South Cambridgeshire District Council joins our 'Science Cities' at the West Hub
Future Cities Forum is delighted to welcome back Bridget Smith, Leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council to our 'Science Cities' discussion event at the West Hub.
South Cambridgeshire District Council announced last week that residents across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough can expect a decision on local government reorganisation by early 2027, the Government confirmed today (Thursday 29).
The timetable provides greater clarity for councils, residents and staff as work on local government reorganisation progresses following a pause in the programme announced by Government in September.
Elections to new Unitary Authorities are scheduled for May 2028 and their official launch – known as vesting day - is planned for 1 April 2029. Local elections scheduled in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough for May 2027 will still go ahead for existing councils.
Cllr Bridget Smith, Leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council, said:
“While we still await a decision on the future arrangements for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, it is important that residents know services will continue to run as normal throughout this process. Our focus remains on delivering the services residents rely on every day and ensuring any transition is as smooth as possible. Whether people depend on us for bin collections, housing support, planning, benefits or other vital services, they can be assured those services will continue uninterrupted. We look forward to learning more about the options being considered for our area and will keep residents updated as soon as further information becomes available.
In August, Bridget spoke at our forum hosted by the Wellcome Genome Campus on house building and water infrastructure:
'So we've been asking Government to come and intervene on the big blockers to grow for the last four years. So it's taken quite a long time to get to this stage. I'm not sure this is the right stage, though. Water is a crisis. We're very grateful for the water shortage group and the work they've done. It is only a sticking plaster though. We had 9,000 houses at Bourn Airfield on hold with the poor developers absolutely baying to go, and we couldn't because we just couldn't release it. We couldn't get the final approval for it. So what we have now is a tenuous agreement that that development can go ahead and probably the development in the current local plan can go ahead. So we've got 39,000 permissions, well, 39,000 permissions granted in the current local plan. We've got 77,000 houses, new homes identified in the emerging local plan, which will go to Regulation 19 (the formal pre-submission stage of a local plan) in a couple of months' time, hopefully, now that we've got a local transport strategy. Thank you, Judith. But, you know, we haven't got a full solution to those 77,000.
‘There are considerable risks over DevCo, and I met with the Minister (Matthew Pennycook) for the last time last Tuesday in a number of conversations. It feels like a sledgehammer trying to crack the wrong nut at the moment. We are officially the best planning authority in the country. 150 people, absolute experts. We're probably the only fully staffed planning committee. I'll just mention the four-day week, which actually played quite a large part in that, in our recruitment and retention issues. And we are more successful than anywhere else in the country in delivering for everyone.
‘I've been leader for eight years. I was elected originally on a high-growth, pro-growth ticket. I've just been, last month, elected for the third time, still on a high-growth, pro-growth ticket. So staff at Cambridge and Cambridge City are up for it, and they understand the reasoning for it. There is massive confidence in our planning authority, and what we're already seeing, and which I was talking to the Minister about on Tuesday, was that we're already seeing the wobbles in the market at the moment.
‘So, developers who are doing things like this (at Wellcome Genome Campus), which is incredibly exciting, and I'm so proud of what's going on here, are already going, well, what do we do? Do we keep on submitting our planning applications to you? Because, actually, come the end of the year it won't be you deciding it. Do we hold fire? You know, do we wait for the DevCo? What's actually going to happen? So, we're already seeing signs of a slowing of growth and uncertainty being introduced into the market.
‘Now, going back to the water issue, what we need government to do, and we do need them, is to unblock these big blockers. The water supply, the wastewater I mean, it was a disgrace that the half billion pounds was withdrawn for the wastewater treatment plant to be removed. You know, if I was being cynical, I'd say that that money's just been moved over to the DevCo. So, is the DevCo actually new money, or is it the money that was allocated towards Anglian Water to move the waterworks? I'll leave you to be a judge of that.
'So we've got short-term solutions. I have no doubt that they will build the Fens reservoir and so on, but the reality is that very, very large-scale strategic developments, which we have in our new emerging plan, we cannot time in until late 2040s, 2050, because the water is not going to be there in time.
‘We've got this historic deficit, a massive historic deficit in transport infrastructure. The city deal, which is over 10 years old now, was awarded to start dealing with the infrastructure deficit in the existing local plan, but of course, because of the timescales, it's now not enough. So we're £164 million short to deliver CSET (Cambridge South East Transport Plan), which is what will benefit all these very exciting sites in the south of Cambridge. So government are going to have to step up with the money. I do have my own views about whether actually they should be subsidising the water companies, but that's another one. But if they want to optimise the growth here, they are going to have to come up with the money, and the money that's on the table at the moment is paltry and lamentable, and they're going to have to wake up to the reality of the billions this will cost.’
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