Busway project reduced in size after feedback

A proposed new busway has been reduced in size after concerns were raised, a meeting has heard.

Cambridgeshire County Council wants to build a busway between Cambridge's Biomedical Campus and a new travel hub off the A11.

A public inquiry examining the plans is due to get under way in December.

At a pre-inquiry meeting on Tuesday, the council's barrister Alexander Booth KC said the area of land to be acquired as part of the project had been reduced.

He said one parcel of land to be acquired which is owned by the University of Cambridge's Corpus Christi College had been reduced by 10,000 sq m (2.5 acres).

Another plot, owned by Deal Land, had decreased by 40,000 sq m (9.9 acres).

Booth said: "This is essentially the consequence of concerns being raised by Corpus Christi College as to whether or not there was a need to apply the full extent of the area that we were proposing to acquire."

He said some of the land in question had been earmarked for landscaping and it was considered it was not needed.

The Cambridge South East Transport (CSET) busway is planned to be about five miles (8km) long.

It will stretch between Francis Crick Avenue at the city's Biomedical Campus and a new travel hub off the A11, at the Fourwentways junction.

Busways are dedicated routes, separate from roads, that are exclusively for the use of buses.

In September, the government gave the green light for another to be built between Cambridge and the growing new town of Cambourne.

The city's Labour MP Daniel Zeichner previously said busways were an "important part of future transport solutions" in Cambridge.

However Conservative councillor Heather Williams, said the plans were "going to give local communities all the pain with little to no gain".

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