A Cambridge climbing centre has been given approval to open a new bigger facility in the city.
The owners of the Rainbow Rocket climbing centre asked Cambridge City Council for permission to open a second climbing centre in Beadle Industrial Estate.
Unit B and C, Beadle Industrial Estate. Picture: Google
Planning officers recommended that the plans were refused, but councillors ultimately agreed to support the proposals at a planning meeting on 8 January.
Jeremy Leong, director of Rainbow Rocket, told councillors the current facility in Clifton Road had reached its capacity, with an average of 250 people visiting a day.
He said they wanted to continue to “bring climbing to more people”, which he said the new facility would help them to do.
Mr Leong said: “The new proposed site is more than twice the size of our existing site and will give us more space for our customers, and also in particular to offer children’s classes, which we can’t currently provide due to space constraints.”
The change will create 20 new jobs “across a range of skills”.
Mr Leong said he understood that the unit where they wanted to open was in a protected industrial site, but it had been marketed and no industrial users had shown an interest.
He explained they had been looking at sites since 2020, but found none suitable.
Granting permission will support a “community-centered, healthy leisure activity for Cambridge”, he said.
Councillors heard that a petition in support of the plans had been signed by 182 people and 35 comments of support submitted.
Support was also given by ward councillors, with Cllr Elliot Tong (Green, Abbey) said the climbing centre was something people “desperately” wanted.
However, planning officers recommended refusal as the site was a “protected industrial area’ and said the marketing was “not adequate”.
Allowing the change of use would be “likely to result in the irreversible loss of industrial employment space”, they said.
Cllr Katie Thornburrow (Lab, Petersfield) was “in two minds”.
She said having more indoor space for people to exercise was “incredibly important for physical and mental health”, but she said it was “very important” to “keep industrial units for traditional industrial uses”.
Cllr Katie Porrer (Lib Dem, Market) also felt it was a difficult decision, recognising the climbing centre needed more space, but said the industrial units were needed.
She asked if permission was granted, whether the change of use could be restricted to only being in place while the climbing centre was there, and could then revert back to industrial use if Rainbow Rocket left the site.
Officers said this was not possible, but suggested the change of use could be restricted to only be for a climbing centre.
Cllr Dave Baigent (Lab, Romsey) agreed permission to change the building’s use should be restricted.
He added that if an industrial business had wanted the unit they would have “snapped it up”.
The committee agreed to approve the application, with the restriction to the change of use.