Frequently asked questions
For 125 years the current facility on Cowley Road has been serving the needs of Cambridge and Greater Cambridge by receiving waste water from people’s homes and businesses, treating cleaned water and returning it to the River Cam. The relocation project provides an opportunity to deliver a modern, low carbon waste water treatment facility that will continue to provide vital services for the community and the environment, recycling water and nutrients, producing green energy, and helping to enable Greater Cambridge to grow sustainably.
Anglian Water’s vision goes beyond just building a new plant. It isn’t simply about moving an old facility to a new location. We will build a facility to better serve the community and environment for years to come, one where waste water becomes a valuable resource. The new facility, as well as being operationally net zero carbon, will be energy neutral. It is designed to adapt to changing social and environmental priorities, increasing resilience to storm flows and flooding and provide a long-term solution to how we best treat waste water for a growing Greater Cambridge population.
The relocation will enable South Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridge City Council’s long held ambition to develop a new low-carbon city district on Cambridge’s last major brownfield site, known as North East Cambridge. The site is an important component of the First Proposals (preferred options) for the new Greater Cambridge Local Plan that were subject to public consultation late last year. The North East Cambridge Area Action Plan has also recently been agreed by the Councils in its Proposed Submission form and will be subject to public consultation prior to submission, once the Development Consent Order is determined.
The relocation of the existing waste water treatment facility will enable this new district to come forward and deliver 8,350 homes, 15,000 new jobs and a wide range of community, cultural and open space facilities in North East Cambridge. The project is being funded by the Government’s Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF). The HIF funding has been awarded to support sustainable growth and accelerate housing delivery in Cambridge through the North East Cambridge Area Action Plan, in recognition of the regional and national significance of the redevelopment opportunity.
Relocating the facility will unlock both the existing site and the surrounding area to be redeveloped to provide thousands of much needed new homes, including affordable housing, jobs, and green transport connectivity. If the facility remained where it is, even if it could be rebuilt to be smaller, it would limit the amount of housing that could be developed to a few hundred new homes, if any, rather than thousands. It’s unlikely the Government would still make funding available for a new, consolidated plant on the existing site, as the business case would not be viable.
Closing the facility at the current site on Cowley Road will also reduce pressure for housing development in greenfield locations and take up less land, as higher densities of housing can be achieved within Cambridge than would be possible on greenfield or Green Belt sites.
The Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service is proposing to deliver 8,000 new homes and 15,000 jobs for Cambridge through the North East Cambridge Area Action Plan (AAP). The option of delivering homes and jobs through the AAP was identified in the adopted Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire Local Plans. A number of alternatives were considered and consulted on with the local community as the Local Plans were developed by the councils between 2011 and 2014.
The relocation project unlocks the last large brownfield site within the North East Cambridge Area to make way for up to 5,600 of those homes. The different issues and options stages for developing the AAP itself were consulted on between 2014 and 2019, as part of an open invitation to all residents and stakeholders of Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire. Feedback from these consultations was used to help develop the draft plan, which the local councils consulted on between 27 July and 5 October 2020.
The site is an important component of the First Proposals (preferred options) for the new Greater Cambridge Local Plan that were subject to public consultation late last year (2021). The North East Cambridge Area Action Plan has also recently been agreed by the Councils in its Proposed Submission form and will be subject to public consultation prior to submission, once the Development Consent Order is determined.
We carefully considered all responses to our phase one consultation alongside our other assessments and it was a challenging decision to make in concluding our site selection process which identified overall the most appropriate location for the new site is the area north of the A14 between Fen Ditton and Horningsea.
As part of our phase two consultation, we wanted to hear your views on our emerging proposals. We’re grateful for the valuable feedback we received, which continues to be considered alongside our studies, surveys and ongoing technical assessments to help us further develop our detailed design proposals. Our phase two consultation summary report shares the wide range of feedback we received and explains how we used this feedback to inform our evolving design proposals for the new facility and surrounding area. This includes our chosen new permanent access point for vehicles, mitigation measures and other opportunities for environmental enhancement.
Our consultation activities continue to include a range of methods to ensure our consultation can be accessed by all members of the community. This includes providing access to hard copies of consultation materials via public information points.
We are committed to continuing to listen carefully and as part of our phase three consultation. We want to hear your views on the mitigation measures we are proposing to avoid or reduce potential impacts, together with presenting how we have developed our proposals further taking on board the feedback we received during our second phase of consultation.
A full breakdown of the feedback we receive through the consultation process and how we have responded to this will be documented in the final Consultation Report submitted as part of our DCO application. Everything we do throughout the consultation will be fully captured and considered.
Anglian Water supported by independent legal advice, has always been of the view that the relocation project is a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP). However, as the relocation project will be the first waste water treatment works to seek a Development Consent Order, Anglian Water sought a direction from the Secretary of State under section 35 of the Planning Act 2008 to confirm that it would be treated as a NSIP in due course when the application is submitted.
We are pleased that the Secretary of State has now made that direction which provides certainty for all on the process that will be followed during the pre-application consultation stages and ultimately to determine the application. Anglian Water will now continue to engage with local authorities, environmental stakeholders and the local community as we continue to develop our proposals, alongside two further rounds of public consultation, before we submit our final DCO application.
As part of our phase two consultation last year, we asked for your views on the architectural finish of the externally facing buildings and features of the new facility. This included a gateway building, the anaerobic digesters, and any screening on top of the earthwork bank. The feedback we received was helpful, and we have developed our proposals further in line with this. The design has been amended to be more sensitive to the landscape and surrounding communities it will neighbour. The architectural and landscape design takes its inspiration from the landscape, past and present and the rural setting. As it matures it will soften and blend into the wider landscape. Bolder or more striking finishes will not be included in the project design.
Our developed proposals now include a more natural finish to the gateway building and a planted screen on top of the earthwork bank, with sky-like finishes on the digester towers to help soften their appearance against the skyline, making them less intrusive. We have also reviewed our engineering design, which was previously indicating a maximum height of 26 metres may be required for the digester tanks. Responding to feedback, we have been able to reduce the height so that they will now be no taller than 20 metres.
A selection of photomontages from eight representative locations has been produced as part of our PEIR. The photomontages show the latest design of the facility, including a surrounding five metre earthwork bank. For each location, three images are provided the current view, the view of the new facility on the first day of operation and the view after 15 years has elapsed, when the planting has matured and is providing landscape integration and screening. The production of these photomontages has been carried out in accordance with the Landscape Institute’s Technical Guidance Note 06/19: Visual Representation of Development Proposals.
As well as encircling the facility with a high earthwork bank, our proposals also seek to sensitively sculpt the landscape and introduce, restore and reinforce planting in key locations to further screen views from local communities. In some strategic locations, advance planting will be prioritised early in the construction phase, to allow screening plants to grow at the earliest opportunity. We have also reviewed our engineering design, which was previously indicating a maximum height of 26 metres may be required for the digester tanks. Responding to feedback, we have been able to reduce the height so that they will now be no taller than 20 metres.
Our comprehensive landscape and planting proposals which are supported by a long-term management scheme, are described in our Landscape, Ecological and Recreational Management Plan (LERMP). The visual impacts of our proposals are outlined in the PEIR.
The Environmental Statement accompanying our DCO application will include verifiable photomontages, prepared using photography with locational information to enable the accurate scaling of the proposed new facility within the view. A list of viewpoints for photomontages has been agreed with the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service and Historic England as part of the scoping process. Consultation on the viewpoints has also taken place with Cambridge Past Present and Future and The National Trust.
A selection of photomontages from eight representative locations has been produced as part of our PEIR. The photomontages show the latest design of the facility, including a surrounding five metre earthwork bank. For each location, three images are provided the current view, the view of the new facility on the first day of operation and the view after 15 years has elapsed, when the planting has matured and is providing landscape integration and screening. The production of these photomontages has been carried out in accordance with the Landscape Institute’s Technical Guidance Note 06/19: Visual Representation of Development Proposals.
Photomontages of views at years 1 and 15 from Horningsea Road, Fen Ditton (north from High Ditch Road) and Low Fen Drove Way are included in our phase three community consultation leaflet.
We have undertaken a detailed site selection study to identify a suitable location for the relocated Cambridge Waste Water Treatment Plant. The aim was to identify locations that are technically and operationally feasible, minimise environmental and community impacts, and comply with national and local, legal, regulatory, and planning frameworks for waste water treatment plants. The study involved a ‘sieving’ approach and comprised stages to exclude areas of land where the facility could not be relocated (taking account of, for example, flood zones and proximity to protected and statutory designated sites).
The length of tunnel for each site and transport routes from the main strategic road network were key factors. This would mean a greater carbon impact from tunnelling and pumping waste water further away, and greater impacts on local communities from the construction of the new facility and the transportation of waste water to a site.
Between July and September 2020, we held our Phase One consultation and asked for your views on three potential locations for our new waste water treatment plant. In November we published a report summarising the feedback received and how this was being considered in our site selection and early design processes. The chosen site, an area north of the A14 between Fen Ditton and Horningsea, was found on balance to perform best across a range of key assessment criteria in comparison to the other two sites. The site also presents greater opportunities to protect and enhance the surrounding environment, deliver improved habitats for wildlife and create increased access and connectivity so that people can enjoy the Greater Cambridge countryside, delivering on many of the things residents have told us are important to them.
All of the site selection information is available in full on the document library if you would like to find out more. This includes our final technical site selection report here as well as all appendices, a non-technical summary of the report here and our site announcement document here.
Since our phase two consultation last year we have continued to develop our proposals, which have been informed by the feedback we have received.
We are undertaking a full Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the relocation project, to inform our detailed design. EIA is a detailed process through which the likely environmental effects of the proposed development are studied, surveys are carried out, and mitigation measures to reduce or remove environmental impacts are identified. More importantly, the EIA has provided greater detail to the many questions raised by members of the local community throughout our consultation process.
Our EIA Scoping Report was submitted to the Planning Inspectorate (PINS) in October 2021. PINS has now reviewed our EIA Scoping Report and has published its Scoping Opinion, available on the project’s page on the national infrastructure planning website https://infrastructure. planninginspectorate.gov.uk/projects/eastern/cambridge-waste-water-treatment-plantrelocation/
As part of this phase three consultation, we are presenting the findings of the environmental studies undertaken to date in our Preliminary Environmental Information Report (PEIR). This has been presented as a series of community and topic papers to allow you to focus on the areas which concern you most. Also available are our draft management plans showing how we intend to minimise impacts on the local community and environment, and our draft Development Consent Order (DCO) outlining the powers we will be seeking to construct and operate the new facility.
We are asking for your feedback on our environmental information, some elements of the design of the new facility where changes can still be made, and comprehensive environmental mitigation measures to help shape our final detailed proposals. Following this phase of consultation, we will review all feedback received to inform our final design and associated EIA activities. The key themes and areas we are seeking your feedback on are summarised in our phase three community consultation leaflet.
The PEIR papers and all associated consultation materials are available online in our document library. You can also view them in hard copy at our Community Access Points and during our community information events throughout the phase three consultation. A list of the full suite of phase three consultation materials, details of where to find our Community Access Points is available on the “Have Your Say “tab.
Our proposals show a 22-hectare facility, around half the size of the existing facility. The new facility is enveloped within a high circular earthwork bank of around 9-hectares, which will screen all but the tallest elements of the facility.
As our proposed planting matures it will soften and the earthwork bank slopes will provide new grassland habitat for wildlife, increasing net biodiversity by a minimum of 20 per cent.
Our design proposals will also mitigate and, over time, enhance the natural environment and make a positive contribution to the local landscape and ecology beyond the site boundary. Offsite the proposals include a further 72 hectares of landscaping and tree planting creating both new habitats and reducing impacts on viewpoints such as from the villages of Horningsea, Fen Ditton and Stow cum Quy.
We want to use the opportunity this project presents to provide wider benefits and maximise the public value we can deliver. This will be achieved through a combination of our proposals directly and by working in partnership to support the delivery of local aspirations, creating value both within and beyond the boundaries of the project.
We have applied a rigorous 4-stage site selection process and we looked very closely at alternative sites outside of the Green Belt and there were none that are suitable. Anglian Water recognises the sensitivity of all three sites we consulted on during our phase one consultation in 2020 being in the Green Belt. The Green Belt has been considered as an important planning constraint. Proposals for development within the Green Belt must be considered in the context of national as well as local planning policy, where development may only be permitted if the right circumstances exist.
The creation of a sustainable, low carbon community in North East Cambridge relies on Anglian Water’s Cambridge Waste Water Treatment Plant being relocated elsewhere. The chosen site was found, on balance, to perform best across a range of key assessment criteria, and opportunities for delivering enhancements including improving access to the countryside. These circumstances will be considered by the independent Examining Authority appointed by the Planning Inspectorate (PINS).
We previously contacted relevant landowners and occupiers regarding access for surveys in Summer 2020, which informed our site selection process, and we are now undertaking further surveys to inform our Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the chosen site. We have continued to engage with any affected landowners and occupiers where we require access to come onto land to carry out the surveys.
The types of surveys that have been conducted over the last year include environmental and ecological field surveys, ground investigation activities, and gathering archaeology and local heritage information. This data helps us to deepen our understanding of the site area and tunnel / pipeline corridors and will be presented as part of our EIA.
These works have been carefully planned to take account of information we have about the site and the surrounding area. We have a range of information to help plan our works such as information on ecology, heritage resources, water bodies, trees and hedges.n addition, we also have on site environmental support available to work with our survey team to check works areas and provide advice on adapting activities to minimise disruption and avoid disturbance to wildlife.
As part of this phase three consultation, we are presenting the findings of the environmental studies undertaken to date in our Preliminary Environmental Information Report (PEIR). This has been presented as a series of community and topic papers to allow you to focus on the areas which concern you most.
Minimising odour as far as possible for local communities is of paramount importance to us. While the nature of the job waste water treatment plants are designed to do means that it is difficult to eliminate odour completely, one of the benefits of the relocation project is that we can use the latest technologies and embed solutions into the design of the facility, meaning that nuisance odour will not have a negative impact on people’s enjoyment of their homes or the surrounding area.
As part of our phase two consultation we set out our commitment to deliver the lowest ‘negligible’ odour levels for existing high sensitivity receptors (people’s homes and public rights of way) in line with the Institute of Air Quality Management (IAQM) guidance. We have been continuing to carry out dedicated odour assessment and modelling as part of our design process as layout, process and technology choices for the facility continue to develop. This includes extending our odour modelling data set to include the last 5 years’ weather data, continuing to assess the worst-case scenario and having the criteria we have used externally verified.
You can find out more about our odour assessments in the odour paper, forming part of our Preliminary Environmental Information, available on our document library.
The odour model map in our phase three community consultation leaflet shows the levels of ‘negligible’ odour from the new facility in relation to nearby residential areas and existing walking and cycle routes. This is a level where people are unlikely to detect the odour and if they do, are unlikely to find it an annoyance or offensive.
Since our phase two consultation we have continued to evolve our designs to include additional measures which will further reduce odour including:
- reducing the footprint of the inlet works, and
- covering all sludge tanks and reducing the total number of sludge tanks required on site.
The new facility will require a permanent access route for vehicles.
After consultation with National Highways and Cambridgeshire County Council as the relevant local highways authority, and feedback from the local community and stakeholders as part of our phase two consultation last year, we selected a safe and sustainable permanent access for the project from Junction 34 of the A14.
You can find out more about our access selection decision in our phase two consultation summary report on our document library.
We have now carried out further work to refine our proposals, including detailed traffic and access mitigation measures to reduce potential impacts on the existing road network. This includes carrying out a traffic and transport appraisal of two variations of the selected option, and further engagement with stakeholders including the relevant highways authorities and our Community Working Group. These variations were:
- Variation A, with access off Horningsea Road around 120 metres north of the junction, including road markings to create an additional lane for traffic waiting to turn right off Horningsea Road onto a new road to the facility.
- Variation B, reconfiguring the existing junction between the A14 eastbound exit slip road and Horningsea Road into a 4-arm signalised junction, also connecting to a new road to the facility.
We can confirm that we have now chosen Variation B as the best performing option for providing access off Junction 34. Following an initial four-month construction period, during which enabling activities including the construction of the permanent access would take place, this approach would mean that:
- Construction traffic will not travel northwards on Horningsea Road from junction 34.
- Construction traffic accessing the site from the A14 will proceed straight across Horningsea Road under signal control.
- Low Fen Drove Way will not need to be crossed by construction traffic, avoiding impacts on ecology and recreational users of the byway.
For 125 years the current site on Cowley Road has been serving the needs of Cambridge and Greater Cambridge and we want the new facility to continue to provide these vital services, treating waste water and storing storm flows to serve a growing population for as long as, or even longer than, the existing facility has done.
The relocation provides an opportunity to develop a modern, forward-looking water recycling facility, using the latest technology and operational practices. This means we can continue to serve the growing population of Greater Cambridge for years to come, in a more sustainable and resilient way.
The new facility is being designed with provisions for climate change resilience. The new facility sits outside the high flood risk area. We will work with the Environment Agency to ensure that the facility is designed to be resilient to increases in rainfall and extreme weather into the 2080s. The new tunnel infrastructure and storm handling capabilities of the new works has been modelled using a 1 in 100 year storm return period.
The design of the facility will contribute to Anglian Water’s goal to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2030 by reducing energy consumption and contributing towards the circular economy. The new facility will significantly reduce carbon emissions compared to the existing Cambridge facility and will be operationally net zero and energy neutral.
We will also target a 70 per cent reduction in “capital” or “embedded” carbon during the construction phase compared to a 2010 baseline by adopting sustainable construction techniques. Read more about how we will achieve this in our Carbon Paper.