Cambridgeshire Quality Charter for Growth
The Cambridgeshire Quality Charter for Growth sets out core principles for achieving excellence in the new housing developments planned for Cambridgeshire. The Charter aims to ensure the region remains an international leader in architecture, design, community development and low-carbon growth for years to come.
Cambridgeshire Horizons worked closely with consultants,URBED, and a top-level group from the public, private and voluntary sectors to produce the Quality Charter. Over a hundred people have taken part in the shared learning process with workshops and study tours to 15 exemplar places in the East of England and Europe including Amersfoort, Holland and Freiburg, Germany.
Charter Principles - The '4 Cs'
The Charter is organised around 4 broad themes:
Community - Building a sense of community by providing a greater choice of housing along with active participation of people in the way their neighbourhoods are run.
Connectivity - Locating new developments where they can benefit from high connectivity to jobs and services, and upgrading infrastructure to match the pace of development.
Climate - Tackling climate change through imaginative landscaping that treats 'water as a friend not an enemy' and through an innovative approach to energy, transport and waste.
Character - Creating places of character with distinctive neighbourhoods and a public realm that encourages people to walk and cycle.
There is also an overarching fifth C - Collaboration - which is needed to make the principles of the Quality Charter work.
How will the Charter achieve its aims?
The Charter offers a shared vision and understanding of the kind of communities we wish to create. It helps communications by crossing professional boundaries and providing a common framework and a clear and shared language. It supports a genuinely collaborative approach to achieving growth. Furthermore, it inspires innovation and a pursuit of higher standards by showing what has been achieved elsewhere and what can be achieved in Cambridgeshire.
What is its status?
The participating local authorities and agencies are adopting the Charter as a clear policy statement of the aspiration to create major new developments that offer future communities a fulfilling, visually pleasing and environmentally sensitive way of life. The local planning authorities will use the Charter as a 'material consideration' in their decision-making, especially in determining planning applications.
What next?
We have begun the process of training in the principles of the Charter for practitioners in all relevant disciplines who will be involved in the planning and delivery of new communities. Further 'looking and learning' study tours are also planned, which will encourage continued collaboration, reinforce the Charter message and address key issues as they arise.
Whilst the Charter has been developed with Cambridgeshire in mind, the principles are applicable to growth areas across the UK. Horizons and its partners are now working hard to encourage other organisations, both within the county and beyond, to sign up to the core principles of the Charter as a commitment to raising standards in new developments.
The Quality Charter was also shortlisted as a finalist in the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) 2008 Awards.
To sign up to the Charter please contact Lianne Parrett.
Read the Cambridgeshire Quality Charter for Growth here.