Cambridge don's thinking cap for housing crisis

The near-permanent grid-lock tells its own story of a city bursting at the seams. Every day 36,000 cars bring commuters into Cambridge, heart of a booming region which should be feeling very pleased with itself. Unemployment has all but disappeared. Businesses are crying out for workers. And the population of Cambridgeshire alone, fuelled by high-technology companies, is expected to rise by over a fifth in the first quarter of the next century.

Growth is simply unrelenting. But there is a downside. Where are the children of a young population, and new immigrants to East Anglia, going to live early next century?

It's a question now exercising the minds of planners, councillors and ministers as East Anglia prepares for the country's first public examination of housing plans early next month - part of the British government's attempt to make planning more transparent by devolving decisions to regional conferences comprising local councillors.

The figures for Cambridgeshire itself appear daunting. Ministers say the county should accommodate 71,000 new homes over the next 20 years, while the county wants a lower range of 35,000-50,000. Cambridgeshire county council is adamant that it cannot cope with more homes without substantial improvements to transport, roads, schools and water supplies.

From Devon to Sussex, Hampshire to Hertfordshire and beyond, this is a common argument, uniting amenity groups and all political parties in county halls. The already overcrowded south, and the east, is now growing so fast that the Government will shortly revise estimates of the new houses it thinks England should accommodate up to 2016: 4.4 million may rise to five million.

But some believe it could actually be reduced. As the fastest growing county, Cambridgeshire is at the forefront of the battle.

By 2016, researchers estimate its population will have risen by 60 per cent to 812,000 in less than 40 years. "The Government are saying go for growth," sighs a planner. "Services are getting worse - traffic in Cambridge is horrendous. There is a view that we do not need any more jobs because, in effect, we've got full employment." Ironically, if that policy is followed to its logical conclusion, that could mean a revival of regional policy with the government forcing companies to the less-favoured parts of England - the north-east and Merseyside - which are forecast to lose population while the south gains.

But this Labour government, unlike its predecessors, believes in letting the market decide. So coercion is out. East Anglia will have to live with its success. Next to central Scotland and the M4 corridor, Cambridgeshire now has the third highest concentration of hi-tech employment in the UK - without the infrastructure to match. It also has a vocal countryside lobby and a cherished green belt drawn extremely tightly around the city. So what to do? Expand existing villages, controversially move the city outwards beyond the belt or build new settlements? To satisfy an apparently insatiable demand, hopping over the belt and plonking new homes just beyond it is a favoured option.

The debate about where the rest should go has taken an interesting turn, and revived a post-war phenomenon: the new town. Although up to five new towns, with populations of 10,000 to 30,000 have been mooted in the county, one - codenamed C2 - has captured the imagination of some and alarmed others. Backed by a local software entrepreneur, Peter Dawe, Cambridge New Town Corporation PLC has been established under the chairmanship of Wyndham Thomas, former chief executive of Peterborough New Town Development Corporation. Rather grandly, to the alarm of the county council, it has proposed a self-sustaining town of 50,000 at an old Ministry of Defence (MoD) airfield at Oakington, 10 miles from the city, and just yards north-west of the green belt.

WITH the MoD anxious to capitalise on its assets elsewhere, rough plans were recently put forward for another township, with a projected population of up to 20,000 at another old airfield nearby at Waterbeach. Now, it has come forward with another housing site at Wyton, between St Ives and Huntingdon.

Pipe dreams? Not quite. Cambridgeshire, like other southern pressure points, might be short of old urban and industrial areas which could be recycled for housing - so-called "brownfield sites" - but, intriguingly, old MoD land is classed as "brownfield" and it is just the place where some close to the Government would like to see development. Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, John Prescott, after all, is committed to tilting the balance away from greenfields in favour of recycled land. Cambridgeshire promises to be his first test.