Overview
The Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government (MHCLG) has confirmed that funding from the Housing Infrastructure Fund will not be made available to support the delivery of this project.
The cost of delivering the project has increased significantly as a result of rising costs of materials and labour, and disruption to global supply chains. MHCLG has deemed these increases unaffordable.
The Cambridge Waste Water Treatment Plant Relocation Project had been granted consent by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) on April 8 2025.
The Anglian Water Services Ltd project had included the construction and operation of an Integrated Waste Water Treatment Centre and Sludge Treatment Plant, transfer tunnels, terminal and intermediate pumping stations, vehicle access, utilities connections, renewable energy generation, ancillary buildings and landscaping. This will result in a new waste water treatment plant for Greater Cambridge, located south of Horningsea to replace the current site on Cowley Road.
The project fell into the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) process defined through the Planning Act 2008 (as amended) and was considered under Part 3 Section 29 of the legislation. Responsibility for accepting and examining the NSIP application rested with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and not the local authorities, who were identified as statutory consultees, or ‘host’ authorities, in the NSIP process.
Discharge of requirements
Anglian Water started to apply to discharge the requirements included in the Development Consent Order (DCO) which are equivalent of planning conditions. The requirements and process for discharge are set out in the DCO along with the key consultees.
The requirements related to technical submissions only, many of which built on the detail of the outline schemes, which were scrutinised by Cambridgeshire County Council’s technical officers and other interested parties during the DCO Examination, ahead of the Secretary of State’s decision to grant permission for the development.
Consultees varied depending on the specific requirement but for example included: the Lead Local Flood Authority, County Ecology, South Cambridgeshire District Council, Cambridge City Council and the Environment Agency.
As the requirements were technical submissions, there was no public consultation as part of the process. Nonetheless, this webpage was updated when requirements were discharged (agreed). The documents will continue be available to view on our public access planning webpages. To find, enter the keywords ‘Cambridge Waste Water’ into the search field and click Search button.
As of 22 August 2025, the following requirements have been discharged:
- Requirement 09(2)(a)(iii): Pollution Incident Control Plan
- Requirement 09(2)(a)(vi): Construction Water Quality Monitoring Plan
- Requirement 13(1)(a)(b): Archaeological Investigation and Mitigation Strategy and Written Scheme of Investigation
- Requirement 09(2)(a)ii: Emergency Preparedness Plan
- Requirement 09(2)(a)v: Detailed Soil Management Plan
- Requirement 09(2)(a)x: Air Quality Management Plan
- Requirement 09(2)(a)xi: Site Waste Management Plan
- Requirement 09(2)(a)xii: Materials Management Plan
- Requirement 09(2)(a)ix: Noise and Vibration Management Plan
- Requirement 09(2)(a)i: Detailed Community Liaison Plan
- Requirement 14: Detailed Construction Lighting Design Strategy
- Requirement 9(2)(a) Construction Environment Management Plan
- Requirement 9(2)(a)iv Wildlife Hazard Management Plan
- Requirement 9(2)(a)vii Construction Traffic Management Plan
- Requirement 9(2)(a)viii Construction Workers Travel Plan
- Requirement 11: Detailed Landscape, Ecological and Recreational Management Plan
- Requirement 25: Biodiversity Net Gain
- Requirement 7: Detailed Design (Part discharge) Protection of Badgers
Background
For further details of this NSIP project, including all the documentation submitted as part of the examination, please visit the Planning Inspectorate (PINS) website.
Visit Anglian Water's Cambridge Waste Water Treatment Plant Relocation Project website for details of their proposals.
Throughout the Examination period, Cambridgeshire County Council submitted responses as required by the Planning Inspectorate, including a:
All submissions can be found in the Examination Document Library (opens as pdf on Planning Inspectorate website)
The Examination closed on 17 April 2024. The Examining Authority had three months following the end of examination to write its summary report and make a recommendation to the Secretary of State. This report was issued to the Secretary of State on 12 July 2024, and the Secretary of State granted the application consent on 8 April 2025.
