19 April 2009
Essex County Council is to consider a planning application for a regional waste site and 360,000 tonne per annum waste incinerator sited at the former Rivenhall WW2 airfield this Friday (24th April) with an officer recommendation of approval.
Residents and councillors will be holding a peaceful protest on the steps of County Hall starting at 9am on Friday, ahead of the meeting that starts at 10am.
Over 800 representations were received by the council, overwhelmingly objections - from residents, landowners, parish councils, wildlife, countryside and amenity organisations and the district council.
If the application is passed, it would be a blatant breach of the promise made by Lord Hanningfield, Leader of Essex County Council, that there would be "no incineration without a referendum" in Essex (direct quote from Lords Hansard), a pledge he repeated in signed letters to residents.
The waste site would be one of the largest in Europe, importing wastes from all over Eastern Region and London. Around 1.3 million tonnes of waste a year would be trucked in and out of the site, with over 400 HGVs a day adding to the congestion on the A120 and connecting roads.
The development would destroy or disturb an area documented as an important wildlife habitat, home to 5 species of bats, around 70 species of birds as well as many other species such as brown hares, which the County Council has pledged to protect. Mature woodland would be felled, good quality agricultural land developed and historic WW2 structures that have survived until now bulldozed or sold for scrap.
The incinerator would operate 24/7, burning around 1,000 tonnes of wastes a day, raising local air pollution. Emissions would include gases and particulates. The Environment Agency has stated that the proposed chimney height of 35 metres is "not generally considered to be acceptable" and have strongly indicated a higher chimney would be needed, raising further concerns about landscape impact.
At the last stage of consultation on the application, the developer announced that he may turn the entire site over to commercial and industrial wastes from Eastern Region and London, yet had consulted with the public on the basis that the site would deal mostly with household wastes from Essex. Braintree District Council has strongly objected to this late change in particular, calling for a further planning application, which the County Council has turned down.
There is widespread concern, including from councillors of all parties, that the County Council has a vested interest in the site. The council has admitted in writing that whilst the planning application has been under consideration, the council has at the same time been in active commercial negotiations with the developer.
For all these reasons and more, there is a strong call being made to the Secretary of State for an independant public planning inquiry. Already hundreds of letters have been sent to Go-East calling for an inquiry, with hundreds more names due to be sent on a petition and a further letter signed by district and county councillors of all parties.
Cllr. James Abbott, one of the co-ordinators of the Stop the Incinerator Campaign said
"When several years ago we first raised the alarm that an incinerator was being planned for the airfield, the applicants and the county council accused us of misleading the public and scaremongering. When we uncovered using Freedom of Information Act requests that the council and developer had been in discussions about an incinerator since at least March 2006, the council denied any incinerator was planned. Similarly, time and again concerns about the increases in size of the plant, its catchment and the types of waste it would take have been denied. The public have been comprehensively misled by those in a position of trust.
The waste site has grown every time a new version of it has been published, and its catchment has grown larger and larger. We were told at first it would only treat waste from north Essex, with no burning. Then we were told only Essex waste would be treated and that it was "a recycling and composting plant". Still, the developer uses this description, even with an industrial plant and incinerator added. Its a bit like calling the Titanic a sailing yacht.
The County Council is awarding planning consents in line with its own Waste PFI bid to Government. The Rivenhall site, twinned with the Basildon plant is in the PFI - the same as in this planning application. The council has failed to separate its functions as a planning authority and a waste disposal authority as required to do. They have even used excuses of commercial confidentiality to refuse to release documents requested about the site, despite claiming that the Rivenhall application was merely a "private planning application" that they had nothing to do with.
We will continue to fight these plans every inch of the way. A public inquiry is absolutely essential, and might restore some of the shattered trust in the way in which this process has been conducted to date."
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