Cambridge continues aggressive expansion

Cambridge is a city on the move. Literally. It is moving outwards in all directions. Cambridgeshire council has just given outline permission for another 1,200 homes out at Trumpington Meadows - a Grosvenor scheme - and this is only one of four new residential communities puling the city's boundaries outwards.

The Grosvenor development, in south Cambs, will include a new school, community facilties, a 60ha country park, not to mention new roads and associated infrastructure.

Set to follow in its footsteps are  Countryside's developments at Clay Farm and Glebe Farm, to the south and the east, comprising a total more than 2,500 new homes. Other sites earmarked for expansion include the Niab agricultural land and Orchard Park to the north.

What is particularly significant about the Trumpington go-ahead is that the developer has agreed to 40% affordable housing. Cambridge has a big problem with affordable housing - researchers and academic staff don't necessarily get paid in the upper echelons of wage brackets, and it has a pressing need for more housing - 8,000 people are on the council's housing list, with almost 40,000 commuting into the city every day for work.

Grosvenor and its partners the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) and Bedfordshire Pilgrims Housing Association (bpha) only agreed to the 40% with help from its friends. The Homes and Communities Agency is giving it a grant of £4.5m, to be repaid when the homes are sold. Otherwise it could be facing into the legal black hole Countryside is currently entrenched in - the developer for the Clay and Glebe Farm schemes is arguing that it can only afford 16.5% affordable housing in the downturn, and has clashed swords with the local authorities.

Without help from the public sector, this could have become another case of much needed housing falling into a beaurocratic no-man's land.