Comment
Searching for a vision… The Oxford - Cambridge Arc Vision consultation document: five things you need to know
As promised in February last year, the Government has now published its consultation document ‘Creating a vision for the Oxford – Cambridge Arc’.
The document is available here.
We were pre-warned in ‘Planning for sustainable growth in the Oxford-Cambridge Arc’, published by Government in February 2021, that this would be a “public engagement to shape a vision for the area, through a consultation in summer 2021”. This consultation runs for a 12 week period, until 12 October 2021.
Those who hoped this would include a Draft Vision, indicating the Government’s aspiration of what the Arc at its full potential could look like, will likely be disappointed. There is relatively little, for example, in the consultation document on the scale of acute housing need and affordability issues. Indeed, housing takes somewhat of a backseat, unsurprising given the Housing Minister Christopher Pincher MP distancing himself from the previously mooted one million homes figure.
This being said, we very much welcome the publication of this consultation. It is an important opportunity for those with interests in the area to engage early with the process of preparing the Spatial Framework for the Arc. It is good to see that progress continues, albeit slower than we would have hoped.
For those keen to get involved in the process we have set out our initial thoughts on the consultation document below:
1. Resource is key
The Arc has enormous potential to be one of the most productive places in the world, characterised by great places for people to live and work with access to nature and high quality areas of green space. As set out in the consultation document, achieving this requires delivery of major environmental initiatives, significant infrastructure and large scale housing and employment development.
The Government has confirmed that the Spatial Framework will form national planning policy. In addition, local planning and local transport authorities must have regard to it when preparing development plans and policies. Local Plans will continue to set the policies that guide the development and use of land in its area.
With no proposal within the consultation document to create a regional planning body for the Arc, we assume that the lion’s share of delivery will fall on often under-resourced and overstretched local authorities. A major concern is the lack of strategy for how Government will ensure local authorities have sufficient resources at the local level to deliver on long term ambitions and strategies. With this in mind we feel an early discussion/debate at ministerial level on resources is critical. It is also unclear what may happen if authorities do not engage in the process, and have already seen Buckinghamshire Council leave the Arc Leaders Group and express their concerns regarding the Arc.
2. Arc to be world-leader for environmental sustainability
We are pleased to see that Government has placed great importance on identifying opportunities to improve the environment. Indeed, it is the first chapter in the document, following the introduction. We note that very little is said about Biodiversity Net Gain, which in itself can only be part of the solution to environmental betterment. Instead, the document states that natural capital will form a key part of planning and decision-making, including by using the environmental baseline identified in the Government-led Local Natural Capital Plan.
This is just one of the initiatives mentioned in the consultation document, which also talks about identifying Environmental Opportunity Areas to support nature recovery; carbon sinks; and an integrated approach to water management, flood risk and air quality. Given the numerous challenges and potential strategies the Government, quite rightly, stresses the need for a co-ordinated approach. But, again, a discussion around resourcing at the local level will be key.
3. Developing an effective economic strategy
The Government’s priority for the Oxford-Cambridge Arc is ‘sustainable economic growth’. As expected, the consultation document identifies the importance of the life science, space, energy and high tech sectors to the Arc. However, despite record breaking take-up of industrial and logistics space in 2020, the consultation document fails to address the increasing need or important role played by the logistics sector. To develop an effective economic strategy for the Arc, Government should be setting policies that will help to meet the needs of different sectors and businesses, which we feel should include the logistics sector.
4. The Spatial Framework needs to be positive about place-making
Within the document there is reference to the need for new homes and places ‘as the Arc grows’, but nothing that quantified it. On this point we, probably like many others, will be keen to stress that the delivery of new homes and strong place-making has to be a key component of the Spatial Framework, if the transformational growth described by Government is to happen.
Planned comprehensively, large scale development can have wide ranging socio-economic benefits and therefore we were encouraged to see that a new expert panel has been announced. The panel will be chaired by leading development and regeneration expert Emma Cariaga and its primary area of focus is between Bedford and Cambridge, where the Government is examining opportunities to bring forward well-designed, inclusive and sustainable places. Although this area has been a focus in early communications on the Arc, it is important that the western area is similarly considered, alongside the role of major conurbations like Milton Keynes. Similarly, the Vision needs to grapple with opportunities that come from town centre regeneration, and the role of logistics, amongst many other sectors that will positively contribute towards the success of the Arc.
The expert advisory panel will need to include an array of people with no doubt some competing interests, and although the panel is currently proposed for a six month period, reporting in to the Minister for Housing, we hope to see more visible and proactive leadership moving forwards. Its limited geographic coverage to only the eastern element of the Arc is, however, somewhat disappointing, and a similar panel must be introduced for the western section too.
5. Co-ordinated approach to delivery and funding
The Arc has, as the Government describe it, the potential to be one of the most prosperous, innovative and sustainable economic areas in the world. This necessitates ambitious environmental initiatives, significant transport infrastructure and the delivery of new and/or expanded settlements in the Arc.
As demonstrated at recent Local Plan examinations, some local authorities have struggled to produce the evidence required to demonstrate proposed new settlements are capable of being funded and delivered, and that environmental impacts are acceptable. We are, therefore, pleased to see the intention of the Spatial Framework to co-ordinate a cross-boundary approach to support delivery and investment across the Arc, and the recent changes this week to the NPPF similarly facilitate that longer term view. Given this need for a co-ordinated approach, consideration of setting up a new Arc Growth Body to identify delivery mechanisms is most welcome. We hope the Government is committed to exploring this approach further.
Although it is pleasing to see movement with the Arc, we are mindful that there are likely to be significant competing views and interests with the Arc, and the Government has a real challenge in terms of how it reconciles them. We are somewhat surprised it has not offered its own Vision within this document. The one thing the Arc needs desperately is some clear and visible leadership, and this consultation unfortunately falls some way short at this time. We are hopeful that conversely the public will finally feel that they do have a voice in these discussions, and the outcome of the consultation can quickly move the discussion forward to the realities of how to deliver a clear, and ambitious vision for the Arc. The opportunity and potential is there – but how quickly can it be realised to benefit existing and future occupants alike?
22 July 2021