Erin, if you could let us know when we're on the stream, I will start the recording now. Cute. Are we live now? Are we live now? Yes, I believe we are. Okay. Good evening members, officers and any members of the public who are viewing the live stream this evening. Welcome to this meeting of the joint local plan advisory group. My name is Councillor Katie Thornborough and I'm the Vice Chair of the advisory group. However, the usual chair cannot be with us today so I'll be assuming the role of the chair for the meeting. Members, we need to appoint a Vice Chair for this meeting. I would like to nominate Councillor Peter Sandford. Do I have a seconder for this proposal? Can someone indicate? Neil, Shaila, Councillor Shaila, thank you. Can I take that as affirmation from the councillors? Thank you, members. Councillor Sandford, you are appointed Vice Chair for this meeting. The joint local plan advisory group is a non-decision making group comprising members of the Cambridge City Council, South Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridgeshire County Council and its role is to provide a steer at member level for the development of land use plans integrated with transport strategy. We meet in public and our recommendations go back to the local planning authority for decision making. This meeting is being administered by South Cam's District Council and all of the papers for this meeting can be found on their website. Members, I'll now invite each of you to introduce yourselves. When your name is called, would you please unmute yourself and introduce yourself? As I stated earlier, I'm Councillor Katie Thornborough. My Vice Chair is Councillor Peter Sandford. Good evening, everyone. I am the member for Kingston and Papworth Ward in South Cambridgeshire and, as Katie said, I am Vice Chair this evening. Councillor Henry Batchelor. Evening Chair, Councillor Henry Batchelor, Member for the Linton Ward in South Cambridgeshire. Councillor Timbick. Timbick, I'm a member of the City Council for the Market Ward. Councillor Neil Shailer. I'm a county councillor for ROMS Award in Cambridge. I'm also Vice Chair of Highways on the Council. Councillor Simon Smith. Councillor Simon Smith, are you here? I can see you in the list, but would you like to introduce yourself? I think we'll come back. Councillor, Dr Richard Williams. Evening Chair, Richard Williams, Member for the Wittlesford Ward in South Cambridgeshire. I see we've got some other councillors joining us. Welcome to everyone. We have a number of officers joining us this evening. Jonathan Dixon, the Planning Policy Manager at the Shared Planning Service. Will you be leading the meeting with support from other officers? Could you, John, kindly introduce yourself and inform us of who you have on hand to assist with the meeting? Thank you, Chair. Yes, we've got quite a variety of officers here reflecting to quite wide-ranging issues we're going through today, so I'll go through in alphabetical order on my screen. We've got Kieran Davies, one of our Planning Policy Officers, and we've got Guy Belcher, who is a City Council Ecologist. We've got Jonathan Brooks, who is one of the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service Urban Designers. We've got Lizzie Wood, who is one of our Senior Policy Officers, Nancy Kimberley, a Principal Planning Policy Officer, Stuart Morris, a Principal Planning Policy Officer, and Terry De Souza, another Principal Policy Officer, and they'll be taking through the presentations today. Thank you. I have a message from Councillor Simon Smith that his speaker isn't working, but he is attending, and I hope he'll have a look into that. First item on the agenda is Apology for Absence. May I ask the Democratic Services Officer, Lawrence Demari-Hulman, if we have received any apologies today. Thank you, Chair. Just one apology today, which is from the usual Chair, Councillor Dr Tumi Hawkins, and Councillor Henry Batchel has kindly stepped in as her substitute this evening. Thank you. Item 2's Declaration of Interests. Do any members have interest to declare in relation to any item of business on the agenda? If an interest subsequently becomes apparent later in the meeting, please raise your hand at that point. Anybody want to declare anything now? Nope, I think we're all clear on that. Item 3 is Minutes of Previous Meeting. Do we have the minutes of the meeting held on the 21st of October 2022 for approval? I think, will one of the officers put the minutes up? Is someone going to show them? Yes, if you bear with me, I'll happily share those. Do you want to move on to the next page? Should we move on to the next page, or further down? Thanks. Okay, we can probably stop sharing. Do any members wish to make any amendments? Can I take the approval of these minutes by affirmation? You can put your hands up. Okay, thank you. The next item on the agenda is the main part of the meeting. It's biodiversity, green spaces and great places, which are the sections of the local plan. May I ask John Dixon to introduce this item, please? Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Yes, we've been using these meetings to go through comments recede through the first proposals where we consulted around a year ago on policies that we would propose to seek to develop for inclusion in the new local plan, and we had a huge amount of feedback. What these meetings have given us the opportunity to do is provide you a summary of that feedback by theme, and we will take you through a presentation on each of those topics, describing what that main feedback was, some of the next steps we are doing to further develop those policies towards preparation of the draft plan later this year, and at the end of each theme, I suggest we have a space for discussion to get any member feedback, so at that point I'll hand over to my colleagues who will take you through the presentation. Hi, so I'll be taking you through the green spaces and biodiversity theme policies. Thanks, Terry. So just a reminder of the theme as a whole, so we've got six policies, and the overall aim, so one of the seven aims, one for each theme for the biodiversity and green spaces, is the one that you can see in front of you, and so that's obviously biodiversity for wildlife and green spaces for people, ensuring and leaving that development leaves the natural environment better than it was before, so it's all about enhancement, I guess relating to the council's respective biodiversity emergencies, the doubling nature aspiration. Next slide please. So first policy is biodiversity, and this policy to control biodiversity impacts from development and address biodiversity net gain, so there was broad support from a wide range of individuals, organisations and developers, particularly focusing on that 20% net gain aim. In relation to the kind of protecting existing sites, there was comments coming suggesting to strengthen the policy, so not just talking about protecting sites of biodiversity importance, but also strengthening that wording to guide it away from sensitive areas by imposing things such as buffer zones, and also talking about protecting species beyond just looking at sites. In relation to the 20% biodiversity net gain target, noting that that is a figure identified by the councils beyond the 10% mandatory net gain proposed by government developers as a group were concerned that 20% biodiversity net gain target might not be justified and could be onerous and perhaps not achievable. There were a small number of community concerns that essentially I guess worried that they didn't have confidence in the metric approach, suggesting that the kind of metric approach might be flawed and was inadequate and comments identifying the need for the measurement of that to be done by qualified and independent people. And then in terms of talking about offsite provision arising from a net gain approach, there were comments noting that offsite provision could be helpful to wildlife in terms of putting that provision in strategic offsite locations, but it needed a delivery mechanism, a clear one and noting that if you put it in a large offsite kind of strategic scale place that might not deliver the net gain very local to residents or say very local to where the development had taken place. Moving on to the green infrastructure policy, so this policy identified the existing green infrastructure network and it also identified 14 strategic green infrastructure initiatives intended to enhance what's already there and it also then sought to say how development proposals coming forward might relate to those in terms of providing good green infrastructure on site and how they could contribute to those identified initiatives. And I should say before getting to the comments that that kind of implementation of how that might happen really isn't wasn't set out, it was a fairly high level at the first proposal stage. So again as with biodiversity there was broad support for the policy intention in terms of that support for those initiatives and the aim of improving green infrastructure from essentially across the board which is really positive to see. There were comments suggesting that policy identification is good but needed clarification including how it relates to other policies and natural England's green space accessibility standard. And I guess this relates and will come on to the providing for open spaces and there's a relationship between obviously green infrastructure as a maybe a more natural area and maybe larger areas in relation to the more formal open spaces and so I think there is a connection in terms of those two policies there and there are a wealth of standards relating to green space and so I think those comments there were wanting to understand standards for green and open spaces and green infrastructure as a whole. Similar comment as for biodiversity from the developers so that I think they were they were generally supportive but there were some comments that they weren't I think looking to increase financial burdens that they saw arising through this policy. And then there were a number of comments suggesting how the green infrastructure initiatives could be amended or added to for example as we've given there the Wiccan Fenn vision and proposing other areas that could be covered by those initiatives. Thanks Terry. So the next one improving tree cover and canopy cover and the tree population and so fairly Ron Seale did what it says on the tin and so it was looking to protect and enhance tree canopy cover and the tree population noting the I guess the climate importance of canopy cover but the biodiversity importance of more trees but more diversity of trees and things in the in the right location. Again broad support which is really positive and noting the importance of yeah of planting climate resilience species I guess was a particular point. Some comments suggested that it should go further than what it did and propose a specific tree canopy cover requirements such as maybe a percentage increase a bit like biodiversity net gain on all new development and some kind of getting into the specifics of how the policy could be more prescriptive in terms of ongoing maintenance and the replacement of trees and so forth. And some developer comments seeking more flexibility to the policy noting yeah the wanting to just balance the benefits of providing development with the benefits of of protecting trees or enhancing trees. And then in terms of river corridors this one was a fairly broad policy so it addresses the river cam corridor specifically and its tributaries but addresses a wide range of topics in terms of landscape and biodiversity access and tries to bring those things together such that all those aspects are considered with development affecting that corridor. Again broad support from wide range of parties. Some comments that the comment the policy is a bit too general and needs some more precision which perhaps relates to its kind of cross-cutting nature which kind of refers back to other elements of the plan. There was a small number of comments supporting the need to kind of balance those different points about people access versus nature access to the river. And then excuse me there was various suggestions to extend the policy approach to include additional areas. Most notably I guess there was a specific comments relating to particular tributaries or kind of extending out towards I think the ooze and other areas related to the rivers. Thanks Tony. And then the last two policies kind of go together so they're about protecting and then enhancing open spaces both for very high level they stated the kind of intention but didn't go into the detail. So protecting open spaces just just mentioned the types of open space that we think about protecting so just to give you a flavor the village greens park sports and recreation allotments community orchards local green space. As you can see again broad support small number of comments noting that there might be competing policy requirements against this policy. A small number of comments a bit relating back to you can see with the biodiversity net gain and also the tree canopy cover the importance of stewardship of open space and maintenance of natural features. And a number of comment or a few comments regarding the impact of development on landscaping open space noted by some individuals and parish councils. And then in terms of providing and enhancing again broad support. I think this reflected the broad aim of the biodiversity and green spaces theme people want to see more green spaces for people and nature. A wide range of comments suggesting how this policy might apply noting that the policy direction at the first proposal stage was fairly very high level. And so you can see a range of points there that we've included as examples. And then another number of comments also and noting the importance that when considering provision of green space there's a range of factors or kind of additional factors people wanted to flag that should be considered when preparing these. Thanks Terry. So clearly we'll be looking to develop all of these policies towards the draft plan stage but just wanted to flag a couple of particular points that we'll need to draw upon in doing so. So the biodiversity net gain policy may be well aware that the national regulations making 10 percent biodiversity net gain will become mandatory in November this year. And so we'll be needing to work up with Guy and other colleagues in the natural environment teams how the policy will work on a practical basis including the offsite approach. I guess taking into account the approach that has been agreed by members for this kind of interim period before November 2023. And then in terms of the green infrastructure and the open space provision of new spaces. I mentioned the connection between green infrastructure and the open space policy. We are currently working with consultants Chris Blandford Associates on work to develop open space and green infrastructure standards and working through the implementation of that. Seeing green infrastructure and open space as a range of typologies that kind of all join together so seeing them all as a whole to work out how they integrate but yeah and how they're different too. And so that piece of work will be critical in informing how we develop that policy and then I guess also they need to work with partners to ensure that we have a good understanding of how we're going to deliver or how they will be delivered in terms of the turning of the green infrastructure initiatives from concepts into specific projects that can really happen and support Crader Cambridge. I think that's it for this session so it's over to members for comments and discussion. Thank you very much. Would members like to with any comments or questions? Yes raise your hands your virtual hands please. Tim, councillor Tim Bick please. You're still on mute. Councillor Bick. Sorry about that. I had a number of questions about the the beginning part of that section. So first of all in relation to biodiversity net gain, do we feel that we've got an adequate sort of narrative that justifies our exceeding the national minimum? It sounds to me as though it's something where there is a very good story to be told but I guess we need to make sure that we tell it in a well calibrated way that makes sense of what we're proposing. Apart from the fact that we obviously would like to have as much biodiversity as we can, which is probably isn't sufficient. The next question on that topic is what is the relationship of biodiversity net gain in our policy approach to this other concept that gets banded around about doubling nature? And what really is the status of that concept of doubling nature? I mean is that the same thing as net gain? Is that just saying 100% net gain or how do we relate the one to the other? And then I'm personally of the view that what I think we're trying to say by looking for the biodiversity net gain to be delivered on site if we possibly can, but recognising that won't always be the case. I just wondered whether we needed sharper elbows in getting that by defining a sort of figure which we would accept as a minimum because it's quite possible that that many developers are going to make that not possible unless there is a sort of sharp edge to our position. And the final question on this sort of section, actually it was a comment on the introductory piece before the first slide. The term environmental capacity is often banded around by people who represent themselves in these consultations. And I just want to ask officers, is that a recognisable meaningful planning concept? Is it something that we address in a different way? And kind of how should we regard that when people are talking about it? Stuart, would you like to answer those because there's four questions there and then we'll go to Councillor Sandford. I'll give it a good go. So I think I will have a go at the first two. I think the third particularly, I think I would be very grateful for Guy's expert comment on, but also probably additional comments on the first two. The fourth, I'll be grateful for, I might have some thoughts, but John I think I'd be grateful for your input to that if that's all right. So if I make a start on the first two, so biodiversity net gain, do we have a good enough narrative to exceed the national minimum? So we did look to, well, sorry, we commissioned consultants, LUCs, to do our green infrastructure opportunity mapping, which informed the first proposals within that commission. We asked them to identify what narrative might be required to inform a 20% increase and they did that. Key elements to that, I guess particularly I think into the measurement is that we have a lower amount of nature sites within our area. And that's the one I've got in my mind particularly. We also had a quick look at the viability point which will be, I guess, key to justifying whether it's okay. And again, because it hadn't really been tested in many places, there's not a lot to go on, there may be more by the time we get to draft plans to look around the country at other places, but it didn't seem to be coming out as being a significant additional burden. As I say, it's somewhat untested, it's untried, and so I think we will definitely be just checking to see whether there are things we can do to add to the argument. Interestingly, I know that a number of the strategic sites and places we're working with, I think, are accepting currently of the aim and are trying to work towards that so there is some experience that suggests that the developers are willing to at least aim for that higher target. I don't know whether a guy you wanted to come in and share anything on that one at first. Thanks, Stuart. I think you did cover it there. It's it is, yeah, that the lack of low percentage of designated sites compared with other sort of authorities and counties across the country that sort of drive that, and also I guess the recreational impacts on the designated sites that we do have as well is sort of key. So the good bits are suffering because we haven't got enough, basically. Thanks, Guy. So number two is what the relationship of biodiversity net gain with doubling nature. So this is a fun one, really. So the doubling nature, to my understanding, arose from the local nature partnership and was stated as an aim to double the area of wildlife rich sites within Cambridge and Peterborough. And as such, I take that to be a kind of absolute change in kind of land area, whereas biodiversity net gain is a percentage increase in biodiversity credits on a site basis in terms of the doubling nature kind of status. So South Cams via their doubling nature strategy have kind of adopted that as a specific aim. But how they measure up specifically, I don't know that I've got the firm understanding of that. I don't know, again, Guy, whether you want to provide the definitive. Yeah, I think I would add that to the doubling nature of the vision, it's not just around development. It's all about sort of land management in general as well. So there's lots hopefully coming forward with the Elms and government subsidies for farming, things like that. So it's kind of all embracing and biodiversity net gain from development is one element of delivering that broad vision. Thanks Guy. I think the next one's probably mostly for you if you're willing. So I think Tim, you were saying that net gain should be delivered on site if possible. Do we need to define a kind of a minimum on site percentage so that people don't, developers don't push it all off site and develop some sharper elbows? Is that about right into the question? Yeah, sure. So yes, there is a risk there. I think it's, but it does come down to a site by site basis. When you have a very large growth site, for instance, lots of land, lots of capacity, then it's far easier to deliver the 10% and hopefully more on site. On site through biodiversity net gain best practice, public spec practice, it is to do it on site. And that's mainly sort of driving to protect existing features on that site through good design, buffer them, enhance them. But when you get to the sort of minor sites, small sites, that can be tricky. And the habitats you do create on them are going to be quite small, quite difficult to manage. So you might not necessarily get the best outcomes for biodiversity with that approach. But I think it sort of shows that you do need to be looking at a site by site basis really, but certainly on larger sites, medium sites, perhaps the 10% could be seen as the minimum on site and anything over that may be more strategic. But yeah, it still needs working through, I think. I think on the fourth question, Stuart, I think you're handing over to me. There's a question about the term environmental capacity. Well, I think I would argue that an awful lot of the plan evidence that we've put together to inform the proposed proposals and is still developing is all about demonstrating the capacity to accommodate development, be that the environmental capacity or the social capacity or even the economic. So looking at the environmental capacity, clearly we have commissioned an integrated water strategy, which is very much looking at all aspects of the impact of the water environment. How can we accommodate that? As Stuart mentioned, we've got the green infrastructure work going up at the moment, adding to the work we've done on the open space mapping exercise that accompanied the plan. We do habitat regulation assessment work to look at in more detail those specific sites. And that picture is then drawn together in our sustainability appraisal. So I would argue that whilst that is an encompassing term environmental capacity, we look at all aspects of sustainability and the ability to accommodate and plan for development effectively. So I think we've got a lot of evidence that will cover those issues. Okay, thank you. Good answers. I think Councillor Peter Sandford, please. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to take a step back and get a high level overview of the responses. Most of the sections you said there were a few comments. Would it be fair to say that most respondents were supportive? That was sort of my impression as I skimmed through, but if people are supportive, we don't want to give too much weight to the minority comments, if that makes any sense. We'll just have questions from Neil Shaler as well before we go back to the team for answers, Neil. Thanks. Thank you, Chair. The biodiversity is always problematic in terms of the metric. It was developed to test the health of a more native ecosystem and you can see that the loss of biodiversity higher in some areas. So by increasing biodiversity, it doesn't necessarily create a healthy or more resilient ecosystem. And my main problem with it is that in all of this, there's not much discussion of baseline. I could imagine an extremely poor or degraded ecosystem, say a plowed field, it would be very easy to bring in a net biodiversity game. And in that situation, if this means for a developer that they have to put a few more species of trees in there, that that could take all the boxes. So it would be really good to know what are we comparing with, have the baseline, what kind of diversity was there to start with, how close to a native or a scientifically important ecosystem was it? And the result, and again, we're crossing over into rewilding and these other concepts, but the result is that resilient. Are those species going to stay after you've counted them? Are they going to contribute to an ecosystem that goes forward and is going towards rewilding? Is it how close will the result be to something that looks like a wild and healthy and resilient ecosystem? So just doubling or increasing by 10 or 20 percent on what and where do we want to go? That's my sort of question. Okay, Stuart, I'll hold there if you could. So that's about Sanford. Councillor Sanford was talking about majority supportive comments on that. And then Councillor Scholar was asking about the baseline and other forms of recognizing resilience and rewilding opportunities. Thanks. Thank you. So if I deal with the comments one and I might leave Guy to address the baseline query. So on the comments, so I would say that we do need to ensure we consider the substance of all comments, not let alone whether they're kind of the majority of you or not, but not we're standing that point. I would say yes. The first point I think we put on all the policies for this theme was that there was broad support for those policies. And if I could pass over to Guy for the difficult question. Sure. Thanks, Stuart. So the deffra metric is coming from national government. It will be mandatory. We've just received a little bit more guidance on how that can be rolled out. But that is what we will be using. And it may not be perfect, but it's the start of some sort of quantifiable thing against these things. But essentially how it works is, yeah, your 10% of the baseline of that site. So the site is surveyed both habitat, extent and condition. That's using the UK Habitat Assessment. So there's a standardized methodology now for doing that to feed into this metric. And if a site is very low-value, for instance, if it's sealed service, service all the way through, then yeah, it's almost sort of 10% of nothing. It's nothing. So there's no sort of driver to actually create more biodiversity on a site like that. But the majority, and it's weighted that way to sort of push development to lower quality habitats to start with. So as the market sort of generates it, it almost won't be viable to go to a site that has got high biodiversity value and also high biodiversity potential because there is, within the metric, a strategic significant category. So if it is identified within an area that is strategically significant for biodiversity and protection enhancement, then again, that is notified. So for that, I think going forward, and I think what the councillor is sort of saying is that, you know, will it become part of a wider sort of network? Then a parallel piece of work is undergoing at the moment, which is the local nature recovery network. And that's a piece of work that will link to the government's national recovery networks. It's being undertaken by the county council on behalf of the combined authority. All the districts will be involved in putting into that along with other stakeholders. So that will create a sort of network of strategic sites, which will then be used within that metric to sort of determine where things should or shouldn't go and where any off-site provision would be best targeted. I don't know if that answers your question or not. Can I come back very briefly on that chair? Yep. Yeah, leave some of those questions. In the community, a lot of different things. I did notice the idea that if there was a lot of biodiversity there to start with, it would be very difficult to increase it. And that would tend to mean it was too expensive for developers to do it. The one question was that what does biodiversity mean in terms of a healthy environment? Because biodiversity by itself could be a whole bunch of species that don't normally live together. Some very fancy gardens have actually quite a lot of biodiversity in it, but it's not a self-sustaining ecosystem or something that is tending towards the loss of wilderness, the loss of wild ecosystems, and the loss of native species of moths. So is there some sort of a baseline along those lines that is not just simply the numbers of different species, if you like? So where he's talked about biodiversity net gain in the use of metric, that is purely habitats, their area of extent and their condition that it's not accounting for species at all. We still have all the legislation as far as protected species and species of principle importance. So there are a whole suite of other species that need to be looked at alongside BNG as part of any development. So that's still ongoing. And then any site that comes forward would have to be managed for this 30 years. So habitat management is for 30 years. And I guess the more sustainable that creation is, then the cheaper that would be for a developer to actually deliver. So those sort of drivers are there, but that's why the local authorities are there also to make sure that it's in the right place and meeting the need of as many species as possible. Thank you. Councillor Simon Smith? Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, great. Thank you. So this policy relates to existing local plan policies that came with local plan policies 69 and 70. And these policies have just been put under stress test into development proposals, Adams Road and Elstone Croft. And the application of the policy was found wanting. I think two things. First of all, I don't think there's been sufficient recognition of the value of the buffer zones around the designated reserves. The boundaries are determined by land ownership, not by the value of the habitat of the adjoining area. And I think that absolutely needs to be addressed in new policy. And then the second point that came out from those two cases was about evidence. And it was clear that the developers in both cases thought to ignore, evade, dodge and otherwise gain the very strong policy requirement to produce comprehensive assessment of habitat and assess whether there would be any harm and if there was to come forward with measures to mitigate it. And both applicants failed to do that. Now as a result, those two recommendations to approve those schemes were overturned by committee. And we now got an appeal where the inspector has dismissed one of the applicant's appeals and therefore sustaining the policy and noting their failure to comply with it. So I think there are lessons to be learned from these two cases. And I think we need to go back and look very carefully at the evidence base. We have to protect those sites which are most vulnerable to development pressures. Otherwise, they're not worth a paper they're written on, frankly. Thank you, Simon. Councillor Smith, I think there were statements rather than questions, but Stuart or Guy, do you want to comment on this? Yeah. Clearly, I wasn't aware of those issues and we'll need to explore them and make sure we account for them as we develop the policy. Okay. Can we, Councillor Bick? Thank you. I had another couple of questions about the two policy areas in which open space features. I wanted to ask what we're really trying to achieve with these policy areas. Are we talking about public open space? Are we talking about private open space? Are we talking about open space that has an aspect of access for the public? And really, even in these papers, it's a bit confused. Are we talking about open space or are we talking about green open space? Because there are important differences between all of those concepts. And I found myself getting a bit lost about what the core thrust of the policy that I understand protecting, I understand creating, but exactly what and for what reason seems to get a bit lost in the verbiage here. I do wonder, I mean, these processes don't really work if we're turning everything into a different view between the urban and the rural areas, but I do have a strong sense in this area of policy. There are very different considerations in an urban area than a built-up area. And I wonder whether we need to flex our policy to recognize that. For me, there is obviously some overlay in open space between biodiversity, sustainable drainage, trees, setting of heritage buildings. The list could be much longer than that, I think. But isn't the core of this place open space emerges, the sort of the social purpose of open space? Because that can easily be ignored. And although it can be overlaid with some of those other things, it shouldn't be compromised too much. And it's possible to see that you could have satisfied a biodiversity objective with something you called open space, which actually denied other aspects of open space and therefore maybe didn't achieve what people thought it was going to achieve. So multi-purpose is good, but I do think we need to have a very strong point of policy somewhere in the document overall, which safeguards the social purpose of open space, where people can meet people, people can get exercise, and the aspects that are connected with mental health can be satisfied too. And so I really felt rereading this, that there was a lot more work to be done to actually define what the critical mass of this policy area was and what were you really meant by, is it open or is it green or is it public? Thank you, Councillor Bick. I'd like to just add on to that. The comments earlier about the evidence shows that our triple SIs are being overused by people visiting them because of the lack of public open space in this area and whether there's a data about that and whether actually trying to improve the triple SIs for nature is part of the target we could set. But do Stuart or Jonathan want to come back on this and then we will move on to and then Neil Shayla can come back again and then we'll move on to the next section. Thank you Chair. I think I'm going to pick this one up and I think I would really say that you and Councillor Bick have really encapsulated the sort of challenges that we're trying to address and one of the reasons why we've commissioned a further study. First of all, it isn't just about whether you can access space because our current plans and future plans need to recognise there are private spaces in Cambridge or limited access spaces that all have a significant value in the character of the city and the value they present to people that do use them. So it's not just all about only looking at public space. What we've been trying to do through our additional work is think, well how do we look at that spectrum of space from the smallest end, the pocket park, right up to the country park and look at it as a spectrum of space because some of our, well looking back probably many years, we looked to open space more in phrases like using the six acre standard and so on. I'm going back 20 years where you looked at spaces and the value of them or the need was presented in how much area of open grass you provided to a development based pillar on a hectare edge and what I think the typologies we're looking at is acknowledging that you need that variety of types of spaces. You need access to very local spaces and sometimes perhaps more urban character open spaces through to also having access to those bigger spaces that some in some cases might be further away. We're trying to look at that overall spectrum in how we create great places where you have your needs met in that variety but I think your question and my answer probably encapsulates the challenge of putting that together and I think we've also got the benefit now of having Natural England's latest green infrastructure standards approach so they put a lot of information about guiding how councils put together these frameworks of open space. There was some work done at the county level through the few future parks which was published as well so we've got an awful lot of information to build on but we have now got to draw this together into a operational typology and we hope to be able to come to you with some information drawing on that and putting to you how that might be solved to create these great places I think you're looking for. Thank you very much Jonathan. Councillor Shailor did you want to come back or your hands now down? I just wanted to perhaps add support to what Councillor Pick was saying about places that are accessible for people. I mean this might be a community orchard for instance which might not be that particularly you know a biodiverse or a wild ecosystem but it has its own so the other thing was the idea of sustainable drainage and water gardens. This is something that we're thinking about a lot on on highway so yes if I could just do a small shout out for that as well thank you very much. It's Councillor Richard Williams do you want to come in? Thank you Chair actually it's not related to this item I just wanted to note that I do have an interest I should have declared at the start apologies I was thinking of it slow off the mark I just to note that my employer the University of Cambridge and my college which is Christ's had commented on these parts of the consultation so I just should note that. Okay thank you so I think we'll move on to the next section which will be another really interesting section thank you. Thank you Chair and good evening everybody so I'm Terry DeSousa so I work in the planning policy team so I'm going to talk through the great places chapter now with a number of my colleagues who are joining us on the call. Essentially there are eight policies within the great places chapter and they cover a range of issues including design, landscape, green belt and the historic environment. So the main aim for the great places chapter is to sustain the unique character of Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire and complement it with beautiful and distinct development creating a place where people want to live, work and play and that's really about ensuring that high quality design does create those places that people want to live, work and play and that's through kind of enhancing our local landscapes raising our climate ambitions and also sensitively responding to our historic environment. Okay so I'm going to start with the first policy which is people and place responsive design. This sets an overall kind of strategic vision for how we will achieve high quality designing way to Cambridge and that includes both the rural and the urban areas. It sets out that the expectations about understanding the context of the development which is so critical and understanding the kind of impact on place around them as well as the needs of users. So broadly speaking there was again general support for the policy in particular the objective to create places that are locally distinctive and reflect special qualities of their individual locations. There were contrasting views actually on a number of the policies, on the number of policies required and some of the view that the policies should be more flexible in their approach to enable buildings to come forward that are taller than the prevailing townscape and other contrasting views where the actually greater care needs to be taken to protect the Cambridge skyline in particular and the key views in and around the city. There was also some comments relating that there should be great emphasis on engagement with local communities to improve the design of developments and in particular the quality of documents like design codes and reading the national model design code and the requirements that national government are setting. The community engagement is a really key part of creating design codes and so that was reflected in some of the comments that we would see. In terms of the Northeast Cambridge which came up as a specific point there was some support for it to be a kind of distinct new part of the city however there were some objections to the really the principle of the relocation of the waste water treatment plant to Honeyhill. I'm now going to pass over to my colleague Nancy Kimberley who's going to talk about the next policy in his chapter. Thanks Terry. Yeah I'm going to talk about the protection and enhancement of landscape character policy which set out how development should address landscape character and features in Greater Cambridge. Again there was broad support for this policy and there were some requests for clarity some of the bullet points that we put in the first proposal talked about green gaps and people wanted to know what actually made them important and that we were clear on that and there were also some suggestions for areas that should be protected such as river and brook corridors, West Cambridge and the area around White Hill to the south of Cambridge and there were some developer and landowner views that development can also have positive impact on the character landscapes but that features of particular value should be retained and it shouldn't just be a blanket kind of retainment of landscape features. There were some comments that some of the emerging site allocations wouldn't actually be in line with the policy including comments on the impacts of over development. There also comments on the importance of tree and hedge planting as screening in new developments and one of the areas that the policy looked at was the important countryside frontages which is an existing policy area in the South Cams plan that we were going to take forward into the Greater Cambridge plan. Some comments were highlighting areas that should be included and others were sort of saying these areas are no longer fulfill the requirements. If you could have the next slide. Thank you. I'm also talking about the protection and enhancement of the Cambridge Green Belt policy which sets out the framework for the consideration of development proposals in the Green Belt and it also set out the support for the established local purposes of the Cambridge Green Belt. Again there was broad support although some people questioned whether Green Belt policies are still relevant and the effectiveness of existing Green Belt policies. There was support for the positive use of Green Belt or recreation, biodiversity and tackling climate change. There was some objection to any development in the Green Belt including lands for transport infrastructure such as East West Rail and the Busway to Camborn and the relocation of the wastewater treatment plant. There were also several comments from site promoters arguing that their site in the Green Belt should be considered for development and disagreeing with the Green Belt assessment that consultants produced for us. And now hand over to another colleague. I'm not quite sure who it is. It's me Lizzie. Thanks Nancy. So policy GP QD achieving high quality development sets out the requirements for design quality to be achieved by new developments including high quality alterations and extensions to existing developments. Overall there was general support for the policy and the encouragement of mixed use proposals. There were several suggestions to improve the policy with introduction of design and environmental building standards and crime prevention measures. Some comments suggested maximising the opportunities to develop previously developed land and underutilised sites in the urban area. Some comments suggested that further clarification was needed on the definition of tall buildings and whether a standalone policy for tall buildings was required. And there were general comments noted for the need to create safe streets for children to play in and accessible streets for everybody as part of a wider public realm improvement. Next slide please Terry. And policy GP QP establishing high quality landscape and public realm does what it says on the tin sets out requirements for creating inclusively designed high quality streets, landscape and public realm. There were many respondents expressing support for the policy and one suggestion that the policy should not encourage solely land solely landscape led development but also respond to other designed design land use and landscape considerations. There were various comments on enhancing the policy to include improving the quality and experience of public spaces including through home zone low traffic neighbourhoods and 15 minute cities and more generally there were comments on a range of points on the existing streets and spaces in the city and how busy they were and how they were not always well maintained and how we need to consider anti-terrorism architecture. On that hand you're over to Kieran. Good evening. So this next policy GP, HA conservation enhancement of heresies assets relates to any development proposals that potentially affect listed buildings or conservation areas and yet has broad support from individuals, public bodies, third sector organisations and developers. There was a really lengthy representation from historic England which relates to the second bullet point so they provided feedback to try and improve the policy such as including a more positive strategy for historic environment in a more kind of broader sense than just focusing upon specific areas of the city of Cambridge and addressing designated and non-designated heritage assets heritage risk and historic short fronts basically that's widening the scope of the policy and in response to that this policy will now contain some of those policy requirements such as historic short fronts and heritage at risk. There are some more critical comments from organisations such as Cambridge, Past, Present and Future who stated that there needed to be more up-to-date conservation area appraisals. There are a couple of other comments, Irish Council saying that policy to Cambridge focused and there was a comment from a developer saying that they thought that the policy should recognise how new development can enhance heritage assets. Historic England's another part of their policy, their representation to the policy was that they had concerns about how parts of Cambridge's setting have been defined and measured in the strategic heritage impact assessment and they suggested some ways to improve the work going on in this area. I guess the only thing to add to this part of policies is following on from our briefing about the MPPF proposals. I mean this could be an area that the government takes international development management policies so it's an area to watch this space I guess. Next slide please. So yeah this last one, GPCC datting heritage assets to climate change yes related to a kind of yeah I guess as it says in the tin really it kind of making heritage assets more responsive to the kind of climate crisis and yeah there's broad support from a variety of organisations, individuals and public bodies. This second comment relates to Historic England who provided quite again another lengthy detailed representation where they expressed broad support but also improved improvements to the policy such as making sure that it doesn't harm heritage assets and that the kind of benefits of sympathetic restoration articulated in the policy and they also this third point relates to Cambridge past president of future who said that more detailed guidance is needed about the location of solar panels and the final bullet point relates to Historic England and they provide more advice about how the policy could recognise significant carbon output produced when demolishing old buildings and the policies relate to all buildings of traditional construction and the line with another policy CCNZ in our in our bachelor policies I think that's it then I think so. Thank you and yes and just for members to note that we are also proposing an additional policy for the chapter now which is a which relates to designated and non-designated heritage assets and this is on the back of a recommendation that's come from Historic England and we've been following up with them as part of our kind of what was used to operate process where it's about making sure that we have an established criteria for identifying non-designated heritage assets and also how we would have a local list of assets linked to planning policies in the local plan this is essentially building on two existing policies from the adopted local plan so policy 62 from the Cambridge local plan which is local heritage assets and appendix G as well as the South Cams local plan policy NH 14 which relates to heritage assets so it's essentially combining those two existing policies into a specific designated and non-designated heritage assets policy just in terms of next steps for discussion I just wanted to flag two pieces of work that we're doing at the moment so we have appointed consultants to undertake a piece of work which relates to townscape studies so they're looking at the existing townscape characters character areas across Cambridge City in particular and some of the larger villages within South Cambridgeshire primarily drawing together information that already exists from a number of documents such as conservation area appraisals, village design guides and others there's also heritage impact assessments being undertaken to support specific site allocations and that is part of sort of national requirements really that historic England have asked us to do that's well underway and we're also undertaking a tool building strategy for Cambridge as well that's still early days at the moment in that piece of work but it's about understanding what we may need to do further to support and enhance the current appendix F in the Cambridge local plan which essentially manages tool buildings and tool building proposals and also starts to not only understand the impacts of tool buildings on individual sites but also that cumulative impact as well on tool buildings and key views across the city in particular so for example if there are tool buildings on the west side of Cambridge and then there are tool buildings on the east side of Cambridge what does that mean cumulatively in terms of our appreciation and understanding of the city from those key strategic views but we can provide more detail on that as that as that work develops further I'm going to now to head back to the chair thank you thank you very much everyone um questions from uh members councillor bick yes I had a question about tool the buildings I mean I read what what we're saying in in the document we consulted on which doesn't strike me as awful it's quite an elegant way of addressing it but then I noticed in the in the in the consultation response we have this suggestion from Historic England that it might be more useful to have a separate policy for toola buildings so I just wonder whether officers could help us understand kind of what is the what is the point being made there is it something that would give greater power to whatever policy we had on toola buildings or or is it just a sort of symbolic thing to have a separate policy on something that people care a lot about okay um I've got a question our pubs we have a policy at the moment to protect pubs some pubs in Cambridge will that be carried through um and and maybe extended to the whole area and maybe someone could pick up councilor bick's points and that as well thank you if I pick up the first bit I think um John Brooks may also come in on the tool build exactly but I think in terms of having you know multiple policies my take on it is that we are trying to have a a plan where issues are grouped amongst a succinct set of policies so whether we have one policy covering a number of issues or combined that really shouldn't be an issue so that has been a aim to have a succinct structured plan that's not to very um seek to undermine the importance of effectively having policies that address tool buildings and that would very much be our intention John I don't think I'll pick that up further yeah thanks Jonathan um yeah Jonathan Brooks here principle open designer um I think it's really good point about whether you start to try and isolate particular components and and do something bespoke around them I think this is where the importance of the work that Terry referred to in terms of the skyline and tool building strategy which we're currently working through with our appointed consultants becomes really important because I think we've always seen the need to link particularly kind of put particular elements together so you don't sort of create a standalone um and I think once we know further around the baseline of that and we understand more around the character of the city which we've got a pretty good understanding of already but you know development has been happening for a chunk of time since that policy was written and so there is an opportunity to really evaluate how the policies in the existing local plan are working and how Appendix F is working and then I think um as we kind of move forward it will become much more obvious to us whether there would be a need to as you say kind of do something which is very bespoke but I think would need to go more around tool buildings but with the skyline importance and setting and that and those kind of issues as a as a suite of topics that you would which you would structure a policy around but as Jonathan says we are trying to do something kind of streamlined but the challenge with that is does it get kind of lost in that streamlining process and I think at the moment we're open to that and I think it's going to be really important to see what the work that our consultants does with our very strong input into that work be assured to see to see how we go forward. Thank you both. Oh sorry I was just going to make sure you get the pubs sorry. We've got the pubs as well but also just on just on that point we have been working incredibly closely with Historic England as part of this tool buildings and skyline study they've been involved in drafting the brief as well as through the you know the various drafts and discussions so we're working very closely with them and actually they've been very complementary of the work that we've been doing within within the team and actually trying to address some of these issues sort of head on really early on in the plan making process and as you can imagine that that isn't a consistent approach that's taken across all authorities so I'm really pleased with the feedback we've had so far from them. Terry sorry I'll just add on to that that Historic England have obviously identified that our current policy 16 appendix FR example of kind of pretty good practice in terms of how they work so again we're really mindful of the fact that we've got something that's quite strong already but again this is where as we engage with our consultants and we think about how it can be modified to become better and kind of meet kind of further expectations that Historic England may have and how that all kind of comes together in the future so we don't want to lose what we've got but we want to make it better. Just on councillor Thornborough's point around public houses yes we are proposing to retain that policy as part of the draft local plan it has been shifted into another chapter though it's moved into the well-being I can't remember the full name of the title sorry. Thank you Lizzie chapter Lizzie I think is the lead on that policy now so that's great and this chapter will actually also include the policy relating to housing densities which I believe was taken to to this group at a previous meeting when it was discussed in the housing chapter so essentially members are already aware of the consultation responses to that policy so we didn't want to repeat it for this evening's meeting but the housing density policy will be moving into the great places chapter. Thank you chair. Thank you very much so we can have councillor Dr Richard Williams and then Simon Smith please. Okay thank you very much chair yeah my question relates to the high quality development policy so GP slash QD it's just a section around responding to local character I mean I was just wondering in what way do we is that policy going to respond to local character because it seems to me that there are some very sort of pretend you know okay in themselves points in that policy but at no point does it actually require designs buildings to respond to the existing environment that's already there which I'd see as being part of you know a key part of responding to local character so I'd just be interested to hear from officers in what way actually this policy will require response to local character because to my mind whilst it says a lot about the nature of the design doesn't actually require any any sort of anything we could hold developers to in terms of you know bringing forward development that are actually sympathetic to what's already in rural or urban areas rather than you know I think as we get a lot of in Cambridge a completely different architectural style thrown in with a lot of other completely architectural different styles and the whole place starts to begin to look a bit of a mess. Well there's a question I would just let's have Simon pose his points and questions and then we'll bring the team in thank you. Okay well first of all I must confess I don't know much about urban design but annoyingly I know what I like and don't like so this is not a very professional set of comments. I think what I've noted is that where there have been parameter plans and there was one for Darwin Green taller development has worked very well because it's respected the existing existing development and where that hasn't happened is caused a lot of so niab it caused a lot of problems and I think the quality of the development when that when niab is built out it won't be a great addition to the to the urban urban form so I think we've had one approach which has worked very well now when we apply that to tall tall buildings say in the more in the centre and the commercial areas I think the the the fact that you're undertaking this review is really positive and and and to be welcomed because there will be increasing pressure on to ever taller buildings and I think it's going to be really important that we have a policy that's quite specific that when developers come in for pre-apps you've got a policy you can refer to a policy which says look the limit on this particular site is going to be n floors and no more and we've got a policy it's gone through the local plan being subject to examination that seals the deal because what we don't want to see are centre points and used in towers which adjust kind of just so kind of out of place with the the whole street scene and the environment and that part of London and I think if we can design out the risk of that of that form of development in Cambridge it would be well it would be a fantastic thing to achieve okay is that set for me thank you we'll have maybe the officers can come back on those points and questions and then we'll have Councillor Sanford afterwards thank you so I'll start maybe John Brooks maybe you might want to join in as well so just in terms of I'm starting off with Councillor Smith's comments so as part of the work that our consultants are doing looking at the skyline and tall buildings and strategy and study they are kind of reviewing the existing policy as John mentioned so it's about understanding its implementation and how it actually has worked to inform the recent developments that we've seen across Cambridge I'd say over the last sort of five or six years so and it's about I suppose understanding how in their kind of I suppose objective minds you know how successful that has been and times where it's worked and times when it hasn't worked and kind of understanding the rationale for that obviously when you have a tall buildings policy you know the character of the city varies so so greatly whether you're working with a historic core or whether you're dealing with one of the grovesites on the edge of town and so yeah that this is where the kind of I suppose coming slightly into Council of Richard Williams point is about local context I think is really important it's about understanding that context and then understand the kind of you know the rationale for tall buildings and whether they are in principle acceptable nor and then the matters of the detail of design where you know John Brooks's expertise and others is them you know really really critical in making sure we get good outcomes I think the point around understanding implementing specific limits or or height limits for developments is a really interesting point and a discussion that we've actually had recently with our consultants some councils have gone with that with that type of approach and there are there are pros and cons I would say with that approach I think from my own personal experience of working elsewhere as soon as you set a maximum height it suddenly becomes the minimum which is always a challenge and so actually going for more of a criteria based approach in the policy like we do currently have in the policy 60 and appendix F can be more beneficial because that's when you really start to understand the context-led approach rather than we have a benchmark and from a developer's balance sheet that's your starting point so I think that's I think this is where we've got to be quite careful in terms of setting limits what's quite interesting though is what our consultants have done is as part of their current policy 60 we define what a tall building is in Cambridge and generally probably probably gonna need to correct me but I think it's around four or five stories I think it is and is that right John? Yeah we've got a sort of 13 meter and 18 meter depending on where you are in the city so we default to the historic England definition which is you know significantly taller than the buildings around it which is sort of suitably vague but then we do put the meterage in to reflect what might be a circumstance for the city central historic core versus outlying suburbs and I know that Terry's now going to talk about average heights are you what you want me to partly yeah just to say that they've actually started mapping to see what that actually means in a Cambridge context they're not only looking at new development that's come forward but actually looking at historic development to see and actually that it's quite surprising to see how many buildings are actually beyond what we consider to be a tall building in a Cambridge context so it's giving us as part of this kind of review of understanding the policy and its kind of intentions it's about understanding is that kind of 30 meters 18 meters still right and it's about understanding whether you know if we're saying that those are that is a definition of tall but actually there's over a thousand or whatever buildings that actually break that that definition of tall is that definition still right so this is kind of the bigger kind of context piece of work that we're doing at the moment sorry if I'm being slightly vague with it because it's still very much a live discussion that we're having at the moment within the team and with our consultants but it's lots of head scratching but really interesting stuff so hopefully we'll be able to be a bit more defensive on some of this as we move forward. John is there anything else you want to tell us? Yeah I'll just come in on that as well if I may I think the other thing that's changed since we wrote the the last policy which was an evolution of the policy before was that we do have access to much more interesting and useful kind of digital information so we can start to set yeah we've got viewpoints for instance in existing Cambridge local plan and you can look from a viewpoint you say well what's the impact on that well part of the work that we're getting the consultants to do is actually to provide a more kind of qualitative assessment of what that view is all about so you can pick out components in that view and that's where that understanding of townscape or skyline becomes a really important point to the point I made earlier about it's not just about tall buildings it's actually the ensemble piece of the setting of the city the tree line the open spaces the prevailing heights and I think again this is where you know this was average height stator for different parts of the city becomes really interesting and useful so we've got quite a crude approach at the moment with these kind of thresholds but actually we could start to do something much more sophisticated so as Terry said it's all kind of evolving and happening as as we speak and it'll be interesting to see how how that washes through into the policy well the other issue it might be worth picking up on sorry can I just submit the other issue is the local design codes so they're very much looking quite a strong part of the the emerging changes to the national system um and we're actually doing the built natural viability and we're doing some work um exploring some um early walk and what that thought those might look like but um I think they might pick up on some of that that local issues that the council Williams were picking up on because they would provide that more element of local design that I suspect you may be looking for or John I don't know if you will pick up on that as well yeah really happy to so I think obviously we've got the the point around the sort of local townscape and thinking about kind of character areas um and how that rolls into a design code I think there'll be something really interesting about how do you um potentially you know is that the only thing you can do does it have to be completely respectful of an existing character or is there a case that can be made for a contrast with it which I think uh responds to what's set out in the national design guide about how you might start to do that but the the point around kind of community participation and involvement in the production of local codes is a really important part so that we can um we can respond to what people want and we can understand what are the important components of places that they live in um and so that along with that wider piece around skyline and character and setting becomes a really robust structure to help you make quite you know important decisions about how the city can change or or or not in some places well can I just say thank you clearly this issue is in the hands of very capable and expert and very enthused people and I'm just like feeling very secure that we're going to get a really good policy from from you and the undergun to deliver it as well so thank you very much that's great so um Councillor Williams do you did you get enough answer to your points and question um yeah thanks chair I yeah I mean thank you for the responses I sort of take the point about design guys and and I know probably that that that is a you know an area where a lot of what I'm getting at um well it would be dealt with through that area I mean I I do I do subtly wonder about this policy there because it does say that we have a policy about protecting local character or responding rather to local character but then the detail points don't actually say anything about local character they they make points about design they don't actually make any any point that design should respond to local character which to my mind you could probably do with with a few words so I would probably like to see that toughened up but I take the point that you make that that you know local design guys might be an appropriate place for this to be dealt with yeah I'm happy to just come in Katie if that's okay I mean I think respond is always a really difficult word and I think it's how you quantify what that response should be that becomes really important so I think we need to be precise with our language and precise with the ambition of what we want to achieve through that and set that out clearly and certainly as we draft the policy that will be kind of forefront of our minds sorry Katie yeah we've got I just want to say we've got some fantastic examples in the city and in rural in the rural parts of this area about things that have worked really well and some examples of things that didn't work well which might help um Councillor Sanford do you want to come in now thank you chair the risk of dragging the discussion out I think Councillor Williams has made some of the points I was going to I'm struggling to see a policy that will work for both the city and some of the South Cams villages I'm mindful of a recent landing application where the locals were horrified at a three-storey building rather than a two and that was a village that's probably only five or eight miles outside Cambridge so the details I think do need to go into the local design plans but I recognize the challenge the officers have got to actually come up with something that'll work for all our area I look forward to reading your drafts people yes I just following on from Councillor Sanford is there's a whole discussion about similar discussion about densities as well and the appropriate densities and I keep reminding myself that the most one of the most dense parts of Cambridge is Eddington the the taller parts of Eddington which but it's just so wonder it's I think it's a wonderful space but do you want to Jonathan do you want to come back or Terry I was just going to mention that under policy GP QD achieving high quality development there is a section in it that talks about contributing responding to local character so that's about the successful integration of buildings routes and spaces between buildings topography which is obviously just as important in the villages as much as it is for the city townscape and then landscape as well and then it talks about things like appropriately scaled frontages public spaces and rural and urban settings the use of materials which is obviously so critical but also really there's some of the things that's quite easy to sort of overlook when you're looking at sort of bigger schemes and things like the functional aspects like waste and recycling bike storage car parking all of those things actually start to create that clutter or that urbanizing effect in our more rural locations and so actually so whilst this policy talks about things like tool buildings and about you know passive surveillance for designing out crime it does have a few really good hooks there I think in terms of that responding to local character we've done a huge amount of work so far on evidence and looking at landscape character the townscape works underway at the moment and so I think the kind of one of the key emphasis for this policy is going to be about actually saying what do we expect development proposals to demonstrate as part of the word that as part of their proposals where you know whether it conforms with local character or is that odd with local character what are we expecting what are planning what are the planning committee expecting to see the new developments in order to make that case and make sure that you know those those proposals are justified so yeah so that this is where obviously the policy preparation is the next stage of actually developing the draft plan will hopefully give you know members of this group and other councillors the confidence that we have a policy with TEAF. Excellent thank you. I'd like to say also that the the opinion people's opinion does change over time and I know that buildings generally are the most unpopular when they've been around for about 50 or 60 years and quite some of the bigger buildings if they are not demolished then they then become they are on the upward trajectory and become quite popular again. Councillor Shaila. Well that was a quick chat. Yeah I just wanted to put it a little bit of support for tall buildings really. The thing is we have trouble with sustainable transport, with passenger transport within Cambridge, with housing in Cambridge and a lot of these problems and also the the local environment around the buildings and as as the chair mentioned Eddington is a good example the most densely populated part of the city yeah and yet it doesn't feel like that it feels beautifully open. So when it when it comes to speaking to the local character as long as we're not following bad design and unsustainable housing you know we can look at what is great about what we have and what needs to change and I think you know we are building for 50 or 100 years in the future and I think we should really keep that in mind as well. Thank you Councillor Shaila. Anybody want to come back on that? Yeah I will do I think just in I think it's an absolute example of the relationship to density so height is one component of creating denser places but actually there are different kind of density models that you can follow so you know and also measures of density so you know people per hectare becomes a really interesting way of measuring density and it's a really interesting way of understanding how you support and sustain local communities and services and how you relate them to sort of public transport routes and so you know a sort of gentle density approach which is sort of well depending on who you are sort of 75 dwellings up to 250 dwellings per hectare can deliver a denser form of development and a more and a bigger critical mass of people without radically changing the perception of the skyline or what the city is about and I suppose Eddington is sort of heading into that sort of gentle density in places kind of approach albeit within a few kind of taller buildings around you know taller in comparison to the ones around it so I think as we go forward it will just be interesting to think about how we capture that as part of that approach. Thank you. Do any more councillors want to make any comments or questions? Okay well I'd just like to follow up on what Simon said and it has been such an interesting presentation and from the team really good questions and comments from the members is I found it's really fascinating but it does reflect for me the quality of the team just fantastic and I'm really pleased about the evidence that we continue to seek and I'm impressed about your understanding about our aspirations for the city and this area so I can't thank you enough for all your hard work and in making what's going to be an amazing local plan so thank you all very very much thank you members for coming along and other people for looking in and I look forward to the next one which is going to be on Monday the 13th of March at 5.30 so thank you all very much and I hope the rest of your evening goes well good night


How do Massachusetts casinos compare? As owners of Boston-based women and minority-owned data science businesses who love to visit our Massachusetts casinos, we ask this question. So I, Monica Wahee, president of DeathWench Professional Services, let DeathWench do your data, and my colleague, Josie Haywood, president of Wiseye Incorporated, analyzed publicly available data on Massachusetts casinos and developed a white paper answering that question. If you want to read the highlights of our white paper, visit my blog and read my blog post about it. Or, if you want an actual copy of our white paper, connect with me on LinkedIn and give me your email address, and I'll send it to you. These links are in the description to this video. First, let's meet our Massachusetts casinos. Let's start with Plain Ridge Park Casino in Plainville, Massachusetts that opened in 2015. Horse racing used to be very popular in Massachusetts, as you can see by this picture from back in 2007 at the now-closed Suffolk Downs racetrack. Plain Ridge Park used to have a track, but they shut it down, and in 2015, put in a casino with slot machines, a couple of sit-down restaurants, a music stage, and a food court. Next, after Plain Ridge Park, in August of 2018, MGM Springfield opened in downtown Springfield, Massachusetts. MGM Springfield has a hotel, slot machines, and tables, and was built as a way of reinvigorating an economically depressed downtown. Also, MGM Springfield is perfectly positioned to compete with the casinos in nearby Connecticut, such as Foxwood and Mohegan Sun pictured here, as well as the casinos in Rhode Island. Finally, after MGM Springfield, Massachusetts got its first Vegas-style casino with Encore Boston Harbor, which is truly unbelievable from the outside as well as from the inside. Okay, now that we've introduced our Massachusetts casinos, let's get to know them by comparing them. Let's start by looking at the gaming floor. Encore has by far the biggest gaming floor at over 190,000 square feet, followed closely behind by MGM Springfield. The smallest gaming floor is at Plain Ridge Park, with almost 44,000 square feet of gaming space. It's not a surprise that we see a similar pattern with slot machines, but Josie and I found it interesting that MGM Springfield, while being smaller than Encore, actually had more slot machines, 3,000 compared to Encore's 2,500 in change. And Plain Ridge Park, with its smaller gaming floor, has half as many as Encore. Now, in terms of tables, the comparison gets really interesting, because Plain Ridge Park does not have any tables. Only MGM Springfield and Encore Boston Harbor have tables, and now you can see why Encore has fewer slot machines than MGM Springfield. Clearly, it has way more tables, over twice as many, taking up space on the gaming floor. Is this a good economic decision? We shall see in our analysis. Finally, we looked at hotel rooms per casino. Again, Plain Ridge Park does not have hotel rooms on site, but they have partnered with hotels nearby that offer discounts to casino goers. Still, as you can see here, Encore is clearly emphasizing their hotel business compared to MGM Springfield. Remember, MGM Springfield is near the casinos in Connecticut with huge towering hotels, so it is possible that de-emphasizing hotel rooms in this region is a wise decision. By the way, this information about Massachusetts casinos is available from annual reports from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, or MGC, who regulates the Massachusetts casinos. But Josie and I were also interested in how Massachusetts as a state compares to other states in terms of casino performance. For that, we turned to a report by the American Gaming Association, or AGA. The AGA recently published a State of the States survey of the commercial casino industry. They published a table reporting Total State Gross Gaming Revenue, or GGR, for 24 different states as reported in 2018. GGR is calculated by subtracting the total winning payouts from the total amount wagered. For example, let's say in one month, casino customers put a total of $10,000 into a slot machine, and let's say in that same month, altogether, they win a total of $3,000 back. That would make the monthly GGR for that slot machine be $7,000. Not a bad deal, right? So let's look at Massachusetts GGR compared to other states. Here is a bar chart with the total GGR in 2018 by state from the AGA data. As you can see, Nevada is an outlier. Probably because what gets spent in Vegas stays in Vegas. But notice that the GGR for Massachusetts is relatively small, close to the end of the line. I wondered if that was logical, given its population. So I added population levels to the chart with a secondary axis. Okay, now you can see the population in dots added to the GGR in bars. The Massachusetts population was about 6.9 million in 2018. What other states have the same size population? I added this horizontal line to help me figure that out. As you can see, Indiana is the closest in population to Massachusetts. But its GGR bar is a lot higher. In fact, it's over 13 times higher. So of course, I wondered, why is that? This made me want to compare the casinos to each other and see if one was overperforming or one was dragging the others down. I noticed the revenue reports from each Massachusetts casino that I downloaded from the MGC website provided stratified GGR numbers. By that, I mean the total monthly GGR was stratified into monthly slot GGR and monthly table GGR. Since I had the total number of slots and tables at each casino from the annual reports, I invented a metric that could be used to compare the casinos. I called the metric efficiency. For monthly slot efficiency, the metric is monthly slot GGR divided by number of slot machines. For monthly table efficiency, the calculation is monthly table GGR divided by number of tables. Let's see how this works. Let's say there was a casino that reported a slot GGR that month of $2.5 million. And for the sake of easy math, let's say that this casino had 1,000 slot machines. Then, for the monthly slot efficiency, we divide $2.5 million by 1,000 slot machines and we'd get $2,500. So, that means that, on average, that month, each of those 1,000 slot machines at that casino took in $2,500 in gross gaming revenue. Of course, we'd like that to be higher, so this is a way to compare the three casinos. Let's start by looking at what we found for slot GGR efficiency. Here is our first analysis, the monthly slot GGR efficiency over time for all three casinos. As you can see, it's pretty disparate. But it was hard to compare, so I thought I'd make a grand mean and add that to the graph. Like this. As you can see, even though Plain Ridge Park has the smallest gaming floor, on average, it's pulling in over $10,000 of GGR per slot machine monthly. Then look at MGM Springfield. On average, it's pulling in only half as much per slot monthly. So, you can see there is room for improvement in MGM Springfield slot efficiency. Here's the efficiency analysis for the tables. Remember, Plain Ridge Park doesn't have tables, so this just compares MGM Springfield and Encore Boston Harbor. While MGM Springfield has an average monthly table efficiency of about $60,000 per table, Encore has almost twice that. Again, it looks like MGM Springfield could be doing better in this area. Finally, we have Payout Percent. This is a slot measure that is usually called Return to Player or RTP. Those of you who are familiar with online slot machines know that RTP for online slots is typically in the area indicated on the chart in gray and can be as high as 99%. The higher it is, the more payout goes to the player. But all three Massachusetts casinos are woefully low in their payout percent, which hovers just above 90%. This is a very uncompetitive RTP for a state that is trying to compete with out-of-state casinos as well as online casinos. Of course, we dug deeper into the data in our white paper, but as a result of our analysis, here are our six recommendations to Massachusetts casinos. First, improve gaming efficiency. For each slot machine or table on the floor, there is some overhead, making the slot machines and tables more attractive to customers so that they use them more would improve efficiency, pleasing both casinos and customers. Next, better meet demand for non-gaming activities. The MGC and the casinos want to emphasize the tourism aspect of the casinos and have casino goers engage in local non-gaming activities such as enjoying restaurants, trying out local hotels, or attending music events. However, right now it is not clear what the demand is for these activities. Offering the right non-gaming activities could actually improve revenue from gaming. Our next recommendation is to improve the payout percent of slot machines at Massachusetts casinos. That way, they can successfully compete with both online casinos and casinos in nearby states. Our fourth recommendation is to have the MGC and the casinos clarify their community priorities relative to their gaming priorities. On one hand, they say they are de-emphasizing gaming and encouraging non-gaming activities. Yet, their revenue reports do not mention revenue from restaurants or any metrics corresponding to activities that do not relate to gambling. With no metrics being requested, it's hard to feel that non-gaming activities are being prioritized by the MGC and the casinos. Our fifth recommendation is small but helpful, and that is to present the MGC annual reports all in one place. Right now, to get these reports, you have to search the publications archive. By contrast, to download the revenue reports for the casinos is relatively easy because the MGC puts them all on one page. So, we are just suggesting the MGC have a special page to post their annual reports so they are easier to find. And finally, our last recommendation is to develop and report non-gaming metrics. Plain Ridge Park is near Foxborough Stadium and some outlet malls. MGM Springfield has sports and music venues, but also showcases the beauty and the history of New England. And Encore is so close to Boston that visitors, like all Boston tourists, have unending choices of non-gaming activities. We hope you see the rationale behind our six recommendations and connect with me on LinkedIn if you want to read the whole white paper or just talk about data science and casinos. This video promoting the data science services of WISEI Incorporated and Deathwench Professional Services is a production of Deathwench Professional Services. Let Deathwench do your data.


To the NLL we go where Vancouver is up one over Colorado trying to hold it down, but tie game. And it's gonna go into overtime where we have a controversial moment where Colorado, no, Vancouver has the ball, little dump past a 45 who runs in and scores the game winner in overtime, drop pass, and 12 didn't switch to his man. I mean, it's tough play.  After review, the shooter contacts the crease, trying to get back in the ball. Oh my goodness, no goal because he contacts the crease before the ball goes in. So his knee or his elbow or something, his elbow it looks like, or his foot even, touched the ground before that ball went into the net. So it does not count and the game continues, storming in, lefty shot, wins. And look at number 12's reaction. Yeah, oh, thank God, because I didn't want it to be my fault.