Cambridge Great Park

February

BCR Infinity Architects are part of a multi disciplined team who all have significant professional experience and expertise in Cambridge and beyond. A number of us have lived most if not all of our lives in Cambridge.

Whilst the Cambridge Great Park (CGP) vision was put forward in the mid nineteen nine-tees, it was in 2018 that the vision for the Cambridge Great Park re-emerged again after 25 years of significant growth in Cambridge. This GCP vision has been taken forward by our team on a pro–bono basis.

We all recognise that Cambridge is one of the best cities in the world. Historically, it has consistently been one of the top ten universities in the world, which not one European university can claim. It is known for its academic excellence, its historic and modern architecture. Its geographic location as the administrative centre of East Anglia, close to capital city of London, Stansted airport, major road networks, and Technical hubs including Addenbrookes, Papworth, Science Parks and business Parks forming part of the London-Oxford-Norwich corridor. However, for those of us who live in Cambridge or in the surrounding areas can empathise with the article in the Ecologist magazine 2011, where Cambridge did not even manage to get into the top ten greenest cities in the United Kingdom. Newcastle-Leicester-Brighton-Bristol-London-Leeds-Coventry-Plymouth-Edinburgh-and Sheffield, with Copenhagen voted the greenest city in Europe.

As a City of national and world importance, the one significant aspect of this rapidly growing City is the palpable lack of Public Open Spaces within Cambridge and a complete absence of any genuine connection to the wider countryside for pedestrians and cyclists etc within the established perimeter road system created by the A14. A11 and M11. Cambridge cannot even claim to have Public Open spaces that can even compare to our low population neighbours with Newmarket Heath and Royston Heath. Currently the citizens of Cambridge have to rely on small pockets of unconnected public and private accessible spaces, which usually require public transport or a car with associated car parking. Others visit by car the popular country houses such as Wimpole, Audley End and Anglesea Abbey. These are now at visitor capacity too.

2020 is an extremely important year for the Cambridge Great Park for many reasons. For example:- Post Covid issues related to health and open spaces, etc – The Agriculture Bill and Environment Bill – Brexit and Europe – the present Local Plan study – Climate Change and Climate Health – Biodiversity and Green Spaces - Social Inclusion, well – being and Connectivity – ‘Great Places’. Car free access to Open Green Spaces - Respecting Agricultural Heritage/ land owners/and changes to future agriculture – The most important World Conference meeting (Cop26) to be held in the UK next year since the Paris Agreement 2015. UK Nett Zero reduction commitments by 2050. The need to create and restore existing ecological, hydrological and landscape features as a sustainable and future proofed resource to SUPPORT GROWTH OVER THE NEXT GENERATION AND FOR THE FUTURE GENERATIONS TO COME.

Looking to a sustainable and appropriate future for Cambridge, we see the CGP entirely located within the confines of the existing triangular shaped road network created by the present M11, A11, and A14. We see Cambridge and the surrounding CGP to be the ‘breathing heart to the City and CAMBRIDGESHIRE as a whole. We see the future CAMBRIDGE GREAT PARK ‘OPEN SPACE STRATEGY’ having an outreach to as many as fifteen existing villages all of which will be directly attached to the PARK, as will most of the existing open spaces for example:- Wicken Fen, Fulbourn Fen, Wilbraham Fen, Magog Down, River Cam Valley, etc etc.

During the last twenty -five years, Cambridge and the sub-region have rapidly expanded with a Planning Policy programme that has moved along predictable lines. For example, successive Planning Policy strategies can be seen to have taken a simplistic short-term approach to Town Planning.ie, nip and tuck with the green belt and generally the slow but sure expansion of suburbia.

In reality, what is needed is an integrated and coherent vision for the short and long term future for Cambridge, where the CGP would act as the ultimate environmental glue that binds together the open spaces around Cambridge in one guiding principle to determine Planning Policy for the next one or two hundred years.

In Town Planning terms, the creation of the Cambridge Great Park would be a Volte Face, and would establish a new development order and philosophy for all future expansion. The citizens of Cambridge will applaud the courage and conviction of the 2020 Planning Authority, and their advisors as visionaries of their time.

The concept of the CGP is not a static or sterile opportunity, nor is the present agricultural heritage which will inevitably change over time to deal with future food production requirements. In the short term the CGP would showcase our existing cultural heritage of the area, for example, the Roman Road (Via Devana) Devils Dyke and Wandlebury, etc. Each of the surrounding villages will have direct pedestrian and off- road cycle routes directed towards the City of Cambridge and across the Park linking villages together the surrounding villages and countryside.

We acknowledge that Town Planning is an intellectual process involving ‘imagination, foresight and sound judgement.’

When put into an historic context, the Cambridge Great Park vision is possibly the single most important environmental initiative in the history of the City of Cambridge.

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