Cambridgeshire County Council A428 & Western Orbital City Deal Planning support

Tender description

The Greater Cambridgeshire City Deal (GCCD) has 2 Major Infrastructure Public Transport corridors for High Quality Public Transport (HQPT) interventions: 1. Cambourne to Cambridge Better Bus Journeys. The A428 and A1303 are key routes into the city from the west and is often congested between Cambourne and Cambridge. 2. The Western Orbital link is a public transport scheme between Junction 11 (Trumpington) and Junction 13 (Madingley Road) of the M11, either on-line or off-line. The distance between the two junctions is approximately 6.8km. The objectives of the GCCD is to connect major housing developments to major centres of employment. The aim of the 2 schemes are to encourage sustainable travel and offer an alternative to driving to and through the City Centre. The schemes must also provide additional and improved cycle and walking infrastructure. In addition, the schemes could provide new Park and Ride or Park and Cycle Sites. The location and availability of Park & Ride sites within the 2 scheme corridors will impact upon the demand for existing Park & Ride sites already operating in the study area. Deliverables • The purpose of the work is to identify relevant planning policies in the context of the A428 Better Bus Journeys and Western Orbital public transport scheme study areas. • Once these relevant policies have been identified a high level planning appraisal should be carried out to highlight key risks and recommend opportunities and scale of appropriate mitigation measures and strategies. • A high level recommended consenting route and assessment of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) will be required in consultation with the team’s legal representative. • The planning policies and consenting approach should be evaluated and presented to the project team and then be verified with against the project objectives. • The relevant Local Planning Authorities (Cambridgeshire County Council, Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council) will need to be consulted to obtain and confirm expectations of the scope/ content of the schemes, the need for EIA, the relationship between the Green Belt Review and the Green Belt Pro forma of the study area, extent of stakeholder and community engagement, potential design and ecological considerations and any other policies that are relevant. • Once a consensus is reached the planning policies, assessment, risk, consenting method and implications should be concluded in a report recommending and agreed strategy to progress the scheme in light of planning policies. • Attend third party and project team meetings as required. Project support to other relevant planning disciplines and work streams within the scheme development such as design, visual impact, drainage, public consultation as they become relevant to the project until July 2017.