The Council have considered the remarks made by Professor G. R. Evans at the Discussion on 15 March 2005 of their Third Report on the development of the University's land in North West Cambridge (Reporter, p. 569) and have agreed to respond as follows.
In response to Professor Evans's request for information about the cost to date incurred, the Council refer to their Notice of 2 February 2004 (Reporter, 2003-04, p. 427) in response to remarks made on the Second Report on the development of the University's land in North West Cambridge. In that Notice they stated that the sum of £600,000 has been allocated to cover all of the consultancy and legal costs over a three-year period in connection with the reviews of the Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire Local Plans. The planning of North West Cambridge will be a major part of this work, but the funding might also cover work to support representations and appearances at examinations into the South Cambridgeshire Development Plan for University land in the villages near Cambridge. To date the expenditure on North West Cambridge since the start of the project in 2000 is £394,000. An additional £79,000 is committed for recent work on masterplanning workshops and current work on ecology surveys.
The Council do not accept Professor Evans's assertion that approval of the recommendation in the Third Report will lead to the Regent House losing overall control of the strategic planning from this point onwards. As is made clear in the Third Report, the ongoing masterplanning will continue to be carried out in consultation with members of the University and external stakeholders, and a further Report will be made to seek approval of the Regent House for the finished Master Plan.
In relation to the retention of affordable housing the Council anticipate that a range of tenures will be offered including renting and shared equity. The retention of the stock of affordable housing will be a key feature of the arrangements. The Council will announce these arrangements when the scheme has been finalized.
The University's space needs have been outlined in the Council's Second and Third Reports. More detailed evidence will be submitted to the Public Inquiry into the Cambridge Local Plan this summer. This will be published on the University's website (http://www-building.arct.cam.ac.uk/northwestc/masterplanning.html). The website contains details of the masterplanning process including the latest version of the Master Plan which emerged from the third collaborative design workshop with stakeholders on 1 March 2005. This will be used in the evidence to the Public Inquiry.
The Council have agreed to submit a Grace (Grace 6, p. 597) to the Regent House for the approval of the recommendation in this Report.