Cambridge Biomedical Campus ‘needs a masterplan now’ say frustrated councillors

Urgent calls for a masterplan for the Cambridge Biomedical Campus have been made by councillors after they heard it may not be delivered until 2024 or later.

A number of new planning applications for the campus are expected, but councillors fear they will need to judge them without an overarching plan for the fast-growing site.

Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council members discussed the matter last Wednesday (June 21).

Cllr Anna Bradnam (Lib Dem, Milton & Waterbeach) told the joint development control committee that a masterplan had been requested for two years.

She said councillors wanted to understand what the wider plans for the site were, including how transport, public navigation, power and water will be incorporated, to show it was not being developed in a “piecemeal” way.

Officers said it was a “reasonable assumption” that the earliest a plan could be put in place was 2024. However, it was also suggested it may be better to wait until after the joint Local Plan - due to be submitted for examination in 2025 - was adopted.

Planning officers explained that if a masterplan was put together now, it would have to be based on the existing site, and could only have a “shelf life of two years” should it be decided through the Local Plan to expand the campus into green belt land to the south.

Cllr Bradnam said she was “slightly uncomfortable” to be waiting.

Cllr Simon Smith (Lab, Castle) argued the masterplan was “needed now”, and said he did not want to be in the same position as previous years looking at planning applications without an overall plan for the site.

He said: “I think the officers need to go away and have another careful look at the work programmes and discover that this is a top priority.

“I think this is a strong political signal that we need to give to the officers, we need to get on with this, because we have got all these forthcoming planning applications.

“We have been signalling this strongly to you for over two years and I do not want to be sitting here trying to make a decision on a planning application that is set out of the context of a wider site.

“Please reprioritise your work programmes. Get on with it. If it is a budget matter that can be addressed at the member management board by the two representatives on that board in this committee chamber, and let’s come back and make that progress please.”

Cllr Dr Tumi Hawkins (Lib Dem, Caldecote) appreciated that the councillors needed to see a more up-to-date plan, but said the planning policy team was “overwhelmed”.

She said: “I would love to do it yesterday. It is not something easy to do, but we will look at it.”

Cllr Smith said additional funding for the work had been channelled from the government to the Greater Cambridge Partnership, and asked: “Where has that money gone?”

Cllr Hawkins asked if the discussion could be taken up outside of the meeting.

The campus - home to Addenbrooke’s, the Rosie and Royal Papworth hospitals, plus research institutes and businesses including AstraZeneca and Abcam - is due to welcome two new hospitals in the coming years: a cancer research hospital and children’s hospital.

The partners who run it have a 30-year vision for major expansion, with businesses, homes, retail and green space.