The masterplan

The masterplan project has been developed by the board of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority to ensure that the market towns in Cambridgeshire are all interconnected in an overall plan that supports the region’s future prosperity.

Market towns National trends Ambitions Strategy

Cambridgeshire Market towns

There are eleven market towns, or similarly sized areas, in the Combined Authority which are currently home to around 190,000 people and are expected to grow significantly to over 250,000 by 2036. Strategies to date have not always managed to recognise the scale and importance of the role that our market towns play or their future potential.

This sits within a context of national trends that can as a whole present a worrying future for towns if greater attention and investment is not given. For example, across the country between 1981 and 2011 towns and villages lost over a million people under the age of 25. In contrast, core cities gained 300,000. Over the same period, the number of over 65s in towns grew by over two million.

Market town populations

	1981	2011
Chatteris	6,215	10,453
Ely	10,392	20,265
Huntingdon	14,648	23,732
Littleport	5,673	8,738
March	14,534	22,298
Ramsey	5,858	8,479
Soham	6,596	10,860
St Ives	12,331	16,384
St Neots	21,290	30,870
Whittlesey	11,835	16,058
Wisbech	17,294	22,841

Data: Cambridgeshire Insight

Each of our towns should be a vibrant and thriving place in its own right, with an evidence-based ambition that describes the new job opportunities, education and skills provision, community facilities, local attractions, and other reasons for enthusiasm that will exist in the future. These ambitions should act as the antidote to fears around town centre decline and economic displacement.

A Masterplan for Growth

Each town will have a shared ambition for the future which authorities, businesses and communities can unite behind.

Each town will focus on collective resources against the same priorities, and crucially which unlocks new investment from the Combined Authority and other agencies.

The development of these ambitions should be the collective effort of authorities, businesses and communities – and should be driven forward by local leaders. The Combined Authority should be a strategic partner in this process, so that each market town plays into our overall economic strategy and so that all critical activities like housing, skills, infrastructure and public service reform can be brought together with a place as the anchor.

Three-stage principles

The Combined Authority commissions the development of the Masterplan and requests the district council to form a partnership team from the public, private and community sectors.

Nine-month programme of engagement, evidence gathering, and idea generation is undertaken to scope the ambitions of the town.

Approval by the Combined Authority of a Masterplan for Growth and associated Action Plan which has the collective backing of the town.