Vision and Principles Community Workshop5.30Pm Thursday 14 January 2016

Vision and Principles Community Workshop5.30pm Thursday 14 January 2016

Attendees:

Tony EvansTim Leathes, U&C

Michael WilliamsonJonathan Kendall, Fletcher Priest Architects - U&C masterplanning

Jane WilliamsonJamie Benzie, LDA – RLW masterplaning

Oliver MerringtonDarren Bell, DLA – U&C Planning

Tina BryanStina Hokby, FPA, U&C Masterplanning

Myra GauntElliot Page, PBA – U&C Transport and Engineering

Chris PackerRebecca Britton, U&C

Vernon GoodingAndrew Fillmore, South Cambs District Council

Christine Gooding

1. Introductions and Scene Setting / Role of Development Framework Document

TL and JK set out the role of the workshops in helping develop the feedback from the Open Days and evolve those into establishing a Development Framework Document. The Open Days covered the Airfield and Barracks site, but one of the key pieces of feedback was that U&C needed to work closer with RLW to present a vision and cohesive plan for the whole of the land being promoted for settlement. If this was presented and consulted on together, it would be clearer for people to engage with and understand, and so input.

The Development Framework Document is a key part of this. It

• aims to set a high level vision covering both the former airfield and barracks (U&C site) and the land to the east up to the railway line (RLW scheme).
• sits as a step between the Local Plan high level allocation and detailed planning applications coming forward from each developer.
• aims to establish some shared principles and approaches, which can be agreed by local authorities, statutory partners and agencies, and the local community
• will be developed alongside U&C’s outline application, so that it informs the detail of that, and that the detail helps inform the vision, to ensure it is realisable.
• May have some formal weighting with the local authorities – who will provide input and views alongside key parties such as Natural England, Environment Agency and Historic England – and this is subject to further discussion as the process develops.
• will be a joint document, with U&C and RLW logos on at least and some clarification of the value/ use/endorsement by Local Authorities (LAs) as the process develops.

On structure and form, DB on the Planning side, added the DFD:

• is not a detailed Design Guide for what the new development will look like;
• will have a structure and layout agreed with LAs to ensure right subjects are covered;
• provides sufficient detail and evidence to give confidence, but will be a stepping stone to the detailed applications which will follow
• the outline planning application which comes forward from U&C will have a full Environmental Impact Assessment with many folders full of survey data. This will not be the case for the DFD, but it may well refer to current or future surveys as part of its setting out of principles and approaches.

Key content will be built from the discussions which follow on Vision and across each theme, so these workshops were key to helping the teams develop, test and refine that content.

Asked about the Local Plan Process, DB confirmed that SCDC were on target to agree and submit the modifications by end of March and that sessions on strategic matters in general are likely to be over by the Summer, but timing for a Waterbeach specific session is unclear. It is likely to follow on from the strategic matters and City sessions.

1. The Workshops

JK set out that a number of meetings have been held with individual Local Authority officers and partners to discuss key issues, understand local priorities and develop approaches. These have been paralleled with design workshops between U&C and RLW teams to develop co-ordinated approaches across the land ownerships, and with the input and follow-up discussions from the Community Open Days.

These workshops will be the first time that those discussions are pulled together across RLW, U&C and the local authorities, other key statutory partners and agencies, and the local community. The broad format is that there are 2 sessions per theme: one focussed on Local Authority officers and statutory agencies, and one with the community, but involving some key Local Authority officers who alongside the design team will be able to ensure the community voice is heard at each stage and that the developing approaches are tested against the knowledge, experience and views of local residents and groups.

Input needed from other parties or areas of expertise can also be agreed at each session. The outputs will be written up and fed through the DFD document and a minute of the community element written up and posted on the website for further comment and sharing.

U&C asked for general questions or points before the detailed discussions started:

• Upgrading of A10 essential: will scheme enable that or is it dependent on it?
• A10 Transport Study: timetable and how will this input. How can others input?
• Integration or separation from village is important to people: challenged by recent decisions, linked to 5 year Housing Supply
• Scale and density: how many homes over what timeframe and phasing
• How the timetable fits with Local Plan, and not just ours but East Cambs too: as that will also cause extra traffic to “land” on the A10
• How does this reflect Neighbourhood Plan work?

CP updated that initial vision from the Neighbourhood Plan work would be shared in the next 6-8 weeks. This was being drafted from all of the discussions that had taken place, and as an initial “draft” to then draw out additional comments and finalise. It was estimated the full Plan would be 12-18 months before finalised. RB stressed keen to see that and share the data and views we had – as we had on the Open Days – from these workshops, and to see the views and information they were using so that those views were heard through both processes.

1. Visions and Principles discussion

The Design team had some key headings to help frame discussions: drawn from NP themes and consultation discussions but clearly vision and principles all integrated and overlapping, so key element will be to capture views and ensure discussion and debate.

a)Identity and character in the local and regional context

Critical points from the discussion:

• Need to retain the character of the existing village
• Stop traffic coming through it: which threatens this
• Rail station is a key element of this for both factors:
• People driving to it and parking there causing an issue for local residents
• Many not wanting to move it, as it was easy to access for local people in current location

• This is a real period of flux and challenge, but also a sense that the nature of village has always been changing.
• The Barracks area was historically integrated, with the village, would we want it separated off now, and how would that impact on access to facilities by local residents?

Some consensus that the need was to keep the essence of that makes Waterbeach special, with its own identity and character – and that included traffic planning/management to ensure this - but also to integrate it with the new community: that is a continuum, not a new thing, but is about giving a new identity and form to that historic connection.

Discussion about historic development of villages: locations, uses. Does history / precedent give examples of new communities swallowing old ones? London or Cambridge do, but different in City expansion. Milton Keynes has some precedents, where historic villages were retained and protected as part of the plan, and are seen as attractive places to live within the place, but clearly that is on a scale not envisaged here and a very different location. Are there precedents of ensuring protection of villages against expansion?

Need to focus on options to develop transport links which meet some of those existing challenges and create new connections and access points which do not impact directly on the village. Options for potential environmental enhancements to protect identity at existing access points: eg to make them feel more “village-y”.

Group spoke about wanting “defined boundaries” / clarity on what village you are in. At the same time some discussion that residents define their own community around where there friends and facilities they use are. The village already has new developments with some localised community, and links with Landbeach and Chittering which some will feel more strongly if they have friends or activities there.

Nature of the new development as a “town” or as a cluster of villages which sit alongside existing. That makes a difference to the point above. If a series of localised neighbourhoods, then this is more in keeping with existing and evolved context.

b)Green Infrastructure:

Question around what people like about the area:

• Liked the village green in Waterbeach: central, open, used, was a focus for events.
• Discussed new areas like Levitt Lane, where a new piece of green space is not used. Space more used where there are play areas for kids, or recreational facilities for all ages.
• Caution against green space for the sake of green space or where location and use is not thought through. Maintenance is also key to any green and open space: expensive and awful if not done.
• Linking local green space with the wider walks and routes across the local area: SSSis, Wicken Fen etc
• Sense that Village Green changing, with loss of shops: central walking and meeting point shifting away from that, as village “grows”.

Discussion about range of shops lost from Waterbeach: co-op, bank, butchers, greengrocers, now Post Office. Was it due to the loss of the Barracks? No, many went before then, and consensus that it is due to changing habits from residents and Tesco etc being close by in Milton.

For new community: do you recreate that? Is it sustainable? High quality design and landscaping would be desirable. Use of green landscaping to help define communities and link people together, but also provide space between areas of development.

Positive feedback to suggestions about the restoration of historic links and settings: especially the Causeway connecting the village to Denny Abbey, and linking that story in with Car Dyke and through the military grid of the Barracks: layers of history.

Positive feedback to suggestions around celebrating fenland elements and use of water throughout a new development. Liked potential lateral/linear use of water features and parklands to mark historic line of runway. Positivity around the opportunity to combine the need for sustainable urban drainage systems for good water management, with a visible and integrated sense of water features and movement as part of the landscape and habitat planning

Very warm feedback to the maintenance of “inherited assets” including the woodland and grassland.

Question about whether given the flatness, there was the option of elevation and levels to improve views and have a view from each house: more tricky in Fenland environment but landscape commitment from U&C might make this possible?

Some concern that in having large amount of landscape and using inherited fixes, you might be increasing the density of the built form. Need to get the right mix of local / garden green space and the more strategic elements of the site.

c)Density/scale/facilities

These all have an impact on character and identity, but the discussion sought to also define the nature of this development, in the way its facilities complimented existing facilities in Waterbeach, Ely and Cambridge. What do people like? Not like? Feel is an issue at the moment?

Specifically looking at links to other locations: Ely, Cambridge, etc.: some discussion on retail and leisure and other facilities on the site. Sense that Ely’s Market is attractive people go there – knowing they would not be viable regular shops – but for the environment and products of a market. Option for market areas within the new development were welcomed: discussion that elements like that provide a sense of the new place as a destination, not a dormitory. People coming there. Local residents benefitting from that “offer”.

Some areas of “high Street” planned in a sort of village/town centre: might be one or a couple. Could be linked to location of schools. Eg have some elements of community facilities located in each primary school, to ensure they were at the heart of the localised community, with good walkable routes. And with more facilities centred around some core civic uses: the secondary school, health centre, library etc. U&C said unlikely to be large superstore there, as already a number in Ely and Tesco in Milton: but part of this process is to pick up those question. Sense this is about local shopping, and good links to the existing local and regional shopping offers. But might be the potential for niche offerings, eg farmers markets which link to that broader sense of character and identity. Scale would provide enough footfall to make that work.

Potential maps of locations of primary and secondary school were shared to demonstrate early thinking on walkable connections and clustering of facilities to link to bus stops etc. Positive feedback for masterplanning the centres in to maximise footfall and minimise car usage in people getting to them.

Question on whether U&C were under pressure to deliver more housing. RB response was that the scale linked to twokey elements:

• Sustainability – the scale you need to put in the facilities to make a sustainable community, eg so it does have a secondary school etc, but also to enable the necessary investment in transport infrastructure that everyone wanted to see. You need to allow for money coming in from housing to invest it in the infrastructure. The strategic approach meant that you could commit to and deliver upfront and paralleled investment in that infrastructure, if you have agreement on the amount of houses that can come forward. This would be agreed through the Outline Application process and Section 106 process and could be hundreds of millions of pounds on a scheme of this scale.

• Commercial return to the Treasury for reinvestment by MOD into defence infrastructure. That was a key and live challenge for U&C to deliver. But not to the detriment of the right vision for the site: that would be wrong, and also be commercially damaging. It is in no-one’s interest to bring forward a scheme with inadequate transport or facilities. This process is about getting those elements right.

Strong feedback that U&C need to consider cemetery space, community meeting space, and Children’s Centre / toddler groups etc. All an issue for local community as it is.

Health provision also questioned.

Numbers were discussed, with U&C testing their figure of 6,500 homes on the former airfield and barracks land through this process and a formal Environmental Impact Assessment. The overall figure which RLW and U&C would look to test for this site would be up to 10,000 homes. No sense that it could be higher than that, and it maybe that the testing process takes that down. Coming up with a viable and robust transport strategy, as well as approaches to community facilities etc, will be essential to ensuring that that number is viable. If not, it will come down. The Developers have to have a robust evidenced approach to ensuring that the number and new infrastructure and investment in existing infrastructure is sufficient to support it in the short, medium and long term.

d)Transport and Phasing

Sense that transport was a big issue to go into, and needed the detailed session, before maybe bringing that back to a visions and principle element. The group underlined the importance in getting that right.

The phasing and control of construction traffic was mentioned as being an issue that local residents would want to see addressed. RB said that U&C were committed to ensuring construction routes were always designed away from the village and would envisage putting in new accesses specifically for construction traffic. Also there were mechanisms to control that through contractual agreement, so that it could be agreed with the Parish Council and SCDC through planning, managed and policed through contractual and legal agreements, and then companies not complying would be fined or fired.

1. Ongoing communication and dissemination

Some useful feedback about options to keep people informed about the discussions:

-Noticeboard out the front with latest/next meetings etc

-Attendance at Feast with a stall

-Talking at local groups/events

And about sharing the maps shown and discussed in these workshops. RB/JK: not easy to do without the context of the discussion, but were looking to share the DFD as a draft document which provided the maps and narrative for information and for further feedback once these workshops had helped refined the core narrative and approaches.

RB to take away and think about options for sharing on website or in hard copies in advance. Further discussion needed with RLW as maps were shared across both sites.