CAMBOURNE
Cambourne will consist
of 3 villages, Great Cambourne,
The 3 villages or more correctly
described as Hamlets are being built on a green field site that was used for
farming.
Cambourne will be a self-contained community of at least 3,300 (now 4300 possibly) houses,
there were originally expected to be over 10,000 residents. Each hamlet
will have a traditional village green.
There is also a growing
A single traditional high street
will be established along with a wealth of community facilities more associated
with a town.
An elected Parish Council will
manage some of these facilities.
The Parish Council in Cambourne was
established in 2004.
For the first few years there was a
Management Committee, MLC (Management Liaison Committee) who were acting as a
parish council for some matters.
This committee was originally made
up of representatives of the developers, a parish councillor of Bourn (to whom
we were temporarily attached, Great Cambourne in Bourn and
The community has a purpose built
health centre and library. It is hoped that these two facilities will gell
together to form an alliance in caring for health issues and information.
Many of the facilities in Cambourne
have trigger points to indicate when they should be provided these are available
on www.Cambourne.org
these are related to the number of occupied houses (see legal agreement S106).
This legal document specifies what
the developers have to provide for being allowed to build homes for sale,
including contributions to schools and sometimes land for facilities.
It also specifies community
facilities such as community buildings and sports provision for the community.
There is a traditional High St,
commercial shops and offices are market led and have no trigger, and after 7
years of occupations there is a major supermarket, pub, hotel, chemist, take
away food, restaraunt,
building society, vet, and turf accountant.
There are two primary schools (3 by
2008). No secondary school or village college was planned and youngsters are
normally bused to
There is also a private nursery.
Cambourne now has a regular bus service
to
As part of the permission to build
here the developers have to provide land for areas of social housing for rent,
run by housing associations such as Circle 33 and
These are to be built using similar
materials but are to be generally higher density and not have garages. There
are also some low cost Developer social housing, either to people on housing
waiting lists, called shared equity, when property is partly sold and partly
rented the resident paying 75% of the value and paying a nominal rent for the
other part (typically £10 per year). When these houses are sold they have to be
resold with the same condition and allow 8 weeks before going on the open
market to allow bids from those on housing waiting lists.
Each area of building consists of
housing of differing density; the housing nearer the high street intended
to be higher density and reducing in density as you move away, this is to
emulate traditional village design.
High density is around 20 houses
per acre down to the least dense in Cambourne at 5 per acre.
Areas overlooking the
A design guide has been used, this
is a colour book of pictures and descriptions of how Cambourne was anticipated
to look, there are a number of variations since the book was published.
This guide is still used to ensure
Cambourne develops as near as possible to that originally planned.
Planners and developers oversee
each area of building and all designs were originally referred to the DEG
(Design and Environment Committee). The committee decided if the architects
employed by the builders have met the design guide requirements, South Cambs District
Council abandoned this in 2003.
All applications are dealt with in
a similar way to any new builds and referred to the Parish Council for
consultation.
Cambourne (whole site) is 1046
acres altogether.
50 acres are for the
business park B1 (office) land,
plus 5 acres for B2 (industrial) land,
11 acres of incidental open space
(LAPs, LEAPs, NEAPs
and SIPs - play strategy),
0.5 acres floodlit
sports surface, 2 acres sports centre,
1 acre ecumenical centre,
0.5 acre health centre,
0.5 acres library,
1 acre for community centre,
5 acres for allotments,
2 acres burial ground,
Up to 2 acres for caravan storage
etc,
37 acres for social and affordable
housing,
0.32 acres police station,
0.5 acres fire station,
0.5 acres children and family
centre,
2 x 5 acres for primary schools,
350 acres amenity land (golf
course, country park, etc).
- the rest
is residential!
Thanks to Kate Wood of SCDC planning
for that information
In contrast the proposed
Oakington Development near
(Cambourne 3300 homes on 1046 acres 0.3169 per acre) Obviously these figures
include all the development including open space.
Since it was decided to
build Cambourne The government have different views on new developments
- and densities and therefore Cambourne is likely to remain unique.
Brown field (ex commercial
or previously used) sites are preferred, and nearer to existing towns and
cities with tranport links.