Rivenhall Airfield waste site and incinerator - developers ask for 2 year extension

Rivenhall Airfield is a former WW2 facility in open countryside, rich in wildlife and valued for its open views and walks, but which is being dug up for sand and gravel, as well as the proposed waste site.

 

 The first waste plant scheme was the “RCF”, granted consent by ECC with a condition that excluded waste burning. This was described as a plant serving north Essex. It was widely held locally (correctly) that this was a preliminary application prior to a further, larger scheme. The “eRCF” application (2) quickly followed, which itself changed during the planning process, including increasing its incineration capacity and increasing its catchment several times, to include London and the Home Counties.

 

ECC resolved to grant consent in early 2009 under highly controversial circumstances when over 900 individual letters of objection were ignored in favour of the one letter of support. The motion to grant consent only passed after the Chairman of the committee voted twice using his “casting vote”.  After a long and vigorous campaign, local communities secured a Planning Inquiry which sat in the autumn of 2009. At this inquiry, the applicants stated their intention to build the plant as soon as they got consent. That did not happen. The applicants then tried a few years later to vary the consent for the eRCF, to split the plant into 2 phases, building the incinerator half first. This was unsuccessful. The emphasis on incineration has always been a key part of the ambition for the Rivenhall Airfield site. As early as the late 1990s, the site owner stated in writing an intention to build a waste incineration facility, having failed to develop a huge landfill on the site. This was refused planning permission following an Inquiry in the mid-1990s. That landfill would have taken millions of tonnes of waste from London.  

 

The current application to extend the consent by 2 years still gives no clear position that the plant will be built. The documents in the application listed as Business Development since obtaining planning permission and Changes in Case for Need detail several failed attempts to secure agreements with companies to proceed and refer to/hint at potential further changes to the site operations, waste inputs and catchment.  Despite this, the applicants recently invited parish councils to send reps to a liaison committee on the clear stated basis that construction would start in 2015. Yet the application seeks an extension to 2017, raising further uncertainties.

 

The documents reveal an intention to potentially expand the catchment again, even beyond the large catchment discussed at the 2009 Inquiry. The burning of materials currently being incinerated on the continent is discussed. This raises further questions about the number and source of HGVs, all of which (if they stick to the agreed route) will use the A120 at Bradwell, a notoriously congested road, prone to frequent road crashes. The current planning consent states that up to 404 HGVs movements a day will use the A120.  The application documents claim there is an “increased need” for the incineration element of the plant, which could imply that capacity could be extended yet further beyond the 360,000 tonnes per annum in the current consent.

 

The applicants state that the only site capable of burning the residues from the Basildon MBT plant currently being built to take residual Essex household waste (black bin waste) is Rivenhall. This is plainly not the case. ECC has recently agreed to go out for a contract to burn the Basildon outputs (3) in the full knowledge that there must be a significant time gap between Basildon coming on stream (2015) and Rivenhall being completed, licensed and fully operational. In order for the Rivenhall Airfield plant to go ahead, all pre-commencement conditions and legal requirements set down by the Secretary of State in the decision to grant consent in March 2010 would need to be completed. The “protected” woodland on the waste site footprint would have to be destroyed and the minerals beneath it quarried. The void would need to be secured with huge retaining walls. The plant would then need to be built – potentially by more than one contractor. Licensing would be necessary and this would have to include an emissions permit and potentially a water abstraction permit. The plant would then need to be commissioned. Only when fully operational could it take Basildon outputs. If construction started in 2015, it might be fully operational in 2018, yet no permit has been obtained from the Environment Agency. 

 

A further complication is that the planning inquiry did not settle the issue of the incinerator emissions, a key concern for local communities. The Environment Agency would not comment directly on the proposed incinerator stack height of 35m, yet did say that no incinerator has been licensed in the UK with a chimney height that low for very many years. The stack height is crucial to calculations of local pollution levels.The EA stated in 2009 that typical stacks are 70m or more.The stack height is a key issue as it would require a separate planning application if higher than 35m and would be of significant public interest due to the location of the site in open countryside.  

 

Cllr. James Abbott, Green Party District and County Councillor said

 

“This latest application is part of a very long saga stretching back to the 1990s. Many claims and statements have been made by the developers about what they were going to build and when. At each iteration of the waste plant, it has got bigger and/or the catchment has got larger. Yet even with this latest attempt to extend the planning permission by 2 years, there is no guarantee they will proceed with what they have planning permission for.

 

The developers may choose to borrow nice sounding “green” terms to describe the plant, but it has long been their burning ambition to build a dirty great big waste incinerator as a major part of the site. The current consent would mean that up to 1,000 tonnes of material would be burnt per day. The incinerator would run 24/7, reducing air quality for local communities with the pollution fallout being a lottery of what the weather conditions are at a given time. 

 

The new application also raises further questions about what they want to burn and where it would come from.  We will continue to oppose any unsustainable waste development on the Airfield, as we have done for 20 years now. We will also continue to work for higher levels of recycling and more sustainable waste management practices where waste is dealt with as locally as possible, not trucked half way across the country to be burnt here in Essex. We need to phase out both landfill and waste incineration. Truly Green waste management will protect the environment, create local jobs and save valuable resources.

 

It would be a cruel irony if Braintree District, one of the best districts in Essex for recycling, materials re-use and composting, had to host a waste incinerator.”

 

ENDS

 

Notes: 

 

(1) Planning application reference ESS/41/14/BTE 

 

(2) The then Leader of Essex County Council, Lord Hanningfield, had made an election pledge that there would be no waste incinerator in Essex. He described campaigners as “political scaremongers” for saying that ECC intended burning waste and that there was a plan for an Essex waste incinerator. 

 

(3)  At the 2009 Inquiry, ECC backed the incinerator developers and in 2014 finally confirmed what had been expected for many years – that they were seeking a contract to burn residual Essex household waste produced from the Basildon MBT plant.