Planning in Cambridge
past, present and future

2024 marked Colin Brown’s 30-year anniversary as a Cambridge-based planning consultant. Carter Jonas’ Head of Planning & Development has made considerable progress since he was appointed as a junior member of the then small Bidwells’ planning team in 1994, but, despite his more recent firm-wide responsibilities, he continues to be active in the Cambridge market.

A career encompassing the evolution of the planning consultancy

In 1994, relatively few specialist planning consultancies existed. The majority of planners worked for local authorities, while private sector planning consultants tended to be employed by general surveying practices whose planning teams were fairly modest in size and supported internal teams predominantly.

From the mid-nineties onwards, as the planning process became ever more complex, the private sector grew, and new consultancies emerged. Colin joined a local privately owned property consultancy, Januarys, in 2000, and over the next 15 years he built its number of planning consultants to eight. Whereas previously Colin’s clients were typically University colleges and local landowners, Januarys had a more commercial client base and generally represented occupiers and developers.

In 2015, with increasing consolidation in the sector, Januarys was acquired by Carter Jonas – in what turned out to be a career-boosting opportunity for Colin and his fellow directors. For Januarys, the ethos of Carter Jonas (also a privately owned partnership) was a good cultural fit and opened up opportunities across a network of regional and national offices, including a headquarters’ office in central London. For Carter Jonas, Januarys provided a fresh network of established Cambridge clients and connections, and its Cambridge Planning & Development team doubled in size.

1990s Cambridge

When Colin first arrived in Cambridge, he knew little about the city other than the fact that its University connections gave it significant economic potential. “Cambridge was a very different place thirty years ago,” says Colin. “Outside of the college walls it was – compared to today – a bit of a cultural desert. There were no great restaurants, few leisure facilities and only a small cinema. Shopping was generally poor and John Lewis, which was spread across several buildings, was on the verge of leaving the city centre, as was M&S.

“But Cambridge is a very liveable city, with a good quality of life, great open spaces and a historic centre. It has a unique quality which has insulated it from the economic pressures which have existed at times only a few miles up the road.

“Thirty years ago, local leaders had adopted an arguably somewhat insular approach, pursuing a policy of selective management of the economy - essentially restricting development to that which could demonstrate a clear need to be in Cambridge, principally due to close collaboration with the University.

“A manifestation of this approach was the tightly drawn Green Belt, which had surrounded Cambridge since the 1960s and which remained sacrosanct. This led to the significant expansion of nearby towns: as Cambridge’s employment base started to grow as a consequence of the success of new and existing businesses, this gave rise to a need for more housing and much of the development land needed to support Cambridge was pushed beyond the Green Belt in a 8-15 mile radius - to places including Ely, Haverhill, Royston, Huntingdon, St Ives and the newly created new town, Cambourne. This then led to considerable traffic congestion on the routes into Cambridge as workers had to struggle back into the city.”

A Cambridgeshire-wide approach

However, the approach to development began to change in the late 1990s with early work on the production of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Structure Plan, which reflected the realisation by local leaders that that the strategy of economic and housing dispersal from Cambridge was not serving the area well. The Plan, which was eventually published in 2003, significantly watered down policies mandating the selective management of the economy, revised (and released parts of) the Green Belt and proposed Northstowe as a further new settlement.

“It also marked the advent of a number of now well-known development sites around Cambridge, including Trumpington Meadows, Clay Farm, the Cambridge Biomedical Campus and developments such as Eddington and Darwin Green. Alongside this, the ‘Cambridge Phenomenon’ moved up a gear; technology, life sciences and pharmaceutical / medical research businesses prospered, and the area became an even greater economic success.”

Cambridge today

As a consequence of some of these changes in local policy, and simply as a result of world-class innovation, the return on investment in Cambridge today is greater than anywhere else in the country and the city’s population has grown from approximately 100,000 in 1994 to more than 150,000 today.

“The opening of the Grand Arcade shopping centre in 2007 was another important milestone,” explains Colin. “Located in the centre of the city, its development was complex, requiring multiple CPOs. But it has successfully addressed the dearth in the retail sector, enabling the likes of John Lewis to maintain their presence and expand into attractive new retail spaces rather than relocate to out-of-town sites - which had been a genuine threat. This investment has had a positive knock-on effect on the nighttime economy and on local culture and we have seen an economic transformation of the city centre.”

Today, a large proportion of development in Cambridge remains contingent on the University and its colleges who own a lot of land and property, but there are also significant numbers of institutional owners who make key decisions in shaping the City. This has given rise to some concerns from local Cambridge residents; that their needs are not being accounted for and decisions are not being taken in their best interests. But is there any truth in this? Colin explains, “Within the development sector there’s still something of a sense that the University and those who align with it have an unfair advantage, especially with the recent proliferation of the life sciences sector. And clearly local people are impacted by high house prices and a historical deficit in infrastructure – both of which are reflective of historic planning policies and the fact that growth has outstripped all expectations.” Despite these strongly held views in some quarters, however, Colin still believes that the majority view would be supportive of the growth and employment opportunities that have been created.

Colin accepts that Carter Jonas has been one of the winners from the success of Cambridge: “There is no doubt that we have benefitted from some very interesting and successful projects connected to the wider growth of Cambridge, in the housing, life sciences and regeneration sectors.”

Carter Jonas was recently appointed as a key member of the consultancy team of Cambridge Civic Quarter, which will reimagine Cambridge’s Market Square, Guildhall and Corn Exchange to create a new civic quarter in the historic heart of the city.

Colin and his team have also played a major role in addressing the housing needs of the area, working with Cambridge Investment Partnership to deliver sustainable affordable housing, putting in place the masterplan for East Barnwell (one of the city’s most deprived neighbourhoods), and helping provide homes for the homeless through work with the charity It Takes a City.

In the life sciences sector, Carter Jonas has been involved in projects on the Biomedical Campus, at Granta Park, on the Cambridge Science Park and on other standalone schemes such as the Kadans scheme currently under construction at Merlin Place, Milton Road.

The future of Cambridge

The principle of building on an already successful local economy, which spurred housing and employment growth in the 1990s, is set to stimulate further expansion in the decades ahead.

The last government proposed almost doubling the size of the city in its highly ambitious plans for Cambridge 2040, later rebranded as Cambridge 2050, and the Cambridge Delivery Group was formed in 2023.

The new government has not specifically sought to reverse this Tory initiative, however it is adopting a more nuanced approach and is reconnecting with local leaders. “We’ve moved on from Michael Gove’s statements about doubling the number of new homes,” says Colin. “But he knew what he was doing, and he undoubtedly got the conversation started. Even local politicians who are of a different political perspective, have recognised this. The October Budget committed £10 million enable the Cambridge Growth Company (the new name for the Cambridge Delivery Group) to investigate and report on an ambitious plan for the housing, transport, water, and wider infrastructure needs of the area.

“Whereas local leaders definitely found Michael Gove’s somewhat bombastic approach unhelpful and far from collegiate, they’re seeing a more consultative approach from this government,” says Colin. The Cambridge Growth Company, working with local stakeholders, has asked to consider the potential for a development corporation to drive the growth, which seems a likely outcome. But consideration needs to be given to how will this work with the existing governance structures – would a development corporation have wide-ranging powers to make plans and determine applications, with the local authorities being little more than local consultees? This may not be entirely straightforward to achieve but if the ambition for the area is to be realised, we will probably have to do things quite differently to how they have been done in the past.

“What I think we will need is a spatial vision, and a sub-regional plan may prove to be the way to do that. This is likely to imply the setting up of a full-blown development corporation, with land assembly and comprehensive powers.”

Conclusion

Clearly in the 30 years that Colin has worked in Cambridge – and partly thanks to his teams’ involvement – the city has harnessed its strengths in academia and innovation, to create a prosperous economy that is the envy of many. The once small academic town has evolved into a vibrant city of global significance.

With the evolution far from complete however, the opportunity remains huge - as are the obstacles: addressing considerable wealth disparity, providing the necessary homes to mitigate the housing crisis, managing Green Belt release but also maintaining the city’s distinctive character. Despite the unique challenges that development in Cambridge faces however, Carter Jonas’ Cambridge Planning Team looks forward to playing an active role in this next stage of the city’s development