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Trinity launch bid to expand Science Park

Trinity College, which owns the Cambridge Science Park, has launched a bid to expand the park onto land in Impington. The designated land, currently owned by Chivers Farms Ltd, is the farmland bounded by the guideway, Butt Lane and behind developments on New Road and Milton Road – all to the north of the A14.

Plans to date are for approximately half the land to meet a demand for space for businesses currently unmet at the Science Park. They are anticipated to be in light engineering and manufacturing rather than research.

The remaining land, surrounding the development, is proposed to become a country park.

This site has come forward through the Local Plan “call for sites” process. It hasn’t been assessed in any way by the Greater Cambridge Local Plan team, and consequently there is no change, as yet, in its status.

Parish Councillors are grateful for earlier confidential briefings on these plans, and recognise that there are both positives and negatives. Traffic management is an obvious concern, and is something that the developers have started to work on. The country park will provide extra open space for the community, and associated opportunities for additional recreation and leisure facilities at the Recreation Ground and Impington Village College.

Even though these plans are at the very earliest of stages, the Parish Council has set up a group to lead the Parish Council review and response to this development and seek to get the best possible outcome for the community if the development  does get the go ahead. The group has already started to look at the traffic issues.

The Parish Council will, of course, work with local stakeholders, the developers, the Greater Cambridge planners and the wider community and will ensure that due process is followed.

Parish Council contacts are: Chairman Denis Payne, denis.payne@hisimp.net and Clerk Chelsea O’Brien, clerk@hisimp.net

 

4 comments on “Trinity launch bid to expand Science Park

  1. Whatever development may, or may not, take place on this site (and similar sites) there must be provision for safer cycle /pedestrian access that links with Impington avoiding the dangerous bends in the vicinity of Impington St Andrew’s Church.

  2. Well it might kill off the idea of an STW here..!
    I am not sure what the criteria for inclusion in “call for sites” are but a few comments are:
    1)Northstowe and Waterbeach both include areas for employment activity. Cambridge Science Park will be a more prestigious address. How do we ensure that it doesn’t simply draw business away from Northstowe and Waterbeach and increase commuting from those villages?
    2)Transport will be a major issue. Burgoynes Road is unsuitable for current levels of traffic.
    3)Development on this scale between Impington and Milton leads to them both being incorporated into Cambridge City. Is it time we accepted that and established a new green belt north of Histon? Look at the development of Birmingham in the second half of the 19thC to see how successful industrial cities grow.

    • In response to that:

      “Call for sites” list is whatever any landowner or developer wanted to put forward, as long as it was bigger than 0.25 ha. No assessments at all have been made on the sites in the list – many will be excluded

      1) Valid point – it looks today as if there is likely to be a major overprovision of commercial space (include also the North East Cambridge Area). On the other hand, the people moving into these locations (and I don’t think Northstowe has any commercial space yet) will need somewhere to work! If you look at Orchard Park, which was always intended to have commercial space, at the end of the day none of that got built.
      2) Totally agree – they are making some major commitments here – and this will have to be sorted if, and when, a planning application comes forward. On the other hand, though, we don’t want to totally cut it off for residents who would work there, or staff there using our shops.
      3) Interesting idea – thank you

  3. This is clearly both an opportunity and a threat for the village, but, as a resident of Burgoynes Road, I am glad to see that traffic has been identified as the biggest threat. Even a ‘Country Park’ will drag more traffic through the village. I note that they have bought options to have access via Butt Lane but I am fairly sure that even the minor development of industrial units on the former chicken farm on Butt Lane increased the traffic on Burgoynes Road. It would be interesting to see what proportion of traffic turns left on leaving that facility. The company I work for started life on the Science Park (moving somewhere cheaper once established) but staff travel in from Bedford, Bury St Edmunds and even Hatfield. The fact is people are happy to commute. The current Science Park justifies its own 2-lane access from the A14 Tesco Roundabout. Just image even a small proportion of that getting jammed up in the village!

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