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. Planning officers had recommended for the plans to be refused, but councillors ultimately agreed to support the proposals at a planning meeting this week (January 8).
Jeremy Leong, director of Rainbow Rocket, told councillors that 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.”
He added that the climbing centre would also create 20 new jobs “across a range of skills”. Mr Leong said he understood that the unit where they wanted to open the new climbing centre was in a protected industrial site. However, he said the building had been marketed and no industrial users had shown an interest.
Mr Leong explained they had been looking to expand at Rainbow Rocket since 2020 and had looked at a range of sites across Cambridge, but said none of these had been suitable. He said granting permission for the plans would help support a “community centered, healthy leisure activity for Cambridge”.
Councillors also heard that a petition in support of the plans had been signed by 182 people, and that 35 comments of support had been submitted to the city council. Support for the plans was also shared by councillors who represent the area. Councillor Elliot Tong said the climbing centre was something people “desperately” wanted.
However, planning officers had recommended for the application to be refused. Officers highlighted that the industrial estate was a ‘protected industrial area’ and said the marketing done for the unit was “not adequate”. They said allowing the change of use would be “likely to result in the irreversible loss of industrial employment space”.
Councillor Katie Thornburrow said she was “in two minds” as to whether to support the plans. She said having more indoor space for people to exercise was “incredibly important for physical and mental health”, however, she also said it was “very important [to] keep industrial units for traditional industrial uses”.
Councillor Katie Porrer said she also thought it was a difficult decision to make. She said she could see why the climbing centre needed more space, but said the industrial units were also needed in the city. Cllr Porrer 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. Councillor Dave Baigent said he agreed that 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 ultimately agreed to approve the application, with the restriction to the change of use.