Representation by Friends of the Cam (Friends of the Cam)
- Date submitted
- 9 July 2023
- Submitted by
- Non-statutory organisations
Friends of the Cam's primary grounds for objection to moving the Waste Water Treatment Plan from its current site in NE Cambridge to Honey Hill: 1.Demolition and new construction are heavy carbon emitters. There should be - and is - (see the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee 2022) a presumption in favour of retrofitting and reusing existing buildings. The proposal to construct a new WWTP in Honey Hill does not take demolition into account in its carbon emission projections, which is seriously distorting. Not only does it fail to account for demolishing the existing building (stating that the carbon cost of this will be counted in the redevelopment plan for NE Cambridge), but it does not account for demolishing the proposed building at the end of its life, which contravenes ‘whole life’ assessment. The UK is far behind its own targets for reducing carbon emissions (CCC, 2023), hence cannot afford unnecessary new builds when existing infrastructure is fit for purpose. 2.Water shortage: the Environment Agency is not now (June 2023) approving new housing developments in Cambridge/South Cambridgeshire on the basis that there is insufficient water supply. The moving of a sewage works to Green Belt land in order to release brownfield land for yet more house building will simply exacerbate the water shortage. Droughts are increasingly common in the Cambridgeshire region. 3.Building on the Green Belt is contrary to national planning policies.The National Planning Policy Framework demands that there should be “exceptional circumstances” before Green Belt boundaries can be changed and says that inappropriate development is harmful to the Green Belt and should be approved only in “very special circumstances”. While it advises local authorities to maximise the use of brownfield sites, moving a functioning WWTP to a greenbelt site in order to release a (contaminated) brownfield site for housing and workspaces is disingenuous at least. Moreover, the Green Belt land proposed for the relocated WWTP is of high quality historically (containing medieval villages), scenically and agriculturally. The proposed development will take agricultural production out of one of the most productive parts of the country at a time when we need to be reducing food miles and increasing food security. The proposed development also borders some unique and biodiverse fenland environments, on which it will likely have deleterious impacts. There will be a heavy environmental burden (carbon, noise, particulates etc) from the 140 truck loads of solid sewage to be imported into the Green Belt each day. 4.We are concerned about the possible threat to a Principle Chalk Aquifer which the proposed development will sit on and potentially contaminate.