80 new homes approved for This Land’s new Eddeva Park development to south of Cambridge

Eighty new homes for farmland to the south of Cambridge have been approved by city councillors.

They will form part of the Eddeva Park development off Babraham Road from This Land Ltd, the housing development company set up by Cambridgeshire County Council.

Outline approval was granted in 2021 for up to 230 homes to be built on the site and details of the main spine road were approved last year.

A This Land representative told a planning committee meeting on Wednesday (July 5) that work on the road was expected to start “immediately”.

The representative told councillors they had taken a “design-led approach” to the new homes and had made adaptations after initial concerns were raised, including around the amount of space offered in some gardens and space needed for bin lorries.

The application was recommended for approval by planning officers, who said in a report that the scheme “supports the aims of sustainable development with a range of measures”.

The 80 new homes will include a mixture of detached houses, terraced homes and flats, with 40 per cent available as affordable housing.

A central square, wildflower meadow and areas for children to play are planned.

A play area with play equipment is not included in the plans, but a planning officer explained one is expected to be included in the next phase of the development.

Cllr Katie Porrer (Lib Dem, Market) was “generally broadly happy” with the plans, but was still concerned about whether the gardens offered enough space and questioned why only 45 per cent of the flat roofs were “biodiverse” when she said the authority “normally insist they all are”.

She asked for the community square to have an electricity supply installed, so that pop-up events and businesses would not need to use diesel generators.

Cllr Martin Smart (Lab, King’s Hedges) also thought it was “a bit dodgy” that not all the flat roofs were biodiverse, as council policy demands it unless there were accessibility reasons why they could not be.

The planning officer said some of the flat roofs were proposed to be private roof terraces.

The officer considered the garden and balcony sizes “on balance to be acceptable”, as there was a choice for some to buy a home with a larger garden in the development. There would be room for a table and chairs on the balconies, although the officer recognised it would be “tight” in some of them.

A couple of councillors wondered whether the main road would become a “rat run”.

Cllr Naomi Bennett (Green, Abbey) asked whether cameras could be installed along the road to monitor this, but officers explained that as the road already had planning permission it was “too late” to make that a requirement.

Cllr Dave Baigent (Lab, Romsey) was concerned the cycle parking proposed in four of the homes did not meet the authority’s policy requirements as it was not as accessible as the car parking.

Officers explained that in these four cases the cycle parking was not much further away and was still accessible. They said the developer had tried “but could not quite manage it with four of the properties”.

Cllr Baigent suggested fewer houses could have been built to provide more room.

When a decision on the application was put to a vote, the committee councillors voted unanimously in favour of approving the plans.