As reported by Old Chesterton Residents' Association:

The consultation on the Cambridge City Local Plan is closed.  The draft will now go forward to an independent inspector, whose job it is to consider comments that have been made on the draft, and to test its soundness.  The inspector will hold public hearings.

The County Council Transport Strategy for Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire also closed on Monday.  An  feature of that paper is a proposed orbital bus route from the proposed new station in Chesterton which is shown on the map as crossing the river and Ditton Meadows.  Council officers have described the route shown on the map as “conceptual”, and that the planning work for an actual route is still to be done.  Michael Bond has made the following comment to the Council on the plan:

The Cambridge Highways strategy shows a proposed busway extension routed across Ditton Meadows as part of an allegedly 'orbital' dimension to Cambridge's transport network. Blasting a limited use road across valued open space is not acceptable and a previously proposed road along this alignment has been rejected by the City.
There is no objection to the orbital concept which would provide a long-term solution for many travellers if properly implemented.
Old Chesterton Residents' Association (OCRA) has previously suggested that the junctions with the A14 at Histon, Milton and Horningsea Road should be closed to local traffic allowing it to be a more effective through route and that a local peripheral distributor road alongside the A14 should be created that would take local traffic around the north of the city between the Girton and Quy interchanges. Such a road could also provide an 'open' route for extra large loads that currently have to thread their way through Northampton Street. The eastern end of the local road would link with Airport Way to provide a genuine orbital route serving the eastern part of the city. The crossing of the railway line should be an all-purpose roadway to provide the much-needed access to Chesterton Fen that would allow closure of the Fen Road railway crossing and provide an adequate route for cyclists from the proposed new cycle bridge over the river at the railway bridge as an alternative to negotiating narrow residential streets in East Chesterton. We are not convinced that more dedicated busway is needed, the existing busway is not the quickest public transport service from Cambridge to St Ives at the moment. A well-designed orbital route with limited access points would relieve pressure on the city centre by providing a more effective alternative north south route to and from most parts of the north of the city.

 Further details about improving transport included in the strategy can be found in the Regional Improvements map.pdf (78Kb) (PDF document).