Honey Hill campaigners pen new song for Secretary of State Steve Reed MP

Save Honey Hill, the community group challenging the proposed relocation of Cambridge Waste Water Treatment Plant to the countryside, has put out another comedy protest song.

Titled simply Steve, the lyrics were written by campaigner and comic songwriter, Liz Cotton.

It is the third protest song the group has released, following It’s Crap and Honey Hill Honey, for which Liz also penned the lyrics.

Catherine Morris, a Horningsea resident and a Save Honey Hill campaign group member, said of the song: “It should be reasonably familiar to people of a certain age – it’s based on an old Olivia Newton-John song called Sam.”

The ‘Steve’ of the title is Steve Reed, the Crystal Palace-supporting Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who has pushed back the decision regarding the potential relocation until Monday, 14 April.

The government announced in January that it had delayed the decision for a second time on whether the city’s existing sewage works should be moved to green belt land between Fen Ditton and Horningsea, known as Honey Hill – a decision which left the members of the group feeling “disappointed”.

The proposed move of the Anglian Water sewage plant is designed to free up space for thousands of homes at North East Cambridge.

But campaigners say Honey Hill is an inappropriate location in the countryside for the works.

“I think at this stage the song is as much a bit of fun as anything,” said Catherine.

“We have this deadline looming of the 14 April, and Liz and I just thought it would be great to have one last bit of fun with this, and that by timing it around about the date of the decision would be quite good.

“I don’t think we’re expecting it to change anybody’s minds, but it has proven to be a good PR exercise in the past and we’re hoping that it will do the same for us this time – just make people aware that the decision is coming and keep us current.

“Hopefully, fingers crossed, people will see the fun in it as well.”

The song is being recorded next Tuesday (25 March) at St Peter’s Church in Horningsea, at 6.30pm. Just turn up if you want to join in!

For more on the Save Honey Hill campaign, go to savehoneyhill.org.