The University of Cambridge is to spend £204,000 to provide five city council posts involved in the University’s plans for its real-estate development at the pre-application stage.

The university is currently pursuing building plans for the West Cambridge site and the North West Cambridge Development, the latter project having been strongly criticised last year for “systematic” failures that have led to projections of overspend on its first phase total of over £75 million.

It is understood the university-funded roles within the council will enable them to move its applications forward more swiftly through a congested application system which, since 2012, has seen a 50 per cent increase in the number of planning applications made, with no increase in the number of planning officers. The university submits approximately 50 of these planning applications per year.

The jobs created consist of an environmental health officer, conservation officer, urban design officer and two planning officers, amounting to the equivalent of four fulltime members of staff. The new officers’ roles will be limited to plans and applications connected with the university.

Cllr Lewis Herbert told Cambridge News that the council was “not out there on the open market trying to drum up extra funding, but we are available if people want to get involved in pre-application advice”.

The council’s website details a pre-application advice service already currently offered, which lists its aims to help with identifying key planning issues and requirements, speeding up the development process, minimising subsequent planning application costs and avoiding unfinished applications.

Cllr Herbert maintained that the new officers will not have a say on the outcome of the final planning application made by the university but instead will be involved at the pre-application stage.

He said that the council “charge[s] other people for pre-application advice, and this employs a couple of extra people to do that. The vast majority of the resource is to look at half developed ideas. They’ve got no say on the final planning application. When it comes to the application, if it’s still not good enough, our planning committee will reject it.”

He added “we’ve been in a healthy relationship with the university for 800 years as a city, and it never benefits either party if one rolls over for the other.”

Liberal Democrat planning spokeswoman Cllr Catherine Smart told Cambridge News that, “there’s a lot of plans in the offing” and acknowledged that pre-application discussions can be costly for the applicants, in the case of a big development. She also said that she will be seeking reassurances that there will be no conflict of interests.

This follows the announcement last month that the university has awarded Wates Construction a contract worth £75 million for the buildings in the first phase of the North West Cambridge Development, which is expected to be completed over the next two years. Plans for the site, a development spanning 150 hectares, include the building of 3,000 new houses, of which approximately 1,500 will became homes for university staff, also providing 2,000 rooms for post-graduate students.

Last month also saw the completion of the University of Cambridge Primary School, the first building of the project to be finished and is described on the project’s website as an inclusive, mixed-ability, co-educational and a University Training School. The school will be run by the university.

The Cambridge Local Plan, guiding development in Cambridge, is currently under review.