DCO: Save Honey Hill’s Representation to the Planning Inspectorate
The Save Honey Hill Group registered as an Interested Party (IP) sent our Representation to the Planning Inspectorate on Tuesday 18th July.
All 309 Representations have now been published. Go have a read of the many different ones from your neighbours and beyond. It is heartening to see such objective, personal and varied comments.
The Planning Inspectorate will inform all IPs of the timetable for the next stage – the Examination, which is likely to start in September. At that stage anyone who has registered as an IP will be invited to make further comments in a Written Representation. We expect our barristers to give more input into that Representation.
During the Examination stage, which usually lasts six months, the Planning Inspectors will send questions to Anglian Water and to stakeholders for further information raised by the Representations. They will also hold issue-specific hearings. We will keep you updated when we have more detail. There is more information on the NI website National Infrastructure Planning; all Representations will be published there shortly.
We are very grateful for your support and donations. We have budgeted for further advice but more income would give us confidence to use this even more effectively. So please spread the word to your friends and garner their support. More information on how to donate can be found on our website SHH – donate now.
Cambridge News – “Campaigners concern at government hope to ‘accelerate’ Cambridge sewage works plans under new housing vision”
DCO Application: the time to object is NOW!
The Planning Inspectorate (PINS) is now accepting registrations (from Weds 14th June) from anybody to comment (objection/Relevant Representation) on Anglian Water’s application to relocate the sewage works to Green Belt.
The time window when you are able to register as an Interested Party and make a Relevant Representation (objection) is short.
Wednesday, 14 June to Wednesday, 19th July 2023.
After the 23:59 on the 19th July you will no longer be able to register.
There will be no further opportunity to do so either. This is your LAST CHANCE TO MAKE YOUR OPINION COUNT.
However, if you register and submit a Relevant Representation before the 19th July, then you will be able to submit further comments at a later stage.
We have put together suggestions on what you can object to, and what you cannot comment on.
We will also be submitting relevant representations as a group and also as individuals. As we become more familiar with the procedure we will update this page with clear and concise instructions on what you need to do.
Friends of the Cam: The third Declaration of the Rights of the River Cam
Come and sing with the Crap Community Choir on the 21st of June at 17:45 next to Jesus Green Lock on the River Cam as going in with many other groups around Cambridge to help Friends of the River Cam redeclare the Rights of The River Cam.
Everybody welcome! Arrive at around 17.45 to sing after 18:00 and we will also be telling everyone how to OBJECT!
Sewage Works relocation application: PINS open for registration and objections from 14th June to 19th July 2023
The Planning Inspectorate (PINS) have updated the DCO application page to say that you will be able to register to become an Interested Party and object between Wednesday 14 June and Wednesday 19th July 2023.
You need to register to be able to object.
We are currently reviewing the many documents that form part of Anglian Water’s DCO application and will keep updating our page on “How to Object” as we understand more.
Honey Hill, Honey – Crap Community Choir
We are proud to announce that the Crap Community Choir has just released its new protest song, “Honey Hill, Honey”!
The choir was formed last year in support of the Save Honey Hill campaign, to stop the proposed relocation of the Cambridge Sewage works to Cambridge Greenbelt between the villages of Fen Ditton and Horningsea.
The song’s release coincides with the Planning Inspectorate‘s acceptance of Anglian Water’s DCO application to relocate the sewage works. Please visit “How to Object” to find out how you can have your say.
If you would like to hear more from the Crap Community Choir, here’s their first song: It’s Crap,
Enjoy!
Letter to the Cambridge Independent in response to the Planning Inspectorate’s Advice Notes to Anglian Water.
18th May 2023
Dear Reader
In response to this paper’s article dated Wednesday, 17th May 2023, which sheds a glaring spotlight on Anglian Water’s sloppy planning application to relocate its wastewater treatment plant at Cowley Road to Honey Hill, the Save Honey Hill team would like to thank the Cambridge Independent and, in particular, Alex Spencer, for bringing this to the public’s attention.
The article made for stark reading when you consider the consequences of this huge nationally significant infrastructure project and the equally huge £227 million that Anglian Water has been allocated to pay for the relocation.
This project is about a billion-pound private water company profiteering from a move that will release land that can then be called brownfield and sold off to developers for a huge sum that its shareholders will pocket whilst the taxpayer foots the bill for the move.
The Save Honey Hill campaign has long held the opinion that due diligence has not been given to the environmental impact of said move nor to the option of the sewage plant staying where it is and, if necessary, simply being upgraded. According to the Advice Notes published by the Planning Inspectorate, the planning inspectors clearly agree. It is the validation that we are very happy to receive, but we are not so naïve as to think the story ends there.
We will continue to press home, at every opportunity, the many wrongs of this aspiration held by Anglian Water, Cambridge City Council, South Cambridgeshire District Council and undoubtedly the university colleges who own some of the land adjacent to the Cowley Road site.
We will also continue to press home that NECAAP (North East Cambridge Area Action Plan) is not in fact sustainable because in the Local Plan there is no mention of requiring the sewage plant to move to open, arable farmland in Green Belt near Horningsea, Fen Ditton and Quy, and no mention of the associated carbon cost of doing so. This is plainly wrong and not what the people of Cambridge and the surrounding area deserve. It is a greenwashing exercise of the highest order compounded by the fact that as the Planning Inspectorate has pointed out in its Advice Notes, “…given the focus in the application document on providing a carbon efficient wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), consideration should be given to the inclusion of a comparative assessment for reasonable alternatives, including the ‘do-nothing’ option or the provision of the upgrade at the existing WWTP. Without these the environmental benefits of the proposed development are unclear.”
Your readers are also invited to consider that producing these Development Consent Order (DCO) application documents in the first place will have made a sizeable dent in the taxpayer-funded budget Anglian Water is working to. To have ignored the PI’s initial advice that its Environmental Impact Assessment report should include the demolition of the site and to omit it from its DCO application, shows a level of either arrogance or amateurism that is incredibly disturbing when this company is being tasked with building a massive new piece of infrastructure.
But then is this such a surprise?
Anglian Water is one of a number of water companies in the UK which is regularly fined for not doing its job properly. Its business (excuse the pun) is to treat and deal with our sewage in a safe and responsible way. Time and time again we see the evidence all around our coastline and in our rivers that it is not capable of providing that fundamental service and I can only draw the same conclusion when it comes to this relocation project. It doesn’t need to relocate because the one that exists is fully functioning and has capacity (by AW’s admission); the carbon cost of the project which is as yet unknown will be massive not least because of the shedloads of concrete needed to protect the Principal Chalk Aquifer (groundwater) at Honey Hill, that construction will need to provide!
We urge everyone to visit www.savehoneyhill.org and follow instructions on how to object to this Development Consent Order application if the Planning Inspectorate accepts it at the end of this month. Anyone can have their say and this is most certainly NOT A DONE DEAL!
Catherine Morris
Save Honey Hill Campaigner and Horningsea Resident
The DCO Application has been accepted by the Planning Inspectorate
The Planning Inspectorate (PINS) has just accepted (24th May 2023) Anglian Water’s Application to relocate the sewage works for Examination and published the application documents .
The Save Honey Hill Strategy Team will review the 220 documents and put together our objections to put to the Planning Inspectors. As we understand more we will also update our Tips on how to Object page. This will allow you to also object.
For now we strongly encourage you to sign up for updates with the Planning Inspectorate. They will then send you an email when you are able to register and make an objection. (Relevant Representation). They will also email you when the Preliminary Meeting will be held.
BBC Cambridgeshire: Save Honey Hill interviewed on the Chris Mann show
We were very graciously invited onto the Chris Mann show and interviewed by Louise Hulland about the Planning Inspector’s report into Anglian Water’s DCO application and its failings.
The interview was on Thursday 18th May at 17:10 (the show is from 14:00-18:00)
Listen below. The interview is at 3:10 to 3:14