City's 150k homes plan may include other counties

The plan for 150,000 new homes in Greater Cambridge was "probably not a daft figure" but could include parts of other counties, a senior official has said.

The government had set the housing aim by 2050 and Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor has "the potential to be Europe's Silicon Valley".

But when asked at a South Cambridgeshire District Council meeting about the 150,000 figure for homes in and around Cambridge, Peter Freeman, the chair of the Cambridge Growth Company, said the area may include Tempsford, 22 miles away in Bedfordshire, and Haverhill, 17 miles away in Suffolk.

The government has been contacted for comment.

Last year Reeves announced a £400m investment in Cambridge - one of the least affordable cities in the UK - to boost development with affordable homes, infrastructure and business expansion.

In March 2024, the Case for Cambridge was shared by the government, which said building 150,000 new homes in the Greater Cambridge area by 2050 would add approximately £6.5bn to the economy.

That came after an alleged government plan to build 250,000 homes in the area, which was labelled as "absurd" by the then city council leader.

When asked about the 150,000 figure at a South Cambridgeshire District Council meeting on Thursday, Freeman said: "I suspect that sooner or later 150,000 will be built, whether that's in 25 years or longer, whether it includes things like Tempsford or doesn't, again at the moment we are not naming a number.

"We are completing an evidence base in the next couple of months which we're sharing with the local authority… For the general area, it's probably not a daft figure, but the general area might go into Tempsford or Haverhill."

He also said the district council had focused housebuilding in areas such as Northstowe, Cambourne and Waterbeach, which he believed was "the right thing".

"We think that what most local authorities do, a kind of sharing the pain in every village, is daft planning," he said.

Freeman told councillors a challenge he had not expected was "that there are considerable wards definitely in the city and in some of the villages which are significantly disadvantaged".

"So any growth that we propose must be for the benefit of the communities as a whole. It's not just about international post-docs, it's not just about life sciences or AI, it's about a sustainable city."

He said that was not just what feels socially or emotionally right, but also "commercially right", adding: "If the city doesn't work for everybody in the end it won't be able to attract the talent.

"So if the government wants economic growth here, we've also got to have social justice, we've got to sort transport, we've got to sort water."

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