Tag: Open Spaces

St Matthew’s Piece Trees – “Why don’t the planners…?”

Prompted by our recent blogpost St Matthew’s Piece Trees – STILL under threat! and by the urging of Friends of St Matthew’s Piece, many local residents emailed our local City Council ward councillors for Petersfield, ward councillors for the neighbouring Abbey ward and members of the Planning Committee.

The three trees under threat on St Matthew’s Piece Trees

The response from councillors has been heartening, but some local residents have puzzled why it is not possible for members of the Planning Committee to give their unqualified support to refuse the application.

Members of the Planning Committee can, and should, consider all of the evidence and every representation made by the public about any planning application.

However, a Planning Committee meeting has a legal (judicial) function and, just as neither judge nor jury may decide the outcome of any case before the court assembles, neither may members of the Planning Committee make a decision on any application before it is considered, in full, at the Planning Committee meeting.

But let Councillor Sam Carling, Cambridge City Councillor for West Chesterton,
Executive Councillor for Open Spaces and City Services and a member of the Planning Committee, explain.

We are pleased to have received permission to publish Councillor Carling’s recent email, in full (below).

Dear resident,

I’m writing to you in response to your email regarding the planning application 23/0119/TTPO – Felling of St Matthew’s Piece Trees, which you sent to me as a member of the Planning Committee. I read your email and considered it in full after receiving it, but I cannot respond to the points you raise regarding the application, and I wanted to explain why.

Committee members are not able to respond to the detail of emails regarding planning applications, as you may have been told, and the very high volume of emails that came in meant I could not reply to each to explain why that is the case. Instead, I thought it best to wait until the emails stopped and then write a response to everyone together. There are also some misconceptions evident in some of the emails I received, so I also wanted to take the opportunity to answer some of those.

Essentially, Planning Committee members must at all times avoid “fettering our discretion”. What this means is, it is critical that members of the committee do not take any action or speak in a way that could be interpreted as biasing our view on the application, or which suggests we have already made our decision (predetermination). If a committee member were to express views on an application prior to the meeting at which it is considered, they would have to withdraw from discussion on the item and not vote on it, though they may speak as a ward councillor if they wish. If a Committee member was found to have been predetermined and had voted on an application, it would leave the decision open to a high risk of challenge.

You are probably aware by now that the application was deferred to be considered at a future Planning Committee meeting. I do not yet have the date on which the application will return – if it comes to the September meeting then the date is the 6th September, but it may be heard at another month’s meeting. In respect of the meeting last week, the committee did engage in a brief discussion about some of the issues prior to the deferral, which you can find on the livestream of the meeting here between 28:23 and 40:35.

As I said, I would like to correct a couple of misunderstandings included in some of the emails I received:

“Why does the council want to fell these trees?” / “Why have you allowed this application to be submitted?” / words to that effect

The City Council did not submit this application. An application has been received from a third party, which is being dealt with through the standard planning processes. It is due to be determined by the Planning Committee in line with the committee’s duty to determine applications when officers cannot do so under delegated powers or when other procedural matters apply.  The Planning Committee has no powers to prevent anyone from making a planning application; all applications must be determined through the statutory process. 

“Councillors should reconsider their decision” / “Please overturn this decision” / other suggestions that a decision has been made

No decision has been made. An application has been submitted and as yet, no determination/decision has been taken on it.

“Please reassure me that these trees will not be felled” / “Please promise to vote against the felling of these trees”

No Planning Committee member can promise to vote a particular way on a planning application, because that would constitute predetermination as I outlined earlier in this email, and therefore mean that member wouldn’t be able to vote on the application. 

“The Planning Committee should instead order a root barrier to be installed”

The Planning Committee is not able to make such an order. We must determine the application put before us by either allowing it or refusing it; we cannot change the nature of it (though we can add reasonable conditions). Part of the discussion we had at the meeting last week (which I included a link to earlier in this email) was around this issue, and I would encourage you to listen to that if you are interested. Further work on alternatives is ongoing in other parts of the Council.

It is absolutely your right to contact us about things like this – as elected representatives, we are here to serve as your voice in Cambridge. I will of course read any replies to this email, however I am unlikely to be able to respond again in turn due to the need to avoid any perception of bias. I realise that, despite this email being very lengthy, I have not addressed the points raised in your emails about the application itself. I’m sorry about that, I know it is unfortunate and stressful for all members of the community that want to hear some news on this application. Again, please be reassured that I have read and considered your email in full.

If you would like to watch the committee’s discussion on this application when it is next heard, you can watch the livestream of the meeting on the City Council’s YouTube channel, or you can come in person as well if you would like to be present. However, please be warned that we often run quite far behind the guide times listed on the agenda as we tend to be very thorough in our discussions!

Best wishes,

Sam

Email from Councillor Sam Carling, on 11 Aug 2023, at 16:04

🌳🌳🌳 EARLIER POSTS

🌳🌳🌳 THE ESSENTIAL BACKGROUND

Local residents have been fighting to protect and conserve local amenity and environmental assets via Friends of St Matthew’s Piece since 30thApril 2020 – and, before that, via Petersfield Area Community Trust, since 1998). Friends of St Matthew’s Piece stand on the shoulders of the giants who, 100 years earlier, in 1898 had established St Matthew’s Piece. This included planting the magnificent London Plane trees that provide all of us with such wonderful benefits today. Read more on the history of St Matthew’s Piece, on the St Matthew’s Piece Timeline 1890–2020.

St Matthew’s Piece Trees – Safe?

🌳🌳🌳 THE REPEATED THREAT

An insurance claim at 193 Sturton Street (a new-build approx 25 year old property) blaming clay shrinkage subsidence on three, rare, mature, 125-year old trees, subject of Tree Protection Orders, resulted in a planning application for the felling of these trees.

Aerial image of St Matthew’s Piece showing, on the western edge, the three trees, subject of this planning application.
The three trees under threat

See earlier posts:

🌳🌳🌳 THE REPRIEVE (FOR NOW)

Hours ahead of the Cambridge City Council Planning Committee meeting scheduled for Wednesday 2nd August 2023 at 10 am the item was removed from the agenda.

On Tuesday 1st Aug 2023, at 21:21 campaigners received an email in the name of the three city councillors for the Petersfield ward.

Thank you for your email expressing concern and objecting to the felling of these trees. The three of us, the city ward councillors for Petersfield, are very pleased to be able to tell you that the planning application seeking to have the trees felled is being taken off the agenda for the meeting of the Planning Committee tomorrow.

Working together with the Friends of St Matthew’s Pieces we were able to raise more and more technical and legal issues that had not been considered, at least not sufficiently. It became clear that the Committee would not have enough information to assess properly the application and it would have to be deferred pending consideration of the whole matter and especially the new information and questions being raised.

It should not be assumed that this is the end of the matter though. Unless the applicant withdraws the application it will come back to a further meeting of the Planning Committee. We will continue to work hard to get full recognition of the importance of the 3 trees and the importance of not setting a precedent which might endanger further trees.

Apologies that this is not an individual response to your email but there have been so many objectors and we want to give you the news as soon as possible. Thanks again for your contribution to the issue.

Cllr Katie Thornburrow, Cllr Richard Robertson and Cllr Mike Davey

An excellent report  By Alex Spencer, Cambridge Independent, updates us on the threat to the trees…

Cambridge protesters hope to stop felling of 125-year old trees at St Matthew’s Piece

🌳🌳🌳 THE ESSENTIAL BACKGROUND

Local residents have been fighting to protect and conserve local amenity and environmental assets via Friends of St Matthew’s Piece since 30thApril 2020 – and, before that, via Petersfield Area Community Trust, since 1998). Friends of St Matthew’s Piece stand on the shoulders of the giants who, 100 years earlier, in 1898 had established St Matthew’s Piece. This included planting the magnificent London Plane trees that provide all of us with such wonderful benefits today. Read more on the history of St Matthew’s Piece, on the St Matthew’s Piece Timeline 1890–2020.

St Matthew’s Piece Trees – STILL under threat!

🌳🌳🌳 PLEASE HELP FIGHT THIS  

Three magnificent trees on St Matthews’ Piece, along Sturton Street, are now at severe risk of being felled.

Alarmingly planning officers have recommended approval for the felling of these three trees.

This is wrong for so many reasons:

  • the Plane Trees are not the cause of “tree-related clay shrinkage subsidence”  at 193 Sturton Street
  • the consequences of felling these 3 trees are widespread and disastrous
  • the monetary value to Cambridge of the trees (based on the Council’s own CAVAT analysis) is more than double the financial cost of saving the trees by installing a root barrier 
  • no tree anywhere in Cambridge will now be safe if 125-year old, with Tree Protection Orders, rare mature trees, in a Conservation Area can be felled when a new-build property’s insurer demands it
  • it is seeming almost impossible to stop the inexorable march toward this loss.

🌳🌳🌳 URGENT ACTION NEEDED

The planning committee meets on Wednesday 2nd August 2023 at 10 am.

The time for formal objections is long past, so please email your views now to Planning Committee Members and other Councillors.

Scroll down for a pre-formatted email to all of the relevant councillors.

🌳🌳🌳 THE REPEATED THREAT

An insurance claim at 193 Sturton Street (a new-build approx 25 year old property) blames clay shrinkage subsidence on three 125-year-old trees. A planning application has been submitted for the felling of these three trees.

Last summer, Cambridge City Council’s Planning Committee refused permission for these three precious trees to be severely cut back in both height and spread. The harm to the trees was judged not to be justified by the evidence. More information was required. (More here in this earlier post: St Matthew’s Piece Trees – Under Threat. Especially useful are the soil moisture deficit graphs.)

Instead: the applicant has submitted an application (23/0119/TTPO) to fell the three trees (or to install a ‘root barrier’ along part of Sturton Street). Their scanty documents fail to address even the reasons for refusal last summer. Fuller details can be found in our earlier post here: St Matthew’s Piece Trees (Again).

See pp. 10-11 of the applicant’s Addendum Report On A Subsidence Claim Arboricultural Recommendations under the ‘Documents’ tab for 23/0119/TTPO on the Planning Portal.

Aerial image of St Matthew’s Piece showing, on the western edge, the three trees, subject of this planning application.
The three trees under threat

🌳🌳🌳 SUGGESTED OBJECTIONS

Everybody will have good reasons of their own, to object. Please explain the importance of these trees to you. Here are some suggestions to which the Friends of St Matthew’s Piece have contributed.

  1. Felling of these three, rare, mature, 125-year old trees, subject to Tree Protection Orders will set a dangerous precedent; no tree anywhere in Cambridge will now be safe from a new-build property’s insurer’s demands.
  2. Councillors may wish to reflect upon the potential damage to the city’s reputation, were these three trees to be felled, when local, regional and national news media report upon the decision and the inevitable public protests. (News links below.)
  3. Compared to the 56 official parks in Cambridge’s other 13 wards, Petersfield ward has no other park than St Matthew’s Piece.
  4. Petersfield has a poor tree canopy, with very few mature trees.
  5. Every tree matters in Petersfield, which already suffers from the ‘Urban Heat Island Effect’.
  6. These three Plane Trees all have Tree Preservation Orders, and are in Petersfield’s Conservation Area.
  7. Changes to a Conservation Area require public benefit to outweigh public harm.
  8. There will be no public benefit from felling any of these three trees – only massive public harm.
  9. These these trees are vital to every person who lives, works or studies in our community.
  10. The City Council’s tree experts stressed in 2006 the importance of preserving all the trees on St Matthew’s Piece, individually and as a group – trees that have only grown in importance since. 
  11. Data provided to show a ‘seasonal subsidence pattern’ instead contradict tree-related clay shrinkage.
  12. The data showing a doubling of ‘foundation movement’ in December 2022 appears to be highly selective.
  13. Leafless in winter, these deciduous trees take up almost no water so could not double the subsidence shown in December 2022. (Temperature chart, below.)
  14. The recommendations don’t consider the severe risk of ‘heave’ (soil swelling) on the basement level of the adjacent old Howard Mallett building – if these three trees are felled. (Map extract below.)
Reference notes on the above points.

Let’s hope that Cambridge will avoid being the next scandal-riven city in this sequence:

image as caption
Temperature chart for December 2022 graphing the bitterly cold weather and persistent snow. (13)
Source: Digital Technology Group – Cambridge Monthly Weather Graphs
image as caption
Howard Mallett building, showing proximity to the three trees (14)

🌳🌳🌳 EMAIL OUR CITY COUNCILLORS

Use the link below to generate an email

  • To: all members of the Planning Committee
  • Cc: Petersfield and Abbey Councillors plus ‘reserve’ members of the Planning Committee

Email our councillors here.

🌳🌳🌳 THE ESSENTIAL BACKGROUND

Local residents have been fighting to protect and conserve local amenity and environmental assets via Friends of St Matthew’s Piece since 30thApril 2020 – and, before that, via Petersfield Area Community Trust, since 1998). Friends of St Matthew’s Piece stand on the shoulders of the giants who, 100 years earlier, in 1898 had established St Matthew’s Piece. This included planting the magnificent London Plane trees that provide all of us with such wonderful benefits today. Read more on the history of St Matthew’s Piece, on the St Matthew’s Piece Timeline 1890–2020.

Beehive Centre – Redevelopment (Update)

Drop-In events and webinars

Your invitation to a public exhibition and digital consultation Railpen would like to invite you to view updated plans to transform the Beehive Centre into an exciting new destination that will provide more than 5,000 job opportunities. We are proposing a mix of new retail, leisure, and community spaces, as well as laboratory and office space for companies in the science and technology industry – all surrounded by new green public spaces, a public community square and wetlands.
Click the poster to read/download a more detailed PDF

Your invitation to a public exhibition and digital consultation

Railpen would like to invite you to view updated plans to transform the Beehive Centre into an exciting new destination that will provide more than 5,000 job opportunities. We
are proposing a mix of new retail, leisure, and community spaces, as well as laboratory and office space for companies in the science and technology industry – all surrounded by new green public spaces, a public community square and wetlands. 

Railpen, from latest publicity.

The Beehive Centre is adjacent to Sturton Town to the north of Mill Road on the Petersfield (city) side of the railway.

Find out more about Victorian Cambridge & the Building of Sturton Town.
Find out more about the old Beehive Pub, on the corner of Ainsworth Street.

Public Drop-in Events:

No prior booking required.

Friday 14 July, 4pm – 7.30pm
The Old School Hall, St Barnabas Centre, Mill Road, CB1 2BD

Saturday 15 July, 10am – 2pm
East Barnwell Community Centre, Newmarket Road, CB5 8RS

Webinars:

Register here.

  • Monday 17 July at 6pm
  •  Thursday 20 July at 12.30pm
About Railpen

Railpen are trusted with the safekeeping, investment, and administration of several pension schemes supporting over half a million people connected to the railway industry. 

As a pension fund, we focus on delivering long-term social value and, unlike many developers, we do not face the same pressure to generate short-term profits for shareholders or outside investors. 

Railpen, from latest publicity.
Get in touch

If you have any questions about the consultation or the proposals, Railpen want to hear from you.

✆ 0800 689 5209
Email: info@beehivecentreconsultation.co.uk
Web: beehivecentreconsultation.co.uk

This post is for the purposes of informing the Mill Road community. Mill Road Bridges as a group, neither supports nor opposes Railpen’s proposals.

Whilst the post is open for comments, there is no guarantee that these will be seen by people from Railpen.

St Matthew’s Piece Trees (Again)

Under threat… Again!

Another guest post from Valerie Neal, a Friend of St Matthew’s Piece
Aerial image of St Matthew’s Piece showing, on the western edge, the three trees, subject of this planning application.
The three trees under threat

🌳🌳🌳 THE THREAT

An insurance claim at 193 Sturton Street (a new-build approx 25 year old property) blames clay shrinkage subsidence on three 125-year-old trees. A planning application has been submitted for the felling of these three trees.

🌳🌳🌳 PLEASE HELP FIGHT THIS  

Objections from members of the public are urgently needed. Objections must be submitted as ‘Comments’ via Planning Application 23/0119/TTPO on the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Portal. (Requires registration.)

Objections would be most helpful by Monday 20th February, but will be accepted after that date.

Scroll down for possible grounds to use in your objection.

🌳🌳🌳 THE ESSENTIAL BACKGROUND

Last summer, Cambridge City Council’s Planning Committee refused permission for these three precious trees to be severely cut back in both height and spread. The harm to the trees was judged not to be justified by the evidence. More information was required. (More here in this earlier post: St Matthew’s Piece Trees – Under Threat. Especially useful are the soil moisture deficit graphs.)

Instead: the applicant has now submitted a new application (23/0119/TTPO) to fell the three trees (or to install a ‘root barrier’ along part of Sturton Street). Their scanty documents fail to address even the reasons for refusal last summer. 

However, this time, the applicant has also given a bit of information on an alternative to felling or pruning, namely a ‘root barrier’. They have shown one aerial photo for the possible location of a root barrier and obtained one quote for the cost of delivering this. See pp. 10-11 of the applicant’s Addendum Report On A Subsidence Claim Arboricultural Recommendations under the ‘Documents’ tab for 23/0119/TTPO on the Planning Portal.

🌳🌳🌳 SUGGESTED GROUNDS FOR OBJECTION

Everybody will have good reasons of their own, but here are some suggestions from the Friends of St Matthew’s Piece:

  1. The only official park in the Petersfield ward is St Matthew’s Piece, compared to 56 official parks in Cambridge’s 13 other wards.
  2. Petersfield has a particularly poor tree canopy, with very few mature trees.
  3. All trees matter in Petersfield, which suffers badly from the ‘Urban Heat Island Effect’.
  4. Each of these 125-year-old Plane Trees has a Tree Preservation Order (TPO), and is in our Conservation Area.
  5. Changes to a Conservation Area require public benefit to outweigh public harm – but there would be zero public benefit from felling these three trees, only massive public harm.
  6. These trees are vital to the wellbeing of every person who lives, works or studies in our community.
  7. The applicant has not shown what harm now exists at the property… and completely failed to demonstrate how the “slight” cracks previously reported are due to the trees – rather than poor foundations, shoddy construction or “thermal movement” in the modern brickwork.
  8. If the applicant is convinced that the trees are harming the property, then the Planning Committee could permit them to install a good-quality root barrier, if done without significantly harming the trees.
  9. The applicant (or owner of the property) must pay for the root barrier. Due diligence required them to take into account trees that had been present for 100 years before this property was constructed.
  10. BS5837:1991 (applicable at the time of construction of 193 Sturton Street) described the then British Standards on trees and construction.
  11. The relevant National House Building Council standards document (section 4.2 Building near trees 4.2.7 Foundations in shrinkable soils) is illustrated below.
    Note the NHBC advice: Root barriers are not an acceptable alternative to the guidance given.
  12. The majority of the ‘Standard References’  listed on p.12 of the applicant’s Addendum Report On A Subsidence Claim Arboricultural Recommendations were already published before the construction of 193 Sturton Street, so should have been taken into account.
  13. Felling these trees would breach Cambridge Local Plan (2018) Policies 14, 23, 55, 56, 61, 67 & 71 as well as National Planning Policy Framework ¶91abc, ¶92abc and ¶96, as outlined in greater detail in the parallel Objection prepared by Friends of St Matthew’s Piece.
  14. In 2006, 2007 & 2008, the City Council’s own tree expert repeatedly stressed (in connection with Planning Application 06/0567/FUL Erection of a community innovation centre (refused) the importance of preserving all the trees of St Matthew’s Piece, both individually and as a group – and these trees have only grown in importance since then.
Extract from National House Building Council standards document 4.2 Building near trees 4.2.7 Foundations in shrinkable soils The sentence: "Root barriers are not an acceptable alternative to the guidance given." is highlighted by the present author.
Click the image to read the National House Building Council standards document section
4.2 Building near trees
4.2.7 Foundations in shrinkable soils

🌳🌳🌳 FURTHER BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Objection to 22/0271/TTPO – from Friends of St Matthew’s Piece
22 March 2022 (Report against the planning application stopped in July 2022)

Trees of St Matthew’s Piece and Appendix II Input from Heritage Advisors (Both from the report against a planning application stopped in March 2021.)

2.5 minute video on what that threat had been 

🌳🌳🌳 FOR THE FUTURE…

To be kept up to date, please email Friends of St Matthew’s Piece, and ask to be added to the Friends of St Matthew’s Piece Supporter’s List. You will be led through a data-collection-compliant sign-up process. This will make sure you receive very occasional email updates on issues like this one.

Local residents have been fighting to protect and conserve local amenity and environmental assets via Friends of St Matthew’s Piece since 30thApril 2020 – and, before that, via Petersfield Area Community Trust, since 1998). We stand on the shoulders of the giants who, 100 years earlier, in 1898 had established St Matthew’s Piece. This included planting the magnificent London Plane trees that provide all of us with such wonderful benefits today. Read more on the history of St Matthew’s Piece, on the St Matthew’s Piece Timeline 1890–2020.

Grafton Centre Redevelopment – consultation

Photo of existing Grafton Centre main entrance on Fitzroy Street
Existing Grafton Centre main entrance on Fitzroy Street
Click the image to visit the Grafton Consultation website

Trinity Investment Management (not connected to Trinity College) acquired the Grafton Centre in 2022, and are now consulting on changes to the centre that keeps a smaller number of shops, retains the gym and cinema, but converts much of the building into laboratories for science research.

The proposals include:

  • Reducing the number of shops to reflect the growing number of empty units at the centre – but retaining some retail and leisure, including the cinema and gym, alongside improved public spaces around the centre
  • Improving the connectivity for cyclists and pedestrians, restoring some of the historic connections that were blocked when the Grafton Centre was built
  • Repurposing as much of the existing structure as possible – to limit disruption to neighbours and minimise the amount of carbon-intensive demolition and construction
  • Delivering much-needed research space for promising science start-ups – a sector which is growing and needs more lab space across the city

Trinity Investment Management
Find out more by visiting the Grafton Consultation website.

Online webinar

Trinity Investment Management are holding an online webinar over Zoom where the project team will talk through the proposals and answer questions.

​Date: Thursday 24th November 2022
Time: 6:30-7:30pm

You can join the webinar using this link.
Questions may be submitted in advance by email to contact@graftoncentreconsultation.co.uk, or during the meeting using the Zoom chat function.

​You may also use the developers’ Feedback Form, or contact them by phone on 07771 323980, or email contact@graftoncentreconsultation.co.uk.

Aerial view Masterplan with retail marked in green and the cinema marked in pink
Masterplan with retail marked in green and the cinema marked in pink
Click the image to visit the Grafton Consultation website

Whilst this post is open for comments, and readers are welcome to debate the issues around the proposed development, this does not guarantee thatTrinity Investment Management will be able to engage with them on this platform.

Beehive Centre – Redevelopment

Public exhibition and digital consultation

Image of leaflet, headed: THE BEEHIVE CENTRE PUBLIC EXHIBITION & DIGITAL CONSULTATION With aerial view of location More text: Railpen would like to invite you to a public exhibition and digital consultation on our updated proposals for the redevelopment of The Beehive Centre.
Click the image above to view/download a 2-page PDF with full details.

The Beehive Centre is adjacent to Sturton Town to the north of Mill Road on the Petersfield (city) side of the railway.

Find out more about Victorian Cambridge & the Building of Sturton Town.
Find out more about the old Beehive Pub, on the corner of Ainsworth Street.

In June 2022 we held our first stage consultation on our proposals for The Beehive Centre at which we outlined our principles for development and asked for the local communities input to create a scheme that brings social value and tangible benefits to the local area and Cambridge.

The consultation was well attended and we heard and captured a wealth of insights and ideas from local people about what you value about The Beehive Centre today, and what you would like to see in the future. This feedback has informed our updated proposals which we are ready to show you at our upcoming consultation.

We strive to work with the people of Cambridge to reimagine a key strategic site, embracing sustainable and inclusive design through a vision to the creation of a new local centre with accessible, green and useable spaces to strengthen Cambridge’s status at the forefront of the science, technology and innovation sector.

four communications on behalf of Railpen
Public exhibition

Thursday 24th November – 2:30pm to 6:30pm
Friday 25th November – 2:30pm to 7:30pm
St Barnabas Centre, (Old Schoolroom) St Barnabas Church, Mill Road, Cambridge CB1 2BD
No prior booking required.

Digital consultation

The digital consultation webinar will take place on Wednesday 23rd November – 6:00pm to 7:00pm

To register your interest for the digital consultation, the QR code on the PDF can be captured with your smartphone/tablet. Otherwise it resolves to: https://qrcodes.pro/nPGeLI.

If you are unable to attend either consultation nor the public exhibition but want to learn more you can email thebeehivecentre@fourcommunications.com or phone 01223 960001.

Many of you will be aware that Railpen, who invest the Railways Pension Schemes’ assets, will be redeveloping the Travis Perkins site adjacent to Devonshire Road for long-term tenanted residential accommodation, and that, whilst this has been broadly welcomed by the community, some of the details of Rail Pen’s initial plans were felt to be in need of improvement. Of course, this is an entirely different project to the Beehive Centre, but we’ve referenced it to give context on Rail Pen.

Whilst this post is open for comments, and readers are welcome to debate the issues around the proposed development, this does not guarantee that four communications or Railpen will be able to engage with them on this platform.

St Matthew’s Piece Trees – Under Threat

A guest post from Valerie Neal, a Friend of St Matthew’s Piece

Local residents have been fighting to protect and conserve local amenity and environmental assets via Friends of St Matthew’s Piece since 30thApril 2020 – and, before that, via Petersfield Area Community Trust, since 1998). We stand on the shoulders of the giants who, 100 years earlier, in 1898 had established St Matthew’s Piece. This included planting the magnificent London Plane trees that provide all of us with such wonderful benefits today. Read more on the history of St Matthew’s Piece, on the St Matthew’s Piece Timeline 1890–2020.

Trees in Petersfield 

Consider how poor is the tree cover generally in the surrounding area. Our little St Matthew’s Piece is Petersfield’s only official park (versus the 56 parks in the other 13 Cambridge wards; see the 2018 Cambridge Local Plan’s Appendix C). Petersfield  is poorly provided for not only with regard to Public Open Space but also when it comes to tree canopy, number of trees, and tree coverage. All of this while Petersfield has the most densely housed population in Cambridge, living in properties that are predominantly very small houses or flats (with little or no private gardens; see p24 of the most recent Friends of St Matthew’s Piece submission to the Planning Portal).

Friends of St Matthew’s Piece are not the only ones to have noticed. A recent (late 2021) pan-European study included Cambridge in its review of 1000 cities – Green space and mortality in European cities: a health impact assessment study [The Lancet, VOLUME 5, ISSUE 10, E718-E730, OCTOBER 01, 2021]. This revealed that 68% of Cambridge residents do not have the WHO-recommended access to green space. 

These 68% are, naturally, not evenly distributed across Cambridge. The Environment ‘Domain’ of the latest iteration of the Government’s Index of Multiple Deprivation reveals that the area around St Matthew’s Piece falls into the 2nd most deprived of 10 deciles nationally, with regard to this parameter.

All of the splendid mature trees around the (now, tragically, privatised – in 2018) northern half of St Matthew’s Piece have continued to thrive, thanks to the twin protections of Tree Preservation Order No 4/2005 and their location within the Mill Road Conservation Area (1993). The benefits are mutual: these trees are themselves vital to the Mill Road Conservation Area. Check Tree Preservation Orders on the Cambridge City Council website here.

But that does not mean these precious trees are safe. 

A New Threat 

On 15th March, a scant week before the 22nd March deadline set by Greater Cambridge Shared Planning for the submission of comments, Friends of St Matthew’s Piece learned by chance of the ‘tree application’

22/0271/TTPO | T1, T2 & T3: London Plane – Reduce height by ~5m and spread by ~4m balancing crown of all three trees. Prune on a triennial cycle to maintain broadly at reduced dimensions. | St Matthews Centre And St Matthews Piece Sturton Street Cambridge Cambridgeshire CB1 2QF

This proposed a brutal cutting back of three of the original 1898 trees along Sturton Street: each by 5 m in height and 4 m in spread. Why? To address problems detected in a 25-year-old property at 193 Sturton Street – a House in Multiple Occupation (HMO). The papers on the planning portal concerning 22/0271/TTPO are viewed by Friends of St Matthew’s Piece and other Objectors as scanty, flawed and contradictory, building a very weak case for any cutting back any of the trees – never mind all three trees. 

The trees are still at risk. The local community responded magnificently to an appeal from Friends of St Matthew’s Piece to defend them. Within five days, no fewer than 43 local Objections to the planning application were submitted. 28 have been uploaded under the ‘Documents’ tab of the Planning Portal for 22/0271/TTPO; as well as 15 Comments (all objections) under the ‘Public Comments’ tab. The objections are thoughtful, well-informed and effective – worth reading.

If you wish to add your voice to these Public Comments, you can register and submit your views right until the application goes to a meeting of the City Council Planning Committee. 

City Councillor for Petersfield Ward, Richard Robertson, has ‘called in’ the application, which means it can no longer be decided by a Planning Officer but must go before the Planning Committee to be determined. We don’t yet know when this will happen (the next meetings are 14th June and 6th July 2022). 

Arguments against the proposal are varied and wide-ranging. Many wrote in support of the importance, value, diverse environmental roles and beauty of these historic trees. The most powerful perhaps relate to water, as explained in pp 17–19  of the full submission by Friends of St Matthew’s Piece –Objection to 22/0271/TTPO.

The insurance company could spend upwards of £80,000 to underpin 193 Sturton Street, to address the subsidence they have found there since the summer of 2019. The alternative they propose instead is to severely cut back our three protected trees and spend around £8,000 to repair the cracks and redecorate. They argue that the damage to the house is due to the trees taking up too much water, and have tried to prove this by measuring the movement of the house at 8 different points over the course of 1 year, running May-to-May. Here is their graph:

Graph titled: Precise level monitoring for points 1 to 8 - related to drain

But are our trees the true cause of this subsidence?

The lower curves on the insurance company’s graph, the ones showing the most movement, all echo precisely that seen – on a matching May-to-May horizontal axis – in the annual variation in soil moisture deficit (SMD). This 2nd graph is from the Environment Agency, based on more than 60 years of data. This shows a predictable and well established regional seasonal pattern in soil moisture deficit:

Environment Agency Graph East Anglia Ranking derived from data for the period Jan-1961 to Dec-2017 Horizontal axis: May 2020 to May 2021 Vertical axis: soil moisture deficit (mm)
Source: Environment Agency Monthly Water Situation Report

Parts of 193 Sturton St have therefore been recorded as moving entirely in synchrony with the: 

  • longstanding, 
  • natural, 
  • firmly established, and 
  • widespread 

annual cycle of soil drying under the property. This occurs over the entire East Anglian region – irrespective of any effect of trees on St Matthew’s Piece. It is the view of Friends of St Matthew’s Piece that no evidence is produced in planning application 22/0271/TTPO that crown reduction and spread reduction of our three trees would have any significant or sustained protective impact at 193 Sturton Street – in the inescapable context of this annual hydrogeological cycle. 

Furthermore: many houses are just as close to St Matthew’s Piece trees but it is only this one that has cracks – the problem seems to be with this new house, not with these old trees.

Local residents may also recall the long-running dispute about the trees at Alexandra Gardens Residents set up 24/7 watch over Alexandra Gardens trees in Cambridge to ‘keep chainsaws at bay’ [Mike Scialom – Cambridge Independent – 06 August 2021]

How many more Cambridge trees will face similar threats, when the fundamental problem is unlikely to be the trees themselves but over-abstraction of water associated with over-development and its impact on the local water table?

If you would like to join Friends of St Matthew’s Piece or assist in any of the issues raised in this blogpost, kindly hosted by Mill Road Bridges, please email Friends of St Matthew’s Piece.

Litter survey

Cambridge City Council’s consultation is open from 2nd July to 15th August 2021.

Litter has been a long-standing problem for Cambridge, as the photo and linked article, below, illustrate.

Young volunteers collecting rubbish in summer 2020 Click the image to read the full story Alcohol ban in Cambridge parks considered to tackle littering menace, by Alex Spencer in the Cambridge Independent

Tidying litter costs us all a lot of money every year, so maintaining a cleaner, greener Cambridge is a priority in Cambridge City Council’s Corporate Plan. It’s unrealistic to expect a completely litter-free city, but the council want to significantly reduce it and increase re-use and recycling.

The council are developing a litter strategy, which will cover the management of litter on streets and open spaces. It will include flytipping and street sweeping.

Cambridge City Council need to hear your views on litter and the litter-cleaning services they provide. This will help the council to shape future priorities and recognise what they do well and where they could make improvements.

It would be great if Mill Road area residents respond. Whilst many respondents may focus on the city’s more well-known open spaces – like Parker’s Piece, Jesus Green and Midsummer Common – along with the historic city centre, we need to make our local needs known.

Mill Road Cemetery has its own problems, as do Romsey Rec, Coleridge Rec and St Matthew’s Piece, But what about our side streets? Is your side street near to a take-away? Does each morning bring a regular harvest of discarded drinks cans, expanded polystyrene boxes and part-eaten food? Does it suffer from fly-tipping?

Please respond to the City Council’s online litter survey to tell them your views, and share any ideas you have to help them tackle local problems.

The survey should take about 15 minutes, and you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve been a good citizen by taking part, and, as a bonus, you can enter a prize draw for £100 of vouchers at the end!

The survey closes at midnight on 15th August 2021. You can contact parks@cambridge.gov.uk if you have any questions about it or the council’s work to prevent litter. They can also provide a printed version of the survey if you know someone without internet access who would like to participate.

But if you’ve got a litter problem now, you don’t need to wait until after mid-August for the City Council to act. Find out how to report fly-tipping including asbestos, here. Click here to request a litter pick. And click here to find out how to join or set up a volunteer litter picking group.

This post is open for comments but, remember these will not be seen by Cambridge City Council’s officers, nor contribute to the council’s survey.

Victory for Friends of St Matthew’s Piece

Image of planning proposal, with word refused superimposed
Celebratory poster. Email Friends.of.st.matthews.piece@gmail.com to request a copy of the poster to print out.

On Wednesday 24 March 2021, 10.00 am, deep in cyberspace, Super Matt the super squirrel defeated The Thing From Outer Space!

More prosaically Cambridge City Council’s planning committee held a virtual meeting, in which the application to build a block of student flats on St Matthew’s Piece by developers Federated Hermes was considered.

Planning Officers recommended refusal of the application, although there were certain aspects of the local plan and of planning considerations which the development would have satisfied. You can read/download the full officer report (PDF 3.3MB) here (pp187-240).

Of course Super Matt had help from all of the community and Friends of St Matthew’s Piece had massive support for their objection to these plans.

A shoutout to Val Neal who gave a good presentation at the online meeting!

Agnès Aubert, Sleaford Street, on Nextdoor

Would you be able to display Friends of St Matthew’s Piece’s new ‘Refused’ poster in your window?

If yes, please email Email Friends.of.st.matthews.piece@gmail.com to request a copy of the poster to print out. Or just smile and celebrate every time you pass one in the area! Thank you all for your crucial efforts to protect our park.

Of course, any further attempts from these (or any other) developers may emerge. The community would then choose its response.

Everyone’s support and active contributions to preserving, celebrating and protecting St Matthew’s Piece would be very welcome!

Val Neal, North Petersfield, on Nextdoor

As others have posted out, the developers could appeal or submit a modified proposal, so local residents will have to keep being vigilant.

What happens next?

The applicant now has a right of appeal to the Planning Inspectorate against our decision to refuse this application. The appeal must be lodged within 6 months of the date of this decision. In the event of an appeal being lodged, and if you have previously commented, we will notify you and forward any comments you may have made to the Planning Inspectorate.

The applicant also has the right to re-submit an amended scheme which may seek to overcome our reasons for refusal. We will notify you again if such an application is submitted.

Notification from Greater Cambridge Joint Planning to people who commented on the application

However, the redoubtable Roy Stamp strikes a positive note…

In Romsey Terrace, we found that fighting an appeal made residents more determined: the residents won in the end!

Roy Stamp, Romsey, on Nextdoor

It is difficult to second guess what this multi-national investment fund will do next.

It is possible that when they bought the site from Chard Robinson they were told, based on the previous scheme that was consulted on but was never actually submitted, that there was development potential.

At the planning committee their agent Bidwells claimed that pre application advice given by the planners at that time was positive, but this has little status as it is not binding on the Council. It is a very weak argument and I was surprised it was even mentioned.

The main problem, if they appeal, is the fairly new National Planning Policy Framework introduced by the LibDem Tory coalition government in 2012. This planning directive considerably weakened the power of local councils’ decision-making powers and introduced an overarching presumption in favour of development. It also gave more power to planning inspectors to award the applicants appeal costs adainst local councils.

This happened five years ago in Station Road where the City turned down plans for a massive office block. BrookGate won the appeal and the Council was forced to pay them £175,000. The reasons for refusal in this case by Cambridge City Council are, however, very robust and are taken from the approved local plan so we are in a strong position.

If Federated Hermes are realistic they will give up as, given the strength of feeling, the local Councillors will undoubtably put considerable funds into the defence of the Councils position at any appeal hearing.

Local activist and fount of knowledge on planning, Frank Gawthrop, South Petersfield, on Nextdoor