Cambridgeshire villagers to record new Save Honey Hill protest song against sewage works move

A comic songwriter, who discovered a billion-pound private water company planned to build a sewage plant next to her village, is about to record a second protest ditty about the scheme.

Liz Cotton took her Last Stand on Honey Hill show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, winning rave reviews, and included the song she recorded with neighbours and campaigners called “It’s Cr*p”.

It told the story of Anglian Water’s plans to relocate Cambridge’s sewage works to a green belt site on Honey Hill, between Fen Ditton and Horningsea, so that Cambridge City Council can build on the former wastewater plant site.

Now Liz has written a follow up song - titled Honey Hill, Honey - and is organising a public recording to be held at Horningsea church where supporters are welcome to come and join in the making of the record.

Liz said: “The last recording was such a lovely coming together for the community who have been through so much. Then I made a whole comedy show about the making of the song and took it to Edinburgh. It went down really well and I will be returning to Edinburgh this year to a prestigious venue, the Gilded Balloon.”

She plans to incorporate the new song into the show but it is also a way of drawing the public’s attention to the Save Honey Hill campaign.

Liz said: “We want as many people as possible to know about what is going on. I wanted people to know about the irony that Anglian Water is promoting this as a green project when there will be a huge carbon cost to moving the sewage plant.”

In February, Anglian Water submitted a Development Consent Order to the Planning Inspectorate this week to ask for permission to move the sewage works from Milton to a Green Belt site at Honey Hill in Horningsea.This follows a public consultation which started in 2020 after funding was allocated to Anglian Water and Cambridge City Council by the Government’s Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) to relocate the existing Cambridge waste water treatment facility.

However, they have now temporarily withdrawn the Development Consent order to address issues raised about it has not yet been resubmitted.

The relocation is set to provide a brownfield site where the city council wants to develop a new district, known as North East Cambridge. The city council has proposed this will be a low-carbon city district providing 8,350 homes and 15,000 new jobs.

Liz said: “By taking the show to Edinburgh I discovered that people up and down the the country were engaged in similar fights to save the environment.”

She explained that the carbon cost of moving the sewage, building a new sewage works and decommissioning the old site had not yet been published.

The recording will take place at St Peter’s Church, Horningsea on April 30 at 2.30pm.