Public consultation on the draft Local Plan has now closed.
Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council are working together to create the first joint Local Plan for Greater Cambridge.
The draft Local Plan was consulted on from 1 December 2025 until 30 January 2026.
Next steps
You can view the draft Local Plan for consultation through our consultation hub. You can also view our Interactive Draft Policies Map for Greater Cambridge that shows the allocations and designations set out in the Local Plan.
You can view the PDF versions of the Local Plan, supporting documents and evidence in our document library.
And lastly, you can view our new digital Story Map of the Local Plan, that provides a summary of the Plan with key images from each Chapter for a more visual story of the Plan’s content.
We are now processing all comments received during the Winter 2025 consultation and will be considering these in the preparation of the proposed submission version of the Local Plan. It is the intention that this version of the plan will be consulted on during Summer 2026 ahead of Submission to the Secretary of State for Independent Examination in December 2026.
All comments received during the consultation period will be published. Please refer to our Privacy Notice for further details, which can be found on our website.
Recording of our online consultation events
During the consultation we hosted a series of online webinars that you are able to watch below:
- Tuesday 2 December: providing an introduction to the draft Local Plan consultation. You can watch back the recording on YouTube
- Wednesday 10 December: the Development Strategy and Site Allocations, you can watch back the recording on YouTube
- Wednesday 17 December, 6pm to 7:30pm: Our Themes. You can watch the recording back on YouTube
- Wednesday 7 January, 6pm to 7pm: Draft Greater Cambridge Local Plan: About our Plan - Refresher Session - You can watch the recording back on YouTube
Competition now closed
We encouraged participation in planning during the consultation through 2 competitions. The first was a Lego competition, inviting young people under the age of 18 to submit photos of their creations.
The second competition, open to all ages, was a drawing competition asking for drawings or illustrations for one or all of the 7 themes of the plan.
Our judging panel are excited to review all entries now that the consultation has ended. Our winners for each competition will be announced on Tuesday 10 February 2026.
Site submissions
The Councils are not currently accepting any further site submissions at this stage. You can view the sites that the Councils had considered and assessed before the draft Local Plan consultation in the Housing and Employment Land Availability Assessment (HELAA). These sites include those submitted by landowners, site promoters and ones identified by the Councils Sites Dashboard. Any new or amended sites received during the draft Local Plan consultation will be registered and processed.
What the draft Local Plan is
The draft Local Plan shows where new homes and workplaces could be built over the next 20 years - and how essential community facilities and public services would support this expected growth. Once adopted, the joint Local Plan would become the statutory development plan for the Greater Cambridge area.
The draft Local Plan sets out the Development Strategy and proposed development within the Cambridge urban area, the edge of Cambridge, new settlements, the rural southern cluster and the rest of the rural area. The plan sets out our vision for Greater Cambridge through development management policies under seven key themes of:
- Climate change
- Biodiversity and green spaces
- Great places
- Wellbeing and social inclusion
- Homes
- Jobs
- Infrastructure.
The Local Plan follows a set process, and will be independently verified to check if it is sound before it can be formally adopted. The examination will test whether the Plan is realistic, deliverable and based on good evidence.
Local Plans, along with national planning policy, are the foundation of decision-making on planning applications, and the Plan ensures that a consistent approach is taken to planning across Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council until 2045.
Where we are proposing to build
In our First Proposals draft version of the Plan in 2021, we suggested new sites that might be suitable for more development to meet our needs up to 2041. Since then, we have considered the consultation feedback, and updated our assessments of the need for jobs and homes. Evidence confirmed the need for over 50,000 new homes between 2024 and 2045 to meet the forecast increase in jobs. Some 37,000 of these homes are already provided for within planning permissions and sites identified in the adopted local plans from 2018.
More information on the plan-making process so far
Call for Sites - 2019
In 2019 we held an initial Call for Sites and workshops with a wide range of groups to understand what they felt the big issues for the Plan might be.
A call for sites is a way for landowners, developers and individuals to suggest sites that might be available for development in the future. It is a normal part of plan making.
First Conversation (Issues and Options) - 2020
In January and February 2020, we held the First Conversation – a big public consultation on the big themes and challenges for the plan. This also included a Call for Sites.
The consultation resulted in over 5,000 visitors to our website, 6,000 people attending events, 30,000 views of our videos, over 8,500 comments and responses to the consultation questions from a huge range of people, and over 650 suggested sites for development and 21 suggested sites for green spaces. This included comments on the Sustainability Appraisal Scoping Report, Habitats Regulations Assessment Scoping Report, and Sustainability Appraisal.
In September 2020 we published the responses to the First Conversation, and information received through the Call for Sites.
Our Early stages of the Local Plan Document Library includes all the documents related to the First Conversation consultation and the Call for Sites.
In November 2020 we published initial evidence base findings and development strategy options assessments. The additional water briefing we published at the time is published in our Early stages of the Local Plan Document Library.
First Proposals consultation (Regulation 18) - 2021
In late 2021 we held a full public consultation on the First Proposals for the Plan, including a wide range of in-person and online events and activity. Again this included a Call for Sites.
You can read more about how consultation has influenced the Plan so far in the Consultation Statement in our document library.
View a map of our 2021 proposed allocations, which were consulted on as part of the First Proposals consultation.
Since 2021
We looked at the issues raised about the First Proposals consultation before the next consultation stage. Between autumn 2022 and spring 2023 we held meetings of the Joint Local Plan Advisory Group where members talked about the consultation feedback received.
In early 2023 Members made decisions about the development strategy and key sites as well as confirming an updated need for jobs and homes, drawing on new evidence. We held a public webinar about the Development Strategy Update where we talked through the report and answered questions. Documents regarding these decisions are in our Document Library. These decisions have guided the preparation of the draft local plan.
We also held a Site Submissions Update in early 2025 which allowed for updated information to be provided on previously submitted sites, or new sites to be submitted.
Our latest timetable for the Local Plan is set out in the Local Development Scheme adopted in November 2025.
Recent stage: Draft Local Plan – Winter 2025
The draft Local Plan and supporting documents were scrutinised by local councillors – starting with Cambridge City Council’s Performance, Assets and Strategy Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday 4 November 2025; then the South Cambridgeshire District Council Scrutiny and Overview Committee on Thursday 6 November 2025.
To view joint Cabinet agenda papers including our proposed modifications to the draft Plan in response to Scrutiny meeting actions (Appendix K) visit: Agenda for Cabinet on Tuesday, 25th November, 2025, 5.30 pm - Cambridge Council and Agenda for Cabinet on Tuesday, 25 November 2025, 5.30 p.m. - South Cambridgeshire District Council
What happens next
Feedback from this consultation will help shape the final version of the Plan, which will be consulted on for a final time this year before it is submitted to Government to be examined.
The examination will test whether the Plan is realistic, deliverable and based on good evidence, before it can be adopted.