Draft Greater Cambridge Local Plan

Open for comments until 5pm on Friday 30 January 2026.

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 approved for consultation at a joint Cabinet meeting between both councils on Tuesday 25 November.

How to get involved

View and comment on the Draft Local Plan

View the document library for supporting evidence and other evidence

Paper copies are available to view at council offices and main libraries. See our public notice for more details.  

If you have difficulty commenting online, please contact us on 01954 713694 or localplan@greatercambridgeplanning.org and we will help you comment in other ways. 

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.  

You can view our Interactive Draft Policies Map for Greater Cambridge. 

And view our new digital Story Map of the Local Plan, that provides a summary of the Plan more visually.

If you wish to submit a new site or provide updated information about a previous site submission, please complete our dedicated Sites Form by Friday 30 January 2026, where you can tell us about the site and submit any supporting documentation. 

Please email us should you have any questions or problems using the Sites Form.

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 production of a Local Plan ensures a consistent approach to planning and building across Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council until 2045. 

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. 

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.

Get involved

A number of in-person and online events are being held where you can ask questions about this consultation.

A full list of these events, as well as a link to register, can be found on the Greater Cambridge Planning website.

Links to the upcoming online webinars can be found at the bottom of this page.