Arc made the most of the opportunities for large scale environmental improvements, and for more joined up working across all authorities. The Leaders stated that the pan regional partnership had two key work strands – economy and environment, and aimed to harness the area’s incredible talent and innovation by championing the region as a world leader in research and innovation in hi-tech, high performance technology and manufacturing and acting to achieve environmentally sustainable and inclusive growth.

In response to the reference Mr Burton made to housing numbers, the Leader explained that this Council had not relied on the work of others, but instead to commission its own evidence on housing need, focussing on how the Greater Cambridge economy will grow in the future. The Council published evidence a few weeks ago that detailed the methodology that has been employed and the efforts made by our officers to provide the most accurate forecast possible for what will happen to jobs across our area up to 2041. The evidence concludes that in addition to the 37,200 homes already provided for in the adopted 2018 Local Plans, economic growth in the area indicated that the Council should plan for a further 19,700 additional homes. In the first proposals consultation in 2021, the authority suggested sites where some 11,500 of these new homes could be delivered.

The Leader stated that the Council had identified challenges in respect of future water supply and that until the authority could secure greater certainty around the resolution of this matter it would not commit to any more homes beyond those in the local plans. However, it was important to recognise that not providing enough homes to meet the needs of the new workers in the area would also have consequences, such as increasing commuting, higher carbon emissions, and further increases in housing costs. The Leader explained that this was why the Council was seeking to use every avenue it could to work with partners, including the Arc, to firstly identify the infrastructure required across this area and to then lobby Government with one locally representative voice, for the critical funding , which was required to underpin sustainable future growth in our area.

Nick Burton asked if development did not go ahead because of inadequate water supply, would the promised investment funding be allocated elsewhere. The Leader explained that water supply was essential to new developments above those already agreed in the adopted local plans, but it was the responsibility of the water companies and the Government. Partnership working was required to deliver development and the supporting infrastructure. The Leader concluded that she was happy to speak to Mr Burton’s group on this matter. The Pan Regional Partnership now had a website and the agendas and minutes of its meetings were now in the public domain.