Representation by William Orme
- Date submitted
- 22 June 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
Successive governments for many decades have put in place the planning policy of greenbelts for very good reasons and these should be protected where at all possible. Relocating such a large and poorly designed industrial complex as the proposed CWWTPR in such a visually sensitive part of the greenbelt does not fit with greenbelt policy at all. For this to be approved AW need to show that relocation of the sewage is needed and that no alternative site can be found. Neither of these things is true. Anglia Water themselves have said there is no operational need to move the sewage works, the so called need is to allow the NECAAP development to go ahead. But the NECAAP development can go ahead even without relocating the sewage works with further improvements to the current plant, albeit on a slightly smaller footprint. There are plenty of alternative development sites such as Marshall’s airport for housing and office developments. I can see there is a desire by the Cambridge City Council and South Cambs District Council for the relocation, but there really are no reasonable grounds as to why there is any absolute need to relocate the current sewage works. A desire is not a need. This in itself should be enough to assert the protection of the greenbelt and deny the DCO for this development. AW says they looked briefly at sites outside the greenbelt, such as to the north towards Waterbeach, but these were not selected due to the cost of the pipes and pumping. However, cost-saving should not be grounds for allowing the destruction of such a large and significant site in the Cambridge Greenbelt, the fenland approaches to this historic city. Alternative sites outside the greenbelt do exist (including the current Milton site, as well of course) so the selection of Honey Hill should be rejected to preserve the greenbelt on the basis alternative sites do exist. Permission to relocate the sewage works to Honey Hill has previously been requested and declined because of the presence of important aquifers at Honey Hill. The risk of aquifer contamination still exists as before and this DCO request should also be denied on that grounds too, as before. Anglia Water have admitted that the design of the proposed new waste water treatment plant at Honey Hill is severely constrained by the presence of the aquifers and the fact that the whole construction needs to be above ground leading to a very large, bulky, tall and high negative impact design that is completely inappropriate for this part of the Cambridge greenbelt. It’s almost as if you could not have chosen a worse site (i.e. on top of the aquifers) to site the new works if you tried. Both from the risk of water table contamination and the inability to bury/hide the large industrial complex, so inappropriate to the greenbelt. This is in marked contrast to the current Milton site where much of the works are below ground. Other sites without aquifers to protect also exist where a more landscape sensitive design would be possible. Honey Hill is the wrong location. Anglia Water's consultation process for the selection of the Honey Hill site was deeply flawed. The larger number of people living near Honey Hill, those in East Barnwell and the new Marleigh housing development, were not consulted. This naturally biased the consultation in favour of the two other sites near Milton where most of the people consulted lived. All the factors most important to people were actually worst impacted in the choice of Honey Hill, as shown in their consultation report. Given the climate emergency, why are the government even considering allowing the repurposing of the existing sewage site for housing? If approved, it would make, given the enormous carbon cost of the relocation and decommissioning of the current works, the carbon cost of the new housing extremely high and way above any recommended government guideline, especially when many other lower carbon footprint options for new housing exist. It is plainly absurd to treat the carbon cost of the NECAAP development and decommissioning of the current works separately from the CWWTPR project when the entire justification for moving the sewage works is to allow the NECAAP development to progress.