At an Extraordinary Full Council meeting on Thursday 19 March, Cambridge City councillors voiced objections to the government’s proposals to remove planning powers from local councils and to pass them to a new Development Corporation.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is consulting on plans to establish a centrally led Development Corporation for Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire to “enable a transformational long-term approach to delivering high-quality sustainable growth”. Thursday’s meeting was called to debate how Cambridge City Council should respond to the government’s consultation.
MHCLG is proposing that the new Development Corporation would become the local planning authority for major planning decisions above a certain threshold – removing that responsibility from the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning (GCSP) service which Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire District councils share.
It would also replace the councils’ role in preparing Local Plans after the conclusion of the current emerging joint Local Plan. This would mean that, in future, decisions about where new homes and jobs come forward across Greater Cambridge would be made by the Development Corporation, rather than by local communities through the councils.
The area covered by the proposed Development Corporation is far larger, by geography and population, than any previous such body.
Leaders from Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council have said for many years that government help is needed to tackle the area’s key infrastructure challenges – such as water scarcity, lack of sewage capacity, electricity supply, and transport issues – which are far beyond the control of local planning authorities. Addressing these challenges will be important in order for the ambitions outlined in the emerging joint Local Plan for Greater Cambridge to be fully realised.
However, councillors have strongly objected to MHCLG’s proposals for the new Development Corporation to take the councils’ plan making powers, and determination powers for larger applications, for the next 25 years.
Cllr Cameron Holloway, Leader of Cambridge City Council, said: “To ensure a fairer future for Cambridge, we need genuinely affordable housing, solutions to our acute water shortage and lack of sewage capacity, improved transport, a thriving natural environment, access to good jobs for local people, and essential social infrastructure such as schools and hospitals. We’ve been saying for years that we want to work with government to address our local challenges and have welcomed the idea of a Development Corporation to do this – but the devil is in the detail.
“The proposed Development Corporation would cover an area over 10 times the size of the Milton Keynes New Town Development Corporation. Greater Cambridge’s councillors represent over 326,000 people, and it is completely unjustified for the government to propose taking away plan making powers and the determination of major planning applications from those local councillors and handing them to an unelected body. This would leave our residents with less say over their future than residents in any other part of the country.
“And this at a time when the council and our planning service have demonstrated that we can deliver ambitious plans for new housing, jobs and public services by working closely with our communities. We have a pipeline of 37,000 homes with planning permission that are yet to be built out by developers; and have produced a joint Local Plan with sufficient land for more than 100,000 jobs and over 70,000 homes. Realising the government’s ambitions for this area should start with delivering these existing commitments, working with our award winning planning service.
“The main barriers we face to building desperately needed new homes are the lack of funding for and slow delivery of transport and utility improvements, not the local planning authorities.”
The councils’ annual Authority Monitoring Report for Greater Cambridge Shared Planning – which will be discussed at the council’s Cabinet meeting on Tuesday 24 March – sets out how both councils’ existing 2018 Local Plans are being delivered. Despite the ongoing infrastructure challenges in the area, GCSP granted permission for over 10,000 new homes between April 2024 and March 2025. In the same period, 2,265 new homes, of which 700 were affordable homes, and over 60,000 square metres of new employment space, were built across Greater Cambridge.
Cllr Holloway continued: “Local voices must be at the heart of these discussions. I say to the government – work with us, not against us. We can make it more affordable to live here, we can improve our transport network, support nature to thrive, give local people access to good jobs, provide exemplary public services and community facilities. We can build that fairer future – but only, if we work together.
“I urge residents to respond to this consultation, to make sure you have your say on proposals that could have a significant impact on Cambridge and the surrounding area for the next 25 years and beyond.”
The discussion at Cambridge City Council’s Full Council follows a similar debate at South Cambridgeshire District Council’s Full Council on Tuesday 17 March. Both councils’ responses will be further discussed at their Cabinet meetings this week, before the final responses are submitted to government.
The government’s consultation runs until Wednesday 1 April 2026. Government is running a webinar on Tuesday 24 March, 5.45 to 6.30pm, which everyone is invited to register to attend.
