Gayton farm – a farm and campsite on untouched prime agricultural land.

Gayton farm is a working farm and campsite in the village of Horningsea, on the edge of Cambridge with far reaching views over acres of open countryside. The proposed sewage works site on Honey Hill is adjacent to their farming land, and the initial consultation documents from Anglian Water shows that the trenched sewage pipeline that will connect with Waterbeach New town goes alongside the campsite.

Carolyn and I have farmed at Gayton Farm for 8 years. In this time we have diversified our small farm with a campsite and a couple of glamping units. People who stay with us enjoy the fact they are so close to the centre of Cambridge but they are in such a rural peaceful setting. With the potential construction of the sewage works this will dramatically change. The size of structure planned will become completely dominating in this rural area in untouched prime farmland. This massively industrial structure, alien to the surrounding landscape will be clearly visible from our campsite. This is bound to affect our reviews and booking numbers. This even without the potential smell.

From a farming perspective, the link pipe to Waterbeach will cause massive disruption. The work will dissect our farm in half, not only causing difficulties in working the land but also accessing it. It will also cause huge disturbance to the wildlife that live on the farm.

CowsAtGaytonFarmCows grazing where the pipeline from the sewage works will go

Farmland is a valuable resource and it is disgusting that so much prime farmland is to be lost forever, especially in an area supposedly protected by being in the greenbelt.

Robin and Carolyn Truss
Gayton Farm

www.gaytonfarm.co.uk

HoneyHill 1

Fundraising update

Since we distributed the fundraising leaflet amongst villagers and local businesses around Fen Ditton, Horningsea, Quy and Teversham we have been heartened by the response from all four villages.

Many people and businesses across the area have donated. From being initially daunted by the prospect of going up against a network of large commercial interests, those donations and letters of support have really given us energy and enthusiasm to continue. It so helps to know that we have wide support throughout the villages. Thank you! Community works!

We still have a long, long way to go though. Our JustGiving page is now live but you can still contact us and offer support.

It’s not just donations we need. We really need expertise from residents with experience in planning and protecting the Greenbelt.

“I used to think how important, socially, the network of paths linking the four villages must have been in the past”

“We moved to Fen Ditton in 1970 with two small children.  The following summer my parents came down and ‘borrowed’ the kids for a weekend.  That was an unexpected sudden release from responsibility.  We had got to know the surrounding countryside and so headed to Honey Hill as a place for celebrating freedom and spending a warm, low-budget evening.
 
In those pre A14 days there was no bridge, just the dusty Low Fen Drove bending through the flat landscape with a perspective consisting of backdrops behind backdrops, avenues of trees, thick thorny hedges and rush fringed ditches.
 
When I was playing cricket for Quy, I would cycle that way, down High Ditch Road, along the drove way, up the old railway line and into the village past the Hall.  Sometimes I remember taking my little boy and my cricket bag in the basket of an old butcher’s bike.  The journey home after the match into the sunset, singing victoriously, was memorable – picking up a bottle of cider at The Blue Lion as we got back to Fen Ditton.
 
One sunny Christmas Day, at a time when we were looking after an old nag (which resembled an armchair) and an escapologist pony, we took the kids for a ride round Honey Hill.  Our dog, an unruly mongrel, unsuccessfully chased a hare over two fields and a ditch.
 
That same dog used to accompany me on runs on slippery winter days down round the drove way to Biggin Abbey and back home.  As he got older he was less inclined to do this until eventually, one afternoon, he turned his back on me and made his own way home the way we had come.
 
Another occasion involving the dog and the boy was when, due to adverse conditions, we adopted the procedure known as ‘walkies in the motor’ – so in a blizzard, headlamps on full beam, we tried to follow the mongrel from the comfort of the car.  The old grey Renault slid sideways into a ditch near Snout’s Corner.  It was difficult to persuade the AA that the location was accessible and the car retrievable.
 
After gales, I would sometimes search in the thickets up there for fallen boughs to scavenge as firewood.  One day, Major Francis, from Quy Hall, confronted me, thinking I was a poacher or other reprobate.  We later became good friends.  Once, when we needed stakes for a village tree planting campaign, he invited us to make these from saplings cut from along the old railway line.
 
I used to think how important, socially, the network of paths linking the four villages must have been in the past.   Maybe their development had been encouraged by the Bishops of Ely, in times gone by, to combat in-breeding in the communities.  They must also have provided ways to work for that considerable number of farm workers which lived in each village.
 
When the Covid lockdowns started, early in 2020, we rediscovered these pathways and found them so attractive and benign that we mapped them as a guide for others.  I suppose we trespassed a bit on these wanderings but I do remember a picnic lunch by a grass covered brick bridge not far off Low Fen Drove during which the spirit was definitely lifted well clear of those miserable times.  Also picking blackberries at Snout’s Corner with the distant hum of traffic muffled by the sound of the wind in the trees strengthens one’s love for the place.
 
I offer these reminiscences to demonstrate what this area of simple countryside has meant to one person, living beside it for the best part of a lifetime. It’s the purpose of the Green Belt – to provide the city and its surrounding villages with a peaceful, pastoral, restorative resource.  It is tragic to think that if this area comes to be dominated by a massive offensive and repulsive sewage plant, these types of life-affirming experiences, on our doorstep, will never be available again.”
 
 
Many thanks to David Yandell, long time resident of Fen Ditton and exponent of the importance of preserving this valuable local amenity.

Lib Dems have let us down!

Emailed to Councillors Anna Bradnam, Judith Rippeth, Hazel Smith, Claire Daunton, John Williams and Paul Bearpark

1st April 2021

Dear All

I have just collected your flier from my post box and am aghast and devastated to see that despite purporting to represent Horningsea and Fen Ditton in the Waterbeach Division, there is not one mention of the single most impactful event to face our communities in the 30 years I have lived here.

It is shameful that there is not one mention of the highly controversial proposed relocation of the Cambridge sewage works to Honey Hill.  I am appalled that you can ignore this horrendous threat to our Green Belt, wildlife, local roads and quality of life for our village communities.

Horningsea in particular faces the prospect of having the sewage works just outside our village boundary to the south and the overdevelopment of Waterbeach Barracks to the north.  We are a tiny village sandwiched in the middle of two horrendous developments and all the associated traffic that will undoubtedly result.  Every day as I sit at my desk I witness the speeding traffic along the High Street coming from and going to Waterbeach, the near misses and the constant mounting of the pavement to avoid oncoming traffic.

The Liberal Democrats sat on the fence during the CWWTPR Phase One Consultation period and continue to offer no meaningful support for our communities as we face the juggernaut that is the NECAAP development driving forward the sewage works relocation.

Please don’t try and placate me with ‘the need for housing……..’ – you and I well know that NECAAP will not address the general need for affordable and social housing in the Cambridge area because building cannot begin at Cowley Road until at least 2028.  An urgent review of this development is required in light of living and working requirements post Covid – the existing plan is already out of date as evidence suggests people are already wanting to live in less densely populated, less urban areas where air and noise pollution are high.  Enough land has been submitted in the recent Call for Sites to build 220,000 homes – you should be calling for a review immediately to determine whether more suitable sites can be found from this list to meet the housing supply target.  The Call for Sites totally brings in to question the ’special need’ required to build on the Green Belt at Honey Hill.

I look forward to your comments.

Sincerely

Catherine Morris

Statements from candidates for the Waterbeach and Fulbourn Division in the Cambridgeshire County Council elections