Birch Close Cambridge

18 addresses across 2 postcodes (CB4), about 110 m long, classed as a local road. USRN 5401016.

  • Sales: 18 recorded sales since 1995; in 2026 the median was £440,000 across 1 sale.
  • Energy: 13 homes have an energy certificate (C: 5, D: 7, E: 1).
  • Flood: No address on its postcodes is in an area at high or medium risk of flooding from rivers, the sea or surface water.
  • Council tax: Most homes around it are in council tax band C; Band D in Cambridge costs £2,467 a year in 2026-27.
  • Broadband: Gigabit broadband is available to 100% of premises.
  • Transport: The nearest railway station is Cambridge North, about 1.6 km (1 mile) away in a straight line.
  • Green space: The nearest park or garden is about 230 m away.
  • Air: Background air pollution in 2024 was 8.4 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 7.5 of PM2.5, within UK legal limits.
  • Height: It is about 11 m above sea level.
  • Noise: 7 of its 18 addresses are modelled at 55 dB or more from road traffic.
  • Doctors: The nearest GP surgery is Arbury Road Surgery, about 640 m (0.4 miles) away, with 4 practices within 1.6 km (1 mile).
  • People: About 570 people lived in the census areas around it in 2021; 49% of households owned their home and 71% of adults held a degree or other higher qualification.
  • Crime: 96 crimes were recorded within 250 m between September 2025 and August 2026, most often violence and sexual offences.

Sales on this street

Source: HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, sales registered up to 28 August 2026, loaded 28 October 2026. Sales reach the register two weeks to two months after completion, so the last two months are incomplete. Matched by postcode and street name.

Sales by year (standard sales only; repossessions and buy-to-let transfers excluded)
YearSalesMedian priceLowestHighest
20261£440,000£440,000£440,000
20242£455,250£423,000£487,500
20221£500,000£500,000£500,000
20191£365,000£365,000£365,000
20181£380,000£380,000£380,000
20161£370,000£370,000£370,000
20151£368,000£368,000£368,000
20111£247,000£247,000£247,000
20101£250,000£250,000£250,000
20081£225,000£225,000£225,000
20041£180,000£180,000£180,000
20011£122,000£122,000£122,000
Most recent sales (18)
DateAddressTypePriceNotes
22 May 20263 CB4 1XNTerraced£440,000
23 Aug 20249 CB4 1XNTerraced£487,500
28 Jun 20245 CB4 1XNTerraced£423,000
8 Jun 20229 CB4 1XNTerraced£500,000
15 Nov 20192 CB4 1XNTerraced£365,000
27 Jul 20188 CB4 1XNTerraced£380,000
22 Nov 20163 CB4 1XNTerraced£370,000
22 Apr 201510 CB4 1XNTerraced£368,000
3 Aug 201115 CB4 1XNTerraced£247,000
30 Apr 201012 CB4 1XNTerraced£250,000
16 May 200813 CB4 1XNTerraced£225,000
30 Apr 200415 CB4 1XNTerraced£180,000
10 Apr 200112 CB4 1XNTerraced£122,000
15 Nov 20004 CB4 1XNFlat or maisonette£110,000Leasehold.
16 Jul 19997 CB4 1XNTerraced£95,000
28 Apr 19996 CB4 1XNTerraced£97,500
30 May 19971 CB4 1XNTerraced£78,500
13 Jan 199713 CB4 1XNTerraced£59,995Leasehold.

Energy performance certificates

Source: Energy Performance of Buildings Register (MHCLG), register as at 1 November 2026. Latest certificate per address; certificates last ten years, so the oldest here dates from March 2010 and some homes have none. Address data © Ordnance Survey and Royal Mail, shown for understanding the energy efficiency of buildings only.

13 homes with a current certificate; median floor area 79 m². Most common: House, mid-terrace (9); House, end-terrace (4). Built: 1967-1975 (10); 1950-1966 (2); 1976-1982 (1). Tenure at assessment: rented (private) (5); owner-occupied (5).

Each home's certificates and sales (4 addresses)

Council tax

What each band costs in Cambridge in 2026-27: Band D £2,467 a year on average, including the police, fire and any county and parish charges.

ABCDEFGH
£1,645£1,919£2,193£2,467£3,015£3,563£4,112£4,934

Homes by band in the neighbourhood around this street: most are in band C (37% of about 830 homes).

Sources: Valuation Office Agency, Council Tax: stock of properties, homes at 31 March 2026 (counts rounded to the nearest 10), for the neighbourhood (census area of about 700 homes) around it, not just this street; Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, council tax levels 2026-27. Bands are charged as fixed shares of Band D; the actual bill depends on the parish and on discounts such as the single-person discount. Check a home's own band with the official council tax band checker.

Planning and heritage

  • Conservation area: no postcode centre in this street's postcodes is in one.
  • Listed buildings on or by this street: none.
  • Article 4 direction (removing permitted development rights): none recorded, though not every council has published theirs.
  • Tree preservation orders: 2 protected trees on or by this street.
  • Green belt: no.

Brownfield land registered for housing within 1 km (0.6 miles)

Source: planning.data.gov.uk (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government), compiled from councils and, for listed buildings, Historic England's National Heritage List. Conservation areas, Article 4 directions, tree preservation areas and the green belt are checked at each postcode's centre. Listed buildings and protected trees are counted on or by this street. Councils publish Article 4 directions, tree preservation orders and brownfield registers to different standards, and some not yet. Planning applications are not here: there is no national open record of them yet.

Roadworks

No street works under way, planned or finished in the last three months on this street, in permits up to 30 September 2026.

Source: Department for Transport, Street Manager open data, permits and works up to 30 September 2026. It is published once a month, so works arranged or started since then are not shown, and dates are the ones planned unless the works have started or finished. Emergency works are often permitted after they begin.

Flood risk

Rivers, the sea or surface water: in this street's postcodes, 0 addresses are in areas at high risk, 0 at medium risk and 16 at low risk. Each address counts once, at the higher of its rivers-and-sea and surface-water risk.

Rivers and the sea alone: no home is in an area at risk.

High: 3.3% (1 in 30) or more chance of flooding a year. Medium: 1% to 3.3%. Low: 0.1% to 1%. Very low: under 0.1%. The rivers and sea figures allow for flood defences. Counts cover whole postcodes, which can include other streets.

Flood zone for planning: no postcode centre on this street is in flood zone 2 or 3.

PostcodePlanning zoneAddresses at high / medium / low riskGroundwater
CB4 1XNnot in 2 or 3 0 / 0 / 1 unlikely
CB4 1XWnot in 2 or 3 0 / 0 / 15 unlikely

Sources: Environment Agency Flood risk: postcode search tool data (loaded 29 October 2026), Risk of Flooding from Rivers and Sea: postcodes in areas at risk (loaded 29 October 2026) and Flood Map for Planning (loaded 28 October 2026). Flood zones are checked at each postcode's centre point. These are models of areas, which their publishers say are not suitable for showing whether an individual property is at risk, and they do not cover flooding from sewers or drains. Check an address on the official long-term flood risk service.

© Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2026. All rights reserved. Some features are based on digital spatial data from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, © NERC (CEH); the postcode data is produced in part from PAF® and Multiple Residence Data, © Royal Mail Group Limited.

Height above sea level

The street's addresses are about 11 m above sea level.

Source: Ordnance Survey, OS Terrain 50, July 2026: the height of the ground on a 50 m grid, read at each address, in metres above Ordnance Datum (mean sea level at Newlyn). It is the lie of the land, not floor or threshold levels, and is accurate to a few metres. Being low-lying is not in itself a flood risk; the flood section above says what the flood maps show.

Broadband

Source: Ofcom Connected Nations, data as at January 2026. Percentages are of premises in each postcode that can get the service, not take-up or speed achieved.

Availability by postcode (% of premises)
PostcodeSuperfast (30 Mbit/s+)Ultrafast (300 Mbit/s+)GigabitBelow 10 Mbit/s
CB4 1XN100%100%100%0%
CB4 1XW100%100%100%0%

Getting around

Sources: Department for Transport, NaPTAN (every public transport stop), as at 31 October 2026; Office of Rail and Road, Estimates of station usage 2024–25 (which stations are on the National Rail network, and their journeys: entries and exits in the year to March); OurAirports (public domain, kept by volunteers); car parks and charging points from Overture Maps Foundation, release 2026-10-21.0, which gathers business listings from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and others: not an official register, so some will be missing, private or out of date. Distances are straight lines from the middle of the street, not routes, and say nothing about how often anything runs. Stations opened since the end of ORR's year appear when ORR publishes the next one, each December; heritage railways are left out.

NearestDistance
Railway stationsCambridge North 1.5 million journeys in 2024–251.6 km (1 mile)
Cambridge 11 million journeys in 2024–253.1 km (1.9 miles)
Waterbeach 372,000 journeys in 2024–256.1 km (3.8 miles)
Bus stops5 stops within 400 m (0.2 miles), 27 within 800 m (0.5 miles); nearest Downham's Lane Chesterton100 m
Bus or coach stationDrummer St Bus Station Cambridge2 km (1.3 miles)
Car parksCambridge North Station Car Park1.6 km (1 mile)
EV charging points7 within 1.6 km (1 mile); nearest Connected Kerb Charging Stations700 m (0.4 miles)
Airport with scheduled flightsLondon Stansted Airport STN38.1 km (24 miles)

Local services

Sources: NHS Organisation Data Service, as at 31 October 2026: GP practices, community pharmacies and dental practices with an NHS contract, open now, each placed at the centre of its postcode; hospitals are NHS trust and Welsh health board sites named as hospitals, and may not have an emergency department. Police stations and cash machines from Overture Maps Foundation, release 2026-10-21.0, which gathers business listings: not an official register, so some will be missing or out of date. Distances are straight lines from the middle of the street. Nothing here says whether a practice is taking new patients or a dentist new NHS patients.

NearestDistance
GP surgeries4 practices within 1.6 km (1 mile); nearest Arbury Road Surgery640 m (0.4 miles)
Pharmacies3 pharmacies within 1.6 km (1 mile); nearest Milton Road Pharmacy240 m
NHS dentists11 practices within 1.6 km (1 mile); nearest Hurst Park Dental Practice510 m (0.3 miles)
HospitalSpire Cambridge Lea Hospital2.9 km (1.8 miles)
Police stationParkside Police Station2.2 km (1.3 miles)
Cash machines2 machines within 800 m (0.5 miles); nearest The Cooperative Food Milton Road Cashzone260 m

Parks and green space

Source: Ordnance Survey, OS Open Greenspace, April 2026: public parks and gardens, play spaces, playing fields and allotments, with their entrances. Distances are straight lines from the middle of the street to a site's nearest entrance (or its edge where none is recorded), not walking routes; sizes are the area OS maps for each site. Some sites, such as school playing fields, may not be open to the public.

NearestDistance
Park or garden5 within 800 m (0.5 miles); nearest Unnamed 5,780 m²230 m
Play area10 within 800 m (0.5 miles); nearest Unnamed 60 m²350 m
Playing field2 within 800 m (0.5 miles); nearest Unnamed 2,920 m²500 m (0.3 miles)
Allotments5 within 800 m (0.5 miles); nearest Unnamed 4.8 ha180 m

Within 800 m (0.5 miles): 5 parks and gardens, 2.0 hectares in all.

Landmarks

The nearest historic landmark is Chesterton Tower, a listed building (Grade I), 660 m (0.4 miles) south-east. 25 listed buildings are within 1 km (0.6 miles), 2 of them Grade I.

Historic places
NameWhat it isFrom the middle of the street
Chesterton TowerListed building, Grade I660 m (0.4 miles) south-east
Chesterton AbbeyScheduled monument660 m (0.4 miles) south-east
Church of St AndrewListed building, Grade I820 m (0.5 miles) south-east
Cambridge Museum Of Technology (formerly Cheddars Lane Sewage Pumping Station)Scheduled monument1.2 km (0.7 miles) south-east
Histon Road CemeteryRegistered park or garden, Grade II*1.7 km (1.1 miles) south-west
Cambridge Castle moundScheduled monument1.8 km (1.1 miles) south-west
Christ's CollegeRegistered park or garden, Grade II2 km (1.2 miles) south-west
Natural landmarks within 5 km (3.1 miles)
NameWhat it isFrom the middle of the street
Castle HillHill1.8 km (1.1 miles) south-west
Long ReachLake or reservoir1.9 km (1.2 miles) east
Arbury OrchardWood2.2 km (1.3 miles) north-west
Chesterton FenWetland2.3 km (1.4 miles) north-east
The GroveWood2.6 km (1.6 miles) south-west
Giants GraveValley4.9 km (3 miles) south-east

Sources: Historic England's registers through planning.data.gov.uk (MHCLG), and Cadw through DataMapWales (Welsh Government): World Heritage Sites within 10 km (6.2 miles), battlefields within 5 km (3.1 miles), registered parks and gardens within 3 km (1.9 miles), scheduled monuments within 2 km (1.2 miles), and Grade I and II* listed buildings within 1 km (0.6 miles). Ordnance Survey, OS Open Names, October 2026: named hills, valleys, lakes, woods, wetlands and coast (it has no rivers). Distances are in a straight line to the middle of each site, and being on a register does not mean there is public access.

Air quality

Source: Defra, modelled background air pollution, annual means for 2024, for the 1 km square that holds the middle of the street. These are background levels, away from the kerb: beside a busy road nitrogen dioxide in particular can be several times higher. UK limits are the legal annual limits for England and Wales; the World Health Organization's 2021 guidelines are much stricter, and most towns and cities are above them.

Annual means in µg/m³ (micrograms per cubic metre of air)
PollutantHereUK limitWHO guideline
Nitrogen dioxide (NO2)8.44010
Fine particles (PM2.5)7.5205
Particles (PM10)12.24015

All three are within the UK legal limits; PM2.5 is above the WHO guideline, as in most towns and cities.

Road and rail noise

Source: Defra, strategic noise mapping Round 4 (England), modelled for 2021 and published in December 2023, and its airport maps of the same round for the fifteen largest English airports, published in April 2026: Lden, the average sound level over a whole day with extra weight for the evening and night, on a 10 m grid, read at each address. These are models of traffic, not measurements; they leave out smaller airports and airfields, industry and neighbours, and a room at the back of a house is often much quieter than the front. The World Health Organization's guidelines are 53 dB for road traffic, 54 dB for railways and 45 dB for aircraft (below the lowest level shown here).

Addresses by modelled noise level (Lden, dB)
LevelRoad trafficRailways
70 to 7410
65 to 6930
60 to 6410
55 to 5920
Under 551118

7 of the street's 18 addresses are modelled at 55 dB or more from road traffic, above the WHO guidelines.

Climate, daylight and earthquakes

Monthly temperatures and rainfall, sunrise and sunset through the year, and earthquakes recorded nearby since 1970 are much the same across the area, so they are worked out once for Cambridge: see them on the Cambridge page.

Nearest schools

Source: Get Information About Schools (Department for Education), 1 November 2026; Ofsted monthly management information as at September 2026. Distances are straight lines from the middle of the street to the school; catchments and admissions are not shown. Since November 2025 Ofsted gives report-card grades by area, not one overall grade; older grades stand until a school is re-inspected.

SchoolPhaseAgesDistanceInspection
North Cambridge AcademySecondary11–16530 m (0.3 miles) No published inspection
Milton Road Primary SchoolPrimary5–11650 m (0.4 miles) No overall grade (Jul 2025, graded inspection without an overall judgement): Quality of education: Good; Behaviour and attitudes: Outstanding; Personal development: Outstanding; Leadership and management: Outstanding
The Grove Primary SchoolPrimary4–11680 m (0.4 miles) Good (Nov 2023, overall grade under the previous framework)
Colleges Nursery SchoolNursery2–5690 m (0.4 miles) Report card (Jul 2026): Curriculum and teaching: Expected standard; Achievement: Strong standard; Attendance and behaviour: Expected standard; Personal development and wellbeing: Strong standard; Inclusion: Strong standard; Leadership and governance: Expected standard; Safeguarding standards: Met
Chesterton Primary SchoolPrimary4–11790 m (0.5 miles) No published inspection
Arbury Primary SchoolPrimary5–111 km (0.6 miles) No published inspection
Shirley Community Primary SchoolPrimary4–111.1 km (0.7 miles) Good (Mar 2024, overall grade under the previous framework)
Chesterton Community CollegeSecondary11–181.2 km (0.7 miles) No overall grade (Feb 2025, graded inspection without an overall judgement): Quality of education: Outstanding; Behaviour and attitudes: Outstanding; Personal development: Outstanding; Leadership and management: Outstanding
Kings Hedges Primary SchoolPrimary4–111.2 km (0.7 miles) No published inspection
King's Hedges Nursery SchoolNursery2–41.2 km (0.7 miles) No published inspection
St Laurence Catholic Primary School Roman CatholicPrimary4–111.4 km (0.9 miles) Good (May 2024, overall grade under the previous framework)
Cambridge Regional College16 plus14–991.4 km (0.9 miles) No published inspection

Food hygiene ratings nearby

Source: Food Standards Agency, Food Hygiene Rating Scheme, extract of 1 November 2026. Each rating is shown with the date it was given; a business may have been re-inspected since the extract. Within 500 m (0.3 miles) of the middle of the street.

BusinessTypeDistanceRatingRated
Tas Accommodations CB4 1XGHotel/bed & breakfast/guest house50 m1 Major improvement necessary31 Mar 2026
Arbury Road Baptist Church CB4 2JERestaurant/Cafe/Canteen100 mExempt
Hickorys Cambridge CB4 1XGRestaurant/Cafe/Canteen110 mAwaiting inspection
Al Noor Grocers CB4 2JBRetailers - other160 m1 Major improvement necessary25 Nov 2025
Co-Operative CB4 1XERetailers - supermarkets/hypermarkets230 m5 Very good19 May 2025
Milton Road Pharmacy CB4 1XERetailers - other270 mExempt
Cafe 121 CB4 1XERestaurant/Cafe/Canteen280 m5 Very good30 Nov 2024
North Cambridge Guesthouse CB4 2JEHotel/bed & breakfast/guest house300 m5 Very good20 Sep 2023
The viking CB4 1XETakeaway/sandwich shop300 m5 Very good30 Nov 2024
Milton House Takeaway CB4 1XETakeaway/sandwich shop310 m5 Very good17 May 2025
Langdon House CB4 1QBHospitals/Childcare/Caring Premises430 m (0.3 miles)5 Very good5 Feb 2026

Crime within 250 m

Source: data.police.uk street-level crime, September 2025 to August 2026. Police forces move every crime to the nearest of about 760,000 anonymised map points before publishing, so these are crimes near this street, not on it, and a busy point can collect crimes from a wider area. Counts are of records, not convictions.

96 recorded crimes by category
CategoryCrimes
Violence and sexual offences38
Anti-social behaviour18
Criminal damage and arson8
Public order7
Other theft5
Bicycle theft4
Drugs4
Burglary4
Possession of weapons3
Vehicle crime2
Robbery1
Other crime1
Theft from the person1

Most of these are attached to: On or near Pakenham Close (27); On or near The Beeches (17); On or near Downham'S Lane (11); On or near Austin Court (10); On or near Blackthorn Close (10).

People and work

Source: ONS Census 2021, taken on 21 March 2021, for the 2 Output Areas (small census areas of about 125 households each) that this street's postcodes are in: 565 residents in 258 households. The census was taken during a lockdown, so working from home is high and travel to work low compared with now. ONS swaps a few records between neighbouring areas and adds small amounts of noise to counts to protect privacy, so small differences mean little. Industry is not published for areas this small.

Who lives here

Around this streetEngland
Median age3440
Children under 1516%17%
Aged 65 and over12%18%

Homes

Around this streetEngland
Owned (outright or with a mortgage)49%61%
Owned outright25%33%
Shared ownershipunder 1%1%
Social rented7%17%
Private rented44%21%

Work and commuting

Around this streetEngland
Adults (16 and over) in work74%57%
Unemployment (of those working or looking for work)3%6%
Retired (of adults)13%22%
Long-term sick or disabled (of adults)under 1%4%
Work mainly from home (of those in work)54%32%
Travel to work by car or van17%48%
By train, Underground, metro or tram1%4%
By any public transport, including bus4%8%
On foot or by bicycle25%10%
Work within 10 km (6 miles) of home (of those who travel to work)79%65%
Work 30 km (19 miles) or more away8%8%

Education and languages

Around this streetEngland
Degree or other higher qualification, Level 4+ (of adults)71%34%
No qualifications7%18%
Apprenticeship as highest qualification2%5%
Main language English (aged 3 and over)78%91%
Cannot speak English well or at allunder 1%2%

Deprivation

The neighbourhood around this street is in decile 9 of 10 on the English Indices of Deprivation 2025, where 1 is the most deprived tenth of England's 33,755 neighbourhoods and 10 the least.

Source: English Indices of Deprivation 2025 (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government), by LSOA (about 1,500 people), through the ONS Postcode Directory. The index combines income, employment, health, education, crime, housing and living environment; it ranks areas against each other and does not describe any one household. Ranks in England and Wales are worked out separately and cannot be compared.

What has changed

Nothing new since the change feed started on 30 October 2026. New sales and energy certificates, and hygiene ratings, school inspections and flood figures nearby, will be listed here as the sources update.

Everything that has changed on and near this street

Postcodes on this street

Source: ONS Postcode Directory August 2026, ONS UPRN Directory September 2026, OS Open Linked Identifiers September 2026. A postcode can cover more than one street; the share shows how many of its addresses are on this one.

Nearby streets

Kirby Close · The Beeches · John Clarke Court · Woodhead Drive · Marfield Court · Union Lane · Woodhead Drive · Austin Court · Pakenham Close · Downham's Lane · Pakenham Close · Maio Road

All the streets in CB4 and across Cambridge.

What this page cannot tell you

  • Whether a particular house is at risk of flooding, subsiding or anything else: the flood map is a model of areas and there is no property-level data here.
  • What a home is worth now: sales are historic prices for the homes that happened to sell.
  • How safe the street is: crime points are moved to anonymised locations and many crimes are never reported.
  • Whether you would get a place at a school: distances are straight lines, not catchments.
  • Who lives on the street now: census figures describe the small areas around it in March 2021, during a lockdown.
  • How long a journey takes or how often anything runs: transport distances are straight lines to the nearest stops.
  • Whether a GP practice is taking new patients, or a dentist new NHS patients.
  • How loud a home is inside, or noise from industry, neighbours or smaller airfields: noise figures are models of road, rail and air traffic outside.

How each figure on this page is matched to the street and worked out: methodology.