Ekin Road plan for 134 homes goes before Cambridge planning committee

Cambridge Investment Partnership (CIP), the joint venture between Cambridge City Council and The Hill Group, takes its plan to replace 108 post-war homes at Ekin Road in Abbey, Cambridge, with 134 new homes to the council's Planning Committee today.

The application, reference 26/00039/FUL, proposes 78 council homes and 56 homes for private sale. It is item five on the agenda for the meeting at the Guildhall, Cambridge, which starts at 10am on Wednesday 7 October, according to the council's democracy portal.

The council said the 78 new council homes are likely to house about as many people as the 91 council homes they replace, because the scheme prioritises larger family homes. The mix runs from one to five bedrooms and includes four homes designed for wheelchair users. In January the council said the scheme would deliver the first five-bedroom council homes built through CIP.

Cllr Gerri Bird, Cambridge City Council Cabinet Member for Housing and CIP Board Member, said: "If Planning Committee approves our planning application and viability assessment, the council will be able to draw down the funding from Homes England - which is ring-fenced for us - to deliver 78 council homes."

The viability question

The application includes an independent viability assessment. In June the council said assessments for Ekin Road and for Hanover Court and Princess Court had concluded that redevelopment costs meant there should be no planning requirement to build council homes on either site. The council said it nevertheless intended to secure Homes England funding to deliver them.

Cllr Bird said some residents had read the assessment as the council stepping back from its commitment to 78 council homes, and that it was not. If the committee approves the proposals, the council said, it will be able to draw down further Homes England funding for the project.

The council's own figures put the cost of a new council home at about £400,000, reduced to £300,000 through CIP's mixed-tenure schemes. Of that, it said, £120,000 per home would come from Homes England grant and the remaining £180,000 would be recovered through rents over 30 to 40 years.

The scheme

Ekin Road homes	Number
Existing council homes	91
Existing private homes	17
Proposed council homes	78
Proposed private sale homes	56

The estate dates from the 1950s and 1960s. The council said consultation on its future has run since 2021, after the homes were identified for possible redevelopment because of serious maintenance, structural and building performance issues. In September 2024 the council said its original proposal had been to demolish all 122 homes on the site; the application now before the committee covers 108.

Tom Hill, Managing Director of The Hill Group, said: "This development will enable us to replace the existing properties with a new, carefully designed neighbourhood, which will provide more spacious, energy-efficient homes that respond to the needs of existing and future residents."

The council said the new council homes will meet or exceed its Cam Standard, which it introduced to secure low operational energy use, high thermal comfort and resilience to climate impacts. All homes will be dual aspect, with gable and pitched roofs reflecting the surrounding area. The scheme targets a 20% biodiversity net gain, with more than 90 new street trees, bird and bat boxes and rain gardens along two green links through the site. Each home will have secure cycle storage at the front.

In June the council said most residents had already been supported to move from Ekin Road, with council tenants given priority access to a like-for-like council home, a home-loss payment of around £8,000 and £1,250 towards moving costs.

The wider programme

Taken with the nearby East Barnwell scheme, the council said in January, it is investing in 254 new homes in Abbey, 198 of them council homes, a net gain of 97 council homes across the two sites. Across Ekin Road and Hanover Court and Princess Court, it said in June, 235 homes would become 299, with 149 for sale and the profit funding further council housebuilding.

The council said in August it had won £96.4m of government funding and been selected for a Homes England strategic partnership. Homes England confirmed 33 strategic partners for the £39bn Social and Affordable Homes Programme on 25 August 2026; its table lists Cambridge City Council with 803 homes and a £96.4m grant. The council said partners must build at least 800 net new council homes by 2036, and that replacements for homes classed as moribund count towards that figure.

The council said the funding will support a further 1,400 council homes by 2036, with 60% let at the lowest tier of council rents, set at 40% to 45% of market rents. Cllr Bird said the partnership had delivered nearly 900 council homes across 24 sites since 2018.

The committee's decision on application 26/00039/FUL is due at today's meeting.