Greater Cambridge Local Plan for 50,000 homes heads for December submission

Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire District councils will consider submitting the proposed Greater Cambridge Local Plan to government for examination after more than 22,000 comments across four rounds of consultation, Greater Cambridge Shared Planning said on 9 November.

The plan, which the service said has been more than six years in the making, goes to a joint cabinet meeting of the two councils on Tuesday 17 November. Cambridge City Council will then consider it on Thursday 26 November and South Cambridgeshire District Council on Tuesday 8 December, with both full councils deciding whether it should go forward.

According to the councils' project page, the plan is due to be submitted in December 2026, with an independent examination expected to start in spring 2027. The 9 November announcement put the start of examination in the first half of 2027.

Cllr Henry Batchelor, South Cambridgeshire District Council's Lead Cabinet Member for Planning, said: "The proposed Local Plan aims to support the homes, jobs and infrastructure that communities need, while also setting high expectations for environmental protection, biodiversity and climate action."

The housing numbers

The plan, which the councils describe as the first joint local plan for Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire, sets out how growth in the area will be managed to 2045. The councils said it confirms a need for about 50,000 new homes between 2024 and 2045, a figure the draft plan matched to a forecast 73,000 additional jobs.

About 37,000 of those homes are already planned through existing permissions and allocations in the current adopted local plans, the councils said in July 2026.

Almost 1,000 sites were considered during preparation of the plan, according to the project page. Together those sites could have delivered more than 115,000 homes and around 9 million square metres of employment floorspace, far more than the plan needs.

Where the homes would go

Sites carried forward from the 2021 First Proposals consultation include Cambridge Airport and the expansion of the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, the councils said when the draft plan was published. The plan continues to support the new towns at Northstowe and Waterbeach, and the councils said earlier ambitions for further growth at Cambourne had been increased, linked to the town's planned new railway station.

A new community of some 6,000 homes beyond the green belt is proposed on land next to the A11 and A1307 at Grange Farm, near Great Abington. The councils said the proposed submission version of the plan reduced the site capacity at Grange Farm compared with the draft.

Some homes previously planned at North East Cambridge are being replaced elsewhere following the decision not to fund the relocation of the Cambridge Waste Water treatment works, the councils said. The plan also identifies two new sites on the A14 corridor, including expansion of the existing lorry parking at Cambridge Services.

The councils acknowledged that water supply and treatment issues are affecting developments across Greater Cambridge.

The consultation record

The final consultation on the proposed submission version ran from 3 August to 25 September 2026 and did not consider proposals for new sites. It generated more than 2,800 comments from almost 800 people and organisations, the councils said.

The earlier draft plan consultation, from December 2025 to January 2026, drew more than 8,400 comments from more than 1,280 people and organisations. The process began with a Call for Sites in 2019, followed by a First Conversation consultation in 2020 and First Proposals in 2021.

Cllr Katie Thornburrow, Leader of Cambridge City Council, said: "The Plan sets out an ambitious vision for managing the economic growth we expect to see in Greater Cambridge in a sustainable way".

Land supply pressure

The submission comes as South Cambridgeshire District Council contests how housing need and land supply are measured across the two authorities. The council said a Planning Inspector had overturned its refusal of 40 homes in Great Abington, and that it had since revised its housing supply calculations using the government's latest figures.

The council said 4,475 new homes were built in the district over the last three years, about 1,400 more than the government target of 3,032.

Measure	Homes
Homes built in South Cambridgeshire, last three years	4,475
Government target for the period	3,032

Cllr Batchelor said: "Since 2021, based upon the Government's own data, we have delivered 139% of the Government's housing target." He said the council would continue to resist speculative development that would undermine its planned approach to growth.

If both full councils approve submission, an independent Planning Inspector will examine whether the plan meets legal requirements and is sound before the councils can adopt it. The councils expect that examination to begin in the first half of 2027.