Cambridge City Council Update November 2025

In this update:

• Cambridge Investment Partnership
• Waste Water Treatment Plant
• Anti-racism charter
• Bio-diversity and new homes
• Rent and service charge calculations for council tenants
• North Cambridge Framework for change
• Planning: The Paddocks
• Planning: Christs College Library
• Planning: Other minor or remote applications
• Area Committee replacement
• Herbicide Free Weed management
• Employment committee

Council

Cambridge Investment Partnership (CIP)

Council approved new loans to the CIP amounting to £18.5m to fund housing and regeneration developments at Newbury Farm ATS/Murketts Histon Road and Fanshawe Road. The CIP is a successful housing building joint venture of the Council with Hill Investments and the funding will be matched by Hill in line with past practice.

The following motions were passed:

Waste Water Treatment Plant

This was a motion proposed by the Liberal Democrats, requesting the money that was spent on the move of the plant to be refunded by Central Government. This was worked on for over 7 years but it seems that central government, despite giving it planning permission, decided it was too expensive. It was passed as amended by Labour who said in the debate that they are trying to change central government’s mind and pointed out that the move of the plant was not much more expensive than the work that would have to be done to improve the existing site.

Anti-racism charter

This was proposed by Labour and called for an anti-racism charter to be adopted by the council, although many of the actions within it are already being done, given the rise of racism in politics and society today. It was passed unanimously.

Bio-diversity and new homes

This motion was proposed by the Greens who, noting that housing costs in Cambridge are high and green spaces are essential for residents’ wellbeing, wanted the council to write a letter to the Cambridge MPs to request that the part 3 of the Planning and infrastructure Bill not be passed. This part of the bill allows developers to build without taking account of bio-diversity with the intention, presumably, that this would result in developers building more and bring house prices down. This contradictory motion was thoroughly amended by Labour to note that

• the new local plan was imminent and would protect bio-diversity,
• the government should deliver on its commitment to reform right to buy so that councils could keep the receipts of sales
• and that the council would continue to feedback to central government in the consultation process.

Cabinet

Rent and service Charge Policy

The new policy, replacing the old expiring one, for how rent for council tenants is calculated was approved.

North Cambridge Framework for change

This policy for how the North of Cambridge will be developed was set out. The council will carry out a public consultation on this. £81.2m was also approved as an increase in the capital budget to redevelop various sites. Tucked into the proposals was that land at Woodhouse Way was given a budget (£10k) for the erection of modular housing to house former rough sleepers.

Planning

The following minor applications were considered none of which were in the ward.

25/00174/FUL 80 – 82 Lovell Road

25/02452/FUL 137-143 Histon Road

25/02803/LBC 4-6 Short Street

24/04859/FUL The Paddocks, 347 Cherry Hinton Road

This application was approved in July subject to the condition that Anglian Water provide confirmation that there is sufficient headroom at the water recycling centre to accommodate the waste water from the site. Since then, the government support for the move of the water recycling centre from the city centre to Honey Hill has been withdrawn and therefore Anglian Water have declined to provide this assurance.

They have said that they are carrying out a review of their facilities which will be concluded in June 2026. However, given that the new buildings will have approx. 10% less water outflows than the old ones, the application was approved now without waiting for the review to conclude.

25/02161/FUL and 25/02162/LBC Christs College, St Andrews St

This is the replacement of the old 1970’s library with a modern building and was approved. It has been controversial as the new building is higher than the old one and was considered to tower over Christ’s Passage. However, the committee considered that the improvements to the college site and the external realm consisting of a long bench tipped the planning balance in favour of the proposal.

Minor/Other Planning Applications

25/03201/FUL Crossways House, 176 Chesterton Road  – application for a temporary change of use from student accommodation to sheltered accommodation for people experiencing homelessness. The application was approved.

25/02147/FUL Cambridge Rugby Union Club, Grantchester Road – the application consisted of the construction of 5 floodlit padel tennis courts with canopy, club hut and landscaping. It was refused on the grounds of the loss of open space in the green belt.

25/03078/FUL and 25/03079/LBC Land Adjacent to 49 New Square

This concerned a single storey dwelling on a site next to a listed building. The application was deferred.

Joint Development Management Committee

24/04575/FUL 210-240 Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road

This proposal is for the demolition and redevelopment of the existing units .

Pre-application developer briefing for Land North of Cherry Hinton for approx. 700 homes

Services, Climate and Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee

This was the second meeting of this committee which I chair as an opposition member. We covered:

Area Committee replacement. This was a report in advance of a determination by the ruling group of what should be done, giving members of the committee and chance to input into the decision making process. The old area committees had very low attendance and were not felt to be working well by anyone. The ideas for their replacement were:

• Ambitions for a citizens’ assembly on particular issues
• Participatory budgeting was also discussed where residents have an opportunity to input in a fuller way to the budget setting process.
• To have a residents’ forum in the case of any major projects/developments in the ward. In this case the trigger for a meeting is obvious. We currently have this in Queen Edith’s which is well attended and works well.
• To have other regular ongoing meetings with the public. There was slight nervousness about this as this is not usually so exciting or impactful on residents and attendance was likely to be lower. It was not clear what the trigger to have such a meeting might be.
• Also meetings with communities who are not normally involved in the democratic process should be added to the mix.
• Retain the benefits of the old area committees of getting other organisations to the table such as the police
• Setting up a wish list of projects for each ward

Other ideas consisted of providing basic information about each ward such as ASB incidents, car accidents.

• Herbicide Free Weed Management

The reasons behind the large increase in weeds in the roads was discussed. The started to use mechanical methods following a motion to stop using herbicides to clear the  streets of weeds. The council is doing a clear up sweep of the city, doing one ward at a time. Queen Edith’s will be done in January/February 2026. After that there will be a regular weeding and the problems visible to everyone should not recur.

Employment committee

The pay award for the Chief Executive of 3.2%, which is in line with the nationally negotiated ay award for all employees, was approved.

The demographics of employees at the council was reviewed. There are 857 employees, of which 23% work part time meaning the full time equivalent is 770. It is almost exactly 50:50 male female. There is a broad spread of ages, with 9% having a disability. The average age is 46.5 years.