The county council covering the Cambridge area is actually based in Peterborough, and so effectively controls a lot of the countryside around Cambridge, as it is in charge of transport. So arguably the lack of development could be their fault as well.
Supposedly the government is plan is to reduce everywhere to one layer of local government (currently Cambridge is covered by both a county and district council). TBH the areas which are currently unitary seem to work a bit better but there's still massive opposition to building.
From the outside looking in, rural UK council politics seems like the epitome of “I got mine so bug off”. I think this is one reason why London is becoming a super hub (among other reasons). London broke the ice and now they are trying to keep progressing but physical distance is becoming a limiting factor. Other municipalities will need to embrace change if they want to keep developing into a place where people want to live and work.
The bigger problems in the UK are business rates (extortionate), profiteering by landlords and land owners, insanely expensive utilities, crumbling physical infrastructure, and Brexit.
We could have had a government that invested/fixed in all of those things, but the big landords and land owners decided they didn't like that idea. They'd prefer to keep the country struggling and backward, because it appeals to their sense of aristocratic self-importance.
(This is also why we have expensive electricity, because people oppose building any infrastructure. I'm coming round to the idea that there should just be county-by-county referendums where people have to pick either blanket allowing energy development or having a bill surcharge.)