Meeting the challenge of housing and decarbonisation - Cambridge City Council

Cambridge is a magical city and one of the fastest growing economies in the UK, but with a housing affordability challenge second only to that within London. The average price of a home here is in excess of 13 times the average salary (national ratio is closer to 9 times) and has been as high as fifteen times. The related issues of commuting, congestion and public transport challenges within a historic city have all contributed to a critical necessity to drive development of  additional affordable homes.

The City Council was awarded £70m through a devolution deal in 2016 as part of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority’s £170m housing programme. We  utilised it to kick start a new council homes programme, with a target of starting on site with 500 homes within a 5 year period. As a small district with around 7000 council homes, the development skills and capability within the Council was restricted, and we established the Cambridge Investment Partnership; an equal partnership between the Council and Hill Group. Through the creation of the partnership, we are investing in and transforming council-owned and other land across the city by bringing together the best of public and private sector expertise; providing homes that are high quality, highly sustainable and designed to be  fit for the future.

We achieved our initial target a year ahead of time, and have completed eight developments. The Council retains its ambition and aspiration, and is now working to deliver a minimum of 1,700 new homes, with 1,000 being council homes, including the first Passivhaus accredited council homes in Cambridge. The Cambridge Investment Partnership, established in 2017, won Inside Housing’s Southern Development Team of the Year in 2021 and has also won a number of other awards.  

All homes are developed  under our Cambridge Sustainable Housing Design Guide, which covers not just the physical building design and construction but also the wider environment. The new homes are gas free and include energy saving features such as: wider cavity walls filled with denser insulation to reduce heat loss and energy bills; Mechanical Ventilation Heat Recovery which reduces the energy demand of the properties and carbon emissions; Communal Air Source Heat Pumps  serve the apartments with photovoltaic panels to offset the electricity used to power the heat pumps; green roofs; and electric vehicle charging points, together with sustainable urban drainage systems. We have developed a trajectory towards net zero carbon homes within the development programme.

Supporting the homeless through the provision of  modular homes as stepping-stone accommodation is an important element to the overall programme. Solohaus homes have been donated free of charge by the Hill Foundation as part of their  Foundation200 project. Cambridge City Council provided three sites from it’s land across the city to accommodate 16 homes which were the first of their kind in the UK. They are designed to provide a pleasant living environment, well integrated with their local neighbourhoods. The schemes provide communal space and bikes stores in addition to the homes themselves. Homes are provided fully furnished with an electric hob, fridge, microwave and a washing machine as well as a change of clothes in every home. A local charity, Jimmy’s,  has  provided wider support to the tenants, including broadband service for residents’ use. 
For more information on the partnership, please see Home | Cambridge Investment Partnership (ip-cambridge.co.uk)

Retrofitting our current homes is also critical to the Council and we recently won further funding to help support our retrofit programme . Working together with neighbouring councils, we are currently in the process of securing a tender framework for retrofit.

Another national funding opportunity, this time through the Housing Infrastructure Programme, was a critical point in opening up the chance for a new district on a highly sustainable brownfield site in North East Cambridge. The City Council and Anglian Water formed a joint venture to successfully work with homes England and DLUHC to negotiate the second largest HIF forward funding project for £227m to relocate Anglian Water’s Waste Water Treatment Plant in order to enable the site at the heart of the new district to be released for potential development of c5600 homes, within a net zero carbon, 5-minute neighbourhood. The Development Consent Order for the relocation of the waste water treatment plant was submitted to the Planning Inspectorate last week. For more information on the proposed development of the Core Site, please check: Core Site - new urban quarter - Cambridge (coresitecambridge.co.uk)

•     Fiona Bryant spoke on this topic at APSE’s Big Energy Summit on 1 March 2023. The presentation is available to download from the APSE website. For more information on how APSE Energy can help your local authority, please contact APSE Principal Advisor Charlotte Banks on [email protected].