Unity Campus, Cambridgeshire

Having gained permission for a lab building as part of a new science park SP&D gained a change of use to enable occupation by Welbeck Health, a leading global specialist day surgery provider. We also gained planning permission for an extension to the building to accommodate an additional staircase in order to meet fire regulations.

We anticipated that the Council would query the “loss” of employment land. We therefore ensured that we addressed this in the planning application which emphasised the number and quality of jobs created. We also anticipated that the highways authority would query the impact on the highways network from the additional trips from patients arriving and leaving. We worked closely with the occupier to understand how the use would operate and also with the highways consultant to explain that there would in fact be a reduction of trips in the peak hour as patients came and went throughout the day.