We note that hot on the heels of the actual public consultation process and before the development at Bourn Airfield has even been approved, Countryside Properties are inviting local people to two public exhibitions*. Their rather smart flyer, which arrived in households in Bourn today, invites us to a public exhibition of their plans for the new village. if this wasn't cynical enough the image adorning the flyer, showing a classic English country village with smart houses and acres of green around them, is dishonest to say the least. Our analysis, as well as that looked at by SCDC, has clearly indicated that the housing density on the space available will have to be extremely tight in order to accommodate the intended 3,500 new homes. It is for this reason the plan has been modified to encroach even closer to Caldecote village - simply to fit them all in. To achieve a development such as this portrays, they would need to be building tower blocks just to fit in the rest of the residents!

We think this is a cynical and dishonest attempt by Countryside Properties to win local support. What do you think?

* The public exhibitions are taking place in Cambourne and Bourn Airfield - nothing seems to have been planned for Caldecote.

The additional land added to the site proposed in Modification SCMM078 will further exacerbate the problem of ribbon development along the A428 and mean that villages will lose their character and identity.

For example, the proposal will mean that the new development will end up within 50m of Highfields Caldecote, removing its identity as a separate settlement. In addition, recently the completion of a further 950 homes in Upper Cambourne has brought houses right up to Bourn Broadway. With the recent approval of 2350 houses in West Cambourne it means there will be a contiguous ribbon of
development from Hardwick in the east right up to the Caxton Gibbet roundabout and the A1198 in the west, a distance of 8km. The villages of Highfields Caldecote, Caxton and Bourn will all be subsumed within a Greater Cambourne strip development.

Developers have repeatedly claimed that the individuality and physical separation of existing and new villages will be maintained. This has been shown to be a false. There is no physical separation between Greater, Lower and Upper Cambourne and there will, in future, be no separation between the new proposed settlement, Upper Cambourne and Hardwick. Any assurances that this is not the case are worthless.

The purpose of the Green Belt is to: prevent unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas; prevent neighbouring towns merging into one another; to safeguard the countryside from encroachment and to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns (villages). These protections should also be applied to those communities south of the A428.

It is also repeating the argument made in 1992, when Bourn Airfield was being considered as the site for Cambourne, that it was unsuitable for a settlement of such size. The Planning Inspector in 1992 submitted a report that stated the “generally small and cramped nature of the site”. He went on to say that, “the Bourn Airfield proposal does lack sufficient room within its boundaries to give adequate separation (from Highfields Caldecote)”. He thought the proposal for only 3,000 dwellings (the current proposal is for 3,500) “would produce a tight development, which when considered in the context of the existing rural character of the area and its proximity to Highfields would appear cramped and too urban in it form and character for this rural area”. These comments were made when Highfields Caldecote was less than half its present size and before the A428 was widened, reducing the size of the Bourn Airfield site by 10 hectares.

The consultation on the Main Modifications to the Local Plan closes on Friday 16th.  The Plan is heavily reliant on new settlements and much is promised in the Local Plan documents supporting this development strategy.   Plans for Bourn Airfield include 'shops, services, leisure and other town centre uses of an appropriate scale for a Rural Centre' as well as 'employment development of a quantum type and mix to meet the needs of the new village'. But are these deliverable?

Cambourne is now 20 years old and a quick photographic survey (see above) of this new settlement clearly shows that it has failed to deliver on similar promises. Cambourne Business Park remains largely unlet and the High Street is effectively an expanse of grass. The promises to deliver a town centre and significant employment in Cambourne have not been fulfilled and here we are making the same empty promises for Bourn Airfield and other new settlements. Isn’t it time we all woke up to the empty spin? ​

In the last couple of weeks we have received many comments from residents who have found SCDC's consultation process cumbersome and difficult to complete. SCDC's online consultation portal has been found to be clunky to navigate through, complex and very time-consuming. The downloadable form (see here), whilst much simpler, still requires cross-referencing between different online pages and a degree of prior knowledge and information. 

We consider that this process has lacked the requisite accessibility, plain English and opportunity to encourage the engagement which government stipulates such consultation should enable. Even those of us involved in StopBAD for a number of years and with huge amounts of information and documentation behind us, have found this a lengthy and confusing process. We are concerned that many people will switch off either because they lack the time needed or through sheer frustration. 

We'd love to hear about your experience. Have you taken part in the consultation yet or tried to? How did you find it? Please do share your comments below - if the process has proved an obstacle to putting your views forward, we will make this known.