Inadequate housing and transport infrastructure is hampering Cambridge’s economic development, the University of Cambridge has warned.

Professor Jeremy Sanders, pro-vice chancellor for institutional affairs at the University of Cambridge, told a Built Environment Networking event on ‘Cambridge General Development Plans 2014’ at the city’s Guildhall that more investment was needed in the city’s housing and infrastructure.

Sanders said Cambridge had “a serious problem” due to a “critical shortage of homes at all income levels” and the university is “very keen” to “consider contributing to joint ventures” to create affordable housing in the Cambridge city region.

He added: “The development of Cambridge’s contribution to local, national and international economy and culture is currently constrained by poor transport connectivity and a lack of adequate or affordable accommodation for our postgraduate students, postdoctoral researchers, permanent staff and expansion space for research.”

To help address the housing problem the University of Cambridge has begun work on the £300m first phase of a massive housing-led scheme, North West Cambridge, which ultimately will deliver accommodation for 2,000 postgraduates, 1,500 key worker housing units, 1,500 market homes and other amenities and academic facilities.

Sanders welcomed the city’s progress in finalising a City Deal with the government to unlock a minimum of £100m of transport infrastructure improvements over the next five years, with the prospect for the scheme to be extended after 2008 to deliver a further £400m of infrastructure funding.

Jonathan Burroughs, chief executive of property consultant Creative Places, also addressed the event about the 70-acre expansion of Cambridge Biomedical Campus to the south of the city, where Creative Places is on the project team.

The expansion is a mixed-use scheme designed to bring together clinical care, teaching and research by hospitals, private businesses and the University of Cambridge.

Burroughs said the recent decision by AstraZeneca to move to the campus with an 870,000 sq ft development had been a “game changer”.

He said: “It’s amazing the impact this has had on other occupiers wanting to come in. Suddenly it’s a game changer to the point where we’re concerned we won’t have enough space to accommodate them all.”

He said the future of the campus looked encouraging: “Demand is only going to increase into the future because businesses are now pursuing open innovation to develop their products and services more quickly and cost effectively.

“That means they’re wanting to put teams in places where they can collaborate with top quality universities […] and a community of businesses large and small.”

The two organisations also discussed their development pipelines and strategies in more detail –

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

The University of Cambridge dates back over 800 years and is regularly ranked as one of the top six universities in the world. It’s total income exceeds £1bn, with research accounting for 70% of turnover. It has 19,000 students and 10,000 staff. The university centrally manages part of the institution’s estates, as the 31 colleges manage their own estates.

Opportunities

  • The university’s West Cambridge campus is undergoing major redevelopment. It will be the institution’s “main physical science and technology focus over the next twenty years” and housing is not planned here. The university plans to expand its Judge Business School, create a new museums quarter “over the next ten to twenty years”, develop the second and third phases of its sports centre and to vacate its Mill Lane Site to make way for commercial or residential redevelopment. The university is “ready to further develop West Cambridge and other sites to create new jobs when transport links allow”.
  • The university is planning a major housing-led scheme, North West Cambridge, on farmland it owns. It will be a mixed academic and urban community incorporating accommodation for 2,000 postgraduates, 1,500 key worker housing units, 1,500 market homes, a supermarket, shops, a hotel, a senior living scheme, a health centre, a primary school, nurseries, a community centre, sports facilities, allotments and 100,000 sq m of academic and commercial research space. The university has started work on the £300m first phase, a southern housing-led cluster, which is expected to complete from early 2017. Funding and timetables have not yet been finalised for future phases – the northern housing-led cluster and market housing and research space in between.

Strategy

A focus for the university is growing its number of postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers – currently growing at a rate of 2% and 3% per annum respectively – rather than undergraduate students. Sanders admitted existing University of Cambridge colleges were “rather forbidding” to outsiders and said college accommodation of the future would be designed differently: “They’re going to be more open; it’s going to be more porous […] We’re particularly interested in how the colleges will evolve”. At North West Cambridge the university is planning to minimise private car use by designing a ‘green corridor’ running through the heart of the area for cycling and pedestrians to use.

CAMBRIDGE BIOMEDICAL CAMPUS

Cambridge Biomedical Campus (CBC) dates back to 1962, when Addenbrooke’s Hospital and the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) moved from the city centre to this site at Hills Road to the south of the city. Since then, a number of major research laboratories and hospitals have established a presence on the site including the Rosie Hospital, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Mental Health Trust, the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine, Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute and six Medical Research Council units/centres in addition to the Laboratory of Molecular Biology. CBC is now planning a 70-acre major expansion. The expansion is a mixed-use scheme designed to bring together clinical care, teaching and research by hospitals, private businesses and the University of Cambridge. The development is by a joint venture between US REIT Liberty Property Trust and Countryside. Jonathan Burroughs, chief executive of Creative Places, presented an overview of these expansion plans. Creative Places is a property consultant specialising in developments that encourage innovation and enterprise that is working on the CBC project team, alongside consultants Bidwells, Savills, Aecom and NBBJ. The CBC expansion scheme secured outline planning permission in 2009 and construction is underway on the first two elements, a multi-storey car park and a temporary helipad. Mitie has been selected to build an energy centre.

Opportunities

  • AstraZeneca has bought two plots comprising 13 acres where it plans to construct 870,000 sq ft of space for over 2,000 people. They are hoping to obtain planning permission by March 2015.
  • Papworth Hospital plans to relocate to CBC in 2017. It is the largest cardiothoracic hospital in the UK and has 276 beds and 1,628 staff. The relocation has received government approval and the 40,000 sq m development will be delivered under PFI by Skanska. CBC has agreed an option with Papworth Hospital for a CBC plot and Papworth will “draw their land down later this year”, Burroughs said.
  • ‘The Forum’ mixed-used development has been “pieced together” with John Laing. It will feature an education centre, a privately-run hospital (which will work closely with the site’s public hospitals), a 200-room four star hotel and a 500-seat conference centre. Construction work is planned to start at the end of 2014 and the development is expected to open in summer 2016.
  • The developers have brought forward plans to deliver ‘The Circus’, a central amenities zone, after AstraZeneca made development this quickly a condition of them moving to CBC. The zone will also be “a focus for public art”.
  • The developers are in detailed discussions with potential occupiers who want to build 200,000 sq ft and 100,000 sq ft buildings at CBC respectively.
  • The developers are trying to source funding to build a proposed multi-occupancy building, which will ““provide a space where multi-nationals can bring in small scale teams of people who can scout for technology and develop relationships with the hospital, the university and other businesses”, according to Burroughs.
  • Cambridge University Hospitals will draw up plans to expand their operations using land on the CBC site within “the next year or two”.
  • A further 18 acres of land has been identified for development post-2016, which is in Cambridge’s local plan, where the developers expect to be granted consent for one million sq ft of space, two thirds of which will be for research and development space and a third for clinical activity.

Strategy

The CBC is attracting a more diverse array of potential occupiers. Burroughs said: “We’re no longer just talking to drug development companies, we’re actually talking to businesses that maybe are developing devices or mobile phone apps or whatever it might be. The companies we’re talking to are quite different to the ones we envisaged at the outset.” Improving the CBC’s public realm is a key focus. Burroughs said: “Historicaly CBC has been built out at quite high density and public realm hasn’t really been thought about. We’re very keen to ensure now that we create public spaces people enjoy as well as good new modern buildings.” Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, the University of Cambridge’s vice-chancellor, says of CBC: “For companies seeking an environment where they can translate their research into clinical benefit and regularly interact with some of the world’s most influential academics, there is no better place than the Cambridge Biomedical Campus”.