FAQs

Government announced its intention to consult on a centrally-led Urban Development Corporation in October 2025, subject to statutory consultation with local authorities, residents and businesses in the proposed area. The consultation took place between February and April 2026. The government's analysis of the responses and next steps was issued on 3rd June 2026.

As is usual procedure with the set up of statutory bodies, a statutory instrument was laid before parliament and debated in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords who were able to scrutinise the legislative basis for establishing the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation.

The Greater Cambridge Development Corporation is a new statutory delivery body with powers including land assembly, infrastructure delivery and investment powers, overseen by an independent Board, appointed by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. The Cambridge Growth Company was set up as the government's interim delivery body, and was established as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Homes England, tasked with laying the foundations for long-term delivery.

The Development Corporation will build on the work of the Cambridge Growth Company, and the interim Board will review and approve the Development Corporation's Business Plan.

The Development Corporation is independent of Homes England, although it will continue to be supported operationally with services and staff through a Service Level Agreement with Homes England. Therefore, the team that has delivered the work programme to date through CGC will remain in place to take forward the work of the Development Corporation.

Yes. Peter Freeman has been appointed Chair of the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation, providing continuity of leadership. The Board is responsible for providing strategic leadership and oversight as the Development Corporation delivers its programme of work. David Hill will join as Chief Executive in the autumn, leading the organisation's day-to-day operations.

The Development Corporation is intended as a joint national and local endeavour, combining local insight and input from locally democratically elected representatives with national leadership, powers and investment.

Local involvement is integral to this approach. That is why local representation, participation and transparency form one of the Development Corporation's six core objectives and will be embedded in how it operates.

As part of this commitment, we will create structured engagement forums to provide meaningful opportunities for residents, businesses, community organisations and local partners to help shape priorities and inform proposals as they develop.

Local democratic representation will also be embedded in our governance arrangements, helping to ensure that decisions reflect the needs, priorities and aspirations of communities across Greater Cambridge. The Board will include four democratically elected local leaders, representing Cambridge City Council, South Cambridgeshire District Council, Cambridgeshire County Council, and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority.

There will also be local representation on the Planning Committee when planning powers are transferred to the Development Corporation, subject to parliamentary approval process.

Information about the development corporation's work, governance, publications and future activities will continue to be published here until dedicated communications channels are in place.

If you have an enquiry about the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation, please contact GCDCEnquiries@homesengland.gov.uk. Enquiries received through this mailbox will be directed to the team supporting the Development Corporation.

The Greater Cambridge Development Corporation is envisaged to operate for at least 25 years, providing the sustained focus needed to plan and deliver the intended transformational change.

To ensure ongoing effectiveness and value for money, the development corporation will be subject to a review 18 months to 2 years after its establishment, with regular monitoring throughout its lifespan.

The government has confirmed that its intention to grant planning powers to the Development Corporation. Subject to further parliamentary approval, it is anticipated that, from 2027, the Development Corporation will be empowered to exercise development management powers for strategic development sites immediately. However, the government intends to delay implementing plan-making powers. The Secretary of State will decide when the restriction on the Development Corporation's ability to exercise its plan-making powers should be lifted. We anticipate that to be once the draft local plan has been adopted, subject to the public examination. This approach was taken as having an up-to-date Local Plan is identified the fastest route to supporting growth in the area. The Development Corporation will continue to work with the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service to support the emerging Local Plan through to adoption and accelerate its delivery.

The Development Corporation will be there to help deliver nationally significant growth. Taking an infrastructure first approach, it will focus on major strategic development sites, which are often difficult to deliver, involve working with multiple partners and come with significant infrastructure requirements.

The government acknowledges suggestions from respondents that thresholds should be set either on the upper end or higher than the consulted range. Thresholds for non-residential development have therefore been set above the consulted range, at a minimum of 5,000 sqm, and simplified by removing references to use classes.

For housing, the government recognises that most large and strategic developments will typically involve more than 1,000 homes. However, a lower threshold of 250 homes will be used. This is because the Development Corporation can choose to pass applications on smaller or non-strategic schemes to the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service, but the shared planning service cannot pass decisions to the Development Corporation. Setting a lower threshold ensures that the Development Corporation can take decisions on strategic sites where needed, while allowing non-strategic schemes to continue to be determined by GCSP. In practice, most developments between 250 and 1,000 homes are expected to be decided by the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service.

Many respondents to the consultation pointed out that size alone does not always define what counts as a strategic site. The government agrees and plans to publish a clearer definition of “sites of strategic importance” at a later date, with the minimum thresholds providing a backstop.

The government will introduce legislation in the autumn to grant planning functions to the Development Corporation. This will confirm when it will take on development management decision making responsibilities, which subject to parliamentary approval process, is not expected to happen before 2027.

Overall, the intention is to clearly define what counts as a strategic site. This should reinforce the expectation that the Development Corporation will remain focused on the delivery of strategic scale development.

All developers should continue to liaise with the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service (GCSP) as they do today.

We recognise the importance of having well-defined working arrangements with the GCSP Service. We are committed to reaching a formal agreement with GCSP for efficient development management administrative processes, including arrangements for processing and delegating decisions and drawing on the specialist advice available within the GCSP to inform decisions or applications for strategic scale applications. The Development Corporation will work with GCSP to notify applicants and developers when the Development Corporation's development management powers will commence.

The government expects the Development Corporation to be an exemplar in sustainable, high-quality development and place making.

The emerging Greater Cambridge Local Plan is an ambitious document and the Development Corporation will support the progression of the local plan, helping to accelerate delivery of the plan. Greater Cambridge has the potential to make an even greater contribution to the UK economy, an ambition shared by many partners. Successor plans will build positively on the foundations set out in the emerging local plan.

The Development Corporation is there to help deliver infrastructure-led growth. As part of its evidence gathering and planning work, the Development Corporation will assess the most sustainable locations for growth. Any planning decisions taken by the Development Corporation will need to have regard to the relevant development plan and national planning policy, including policies relating to Green Belt protection, in the same way that the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service does.

The Development Corporation will closely collaborate with the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority on its emerging Spatial Development Strategy, which will set out a vision for growth across the wider region.

The Development Corporation will work closely with neighbouring local councils and planning authorities, engaging collaboratively to ensure that growth delivers positive outcomes across the wider area.

The Cambridge Growth Company (CGC) was established by government in 2024 as an interim delivery body to address barriers to growth and help unlock Greater Cambridge's full potential.

As a subsidiary of Homes England, the government's housing and regeneration agency, the CGC worked to unlock and accelerate development and support the delivery of the homes, jobs and infrastructure needed for long-term, sustainable growth.

Greater Cambridge is one of the UK's greatest success stories. However, that success has also brought challenges. Housing affordability, transport congestion, water scarcity and environmental pressures risk holding back sustainable growth.

The Cambridge Growth Company was established to help address these challenges and support the area's long-term development.

Working alongside partners, the CGC advanced a range of near-term priorities to accelerate and unlock key development opportunities already identified.

This included:

• Working with Homes England, government departments, local partners and the Cambridge Water Scarcity Group to help unlock planning applications for over 9,000 new homes and 528,000 sqm of commercial space.
• Coordinating investment and enabling infrastructure to accelerate progress on key stalled sites, including:
  • £3 million to support a new model of emergency care and preparatory work for a future acute hospital at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
  • £23 million in recoverable funding (via Homes England) for the relocation of Waterbeach Station.
  £7.2 million to advance the Cambridge South East Transport (CSET) project.

Alongside near-term delivery, the CGC commissioned Buro Happold and Prior + Partners to develop the evidence base for a long-term strategy for housing, employment space and infrastructure across Greater Cambridge.

This work looks beyond standard planning timeframes, setting out a vision for how Greater Cambridge can continue to grow sustainably, building on the priorities in the emerging Greater Cambridge Local Plan and the forthcoming Mayoral Spatial Development Strategy.

On 28 January 2025, the government unveiled new plans to deliver the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor, which has the potential to boost the UK economy by up to £78 billion by 2035.

The Growth Company's work across Greater Cambridge formed part of the government's wider ambitions for economic growth across the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor.

The Cambridge Growth Company worked closely with government, including Lord Vallance in his role at the time as the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor Champion and Science Minister, to coordinate the delivery of sustainable growth across the region.

The government announced £10 million at Autumn Budget 2024 to enable the Cambridge Growth Company to develop an ambitious plan for housing, transport, wider infrastructure, and for the water needed to support sustainable growth.

In October 2025, government announced a further £400 million commitment to support the work of CGC and a future delivery vehicle. Additional funding was announced in March 2026.

Alongside this funding, the CGC worked with partners to attract additional investment to unlock local projects and accelerate delivery across Greater Cambridge.

The Cambridge Growth Company sought to ensure that local views and perspectives were reflected in its work.

Throughout its programme, the CGC engaged with a wide range of stakeholders, including local authorities, community groups, businesses, infrastructure providers and residents, to better understand local priorities, opportunities and concerns across Greater Cambridge.

The CGC also established an Advisory Council in February 2025, bringing together local leaders and experts to provide insight, challenge and guidance. The Council helped ensure that local perspectives informed the CGC's work and programme of activity.

Information about the Advisory Council, including its membership and meeting records, can be found here.