A decision of sorts has emerged from the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government regarding the Rivenhall Airfield Public Inquiry into an incinerator proposal.
You can read the Secretary of State’s decision letter and the Planning Inspector’s lengthy report, both of which are archived on the excellent web-site of the Stop the Incinerator Community Group.
The decision leaves several issues unresolved, and as the following campaign update explains:
The major waste plant including a 360,000 tpa incinerator has been granted planning permission by the Government, which endorsed the Inspectors Report, following the October 2009 Inquiry.
The Inspector and the Government admitted that the waste plant would have negative impacts on the countryside and local communities but that the need for the plant outweighed these impacts.
There are 63 conditions attached to the consent. The most important of these requires the plant to have no more than one chimney stack and for that stack to be no more than 35m above current ground levels. However, the Inspector and the Secretary of State were unable to decide on the conflicting evidence they received about the stack height – the developers deciding to change from a 35m to a 40m stack during the Inquiry, the advice of the Environment Agency which strongly suggested that 35m would be well short of that required and the objectors who asked for clarity as the stack height was a key issue due to the location in open countryside.
This uncertainty could well result in further applications if the Environmental Permit requires a higher stack. The EA has stated that stack heights about double that proposed are more typical for a plant of this size.The plant is unlikely to be operational for many years, if it is built at all. It will take up to 2 years to excavate the gravel and sand to create a lower ground level and void for the plant and another 2 years to build it. There is also uncertainty over whether the plant would handle the Essex County Council municipal waste contract which is currently out to tender. It could be that the plant operates entirely as a commercial and industrial waste plant – a far cry from the “recycling and composting facility for north Essex” based on municipal waste that the developers first consulted on.
The local community, parish councils and Braintree District Council put up a strong fight against the plans and the original planning application attracted over 800 objections and just one letter of support. There is widespread concern about the way in which Essex County Council has repeatedly backed a major waste plant on the site (the current one is the latest in a series of revisions) and has ignored community views when it has a known commercial interest in the plant being built and used the plant to model its PFI bid. The County Council also spent up to £90,000 of public money at the Inquiry urging consent to be given, against the overwhelming views of local communities.
The Stop the Incinerator campaign has already decided to continue the fight against any incinerator being built on the site and will support campaigns against any other incinerator proposal in Essex.
The story was covered on BBC East on 6th March when campaign co-ordinator Cllr. James Abbott noted that this huge plant (the total site is over 60 acres in size) was being built in a district where total waste is falling and where recycling is now above 50%. The plant would generate over 400 HGV movements a day and import well over 95% of its feedstock from outside the district, including from London and the Home Counties. It has a planned total throughout (in and out) of 1.3 mtpa and would include a paper pulping plant, MBT unit, AD tanks and the incinerator. It would have a high gearing of waste disposal with about half of the imported material (by weight) being incinerated or landfilled.
I must admit I don’t know a great deal about this project, but anyone can see that claiming this is a CHP is highly misleading. Quickly looking at a map, I note that the site is in the countryside – where exactly is the heat going to go? Many developers are jumping on the CHP bandwagon to gain planning permission, with no real desire to take these forward. There needs to be a greater level of technical scrutiny of any CHP scheme before making decisions like the above.
The heat looks like it is going to the pulp mill which they have on the application which will use a large amount of steam to convert recovered fibre into pulp and then dry it (probably using steam based dryers) for sale to paper mills that can use Recycled Fibre. Most modern mills now install biomass CHP and burn forestry residues to produce the massive quanities of heat and steam required for the process.
Incineration and waste mamagement is not my field but I know a bit about the paper industry and this is why this came onto my radar. I hope the info helps you.
The following is from Cllr. James Abbott
Stop the Incinerator Campaign Group
The reasons why there has been massive opposition to this proposal include:
1. It is in the open countryside with a totally inadequate access on to a single carriageway road that is frequently congested now, let alone with an additional 400 plus HGVs per day generated by the waste site. The Inspector failed to appreciate this severe constraint despite many witnesses at the Inquiry giving first hand evidence of the congestion and frequent crashes on the road (the A120 at Bradwell).
2. The plant started off at consultation stage as a “recycling and composting facility” and local residents were told it would have a catchment of north Essex only and no incineration. We were misled. The plant started at 300+ ktpa at first consultation but is now 800+ktpa and now includes a 360,000 tpa incinerator and a catchment that includes London and beyond. It has grown every time a new version of the plans has been published.
3. The plant is highly geared towards disposal. It actually has an operating capacity of about 850,000 tpa, and not as quoted in your article. Of this, nearly half will be incinerated or landfilled. All the heat and over half the electricity generated will be used internally – the “CHP” element provides limited external benefit and only electricity. There is no housing or industry nearby to use the “CHP” benefit – even if it were externalised.
4. The plant is sited in a district with a recycling rate already at 50% with every prospect of significantly higher levels being reached. The plant offers no benefits for municipal recycling over and above likely targets that can be met using existing systems. The plants offers zero reprocessing capacity for municipal dry recycling on site – it merely bales it for transport off site again. A much more sustainable district scale AD facility for food waste is at planning stage for a site in nearby Halstead. If built, the Rivenhall plant will probably mean lower levels of recycling because of the need to feed the incinerator’s 1000 tonne per day capacity.
5. The site is part of an old WW2 airfield, but one which has been partly reclaimed by nature. The plant will result in the loss of several hectares of woodland, most of it covered by a Tree Preservation order. The developer’s own wildlife studies have identified over 60 species of birds in the area as well as hares, G.C. newts and at least 4 species of bats – supposedly high priority and protected species. We have woodpeckers, barn owls and buzzards in the site area – all species likely to be highly disturbed by the development.
6. The site is one of the last places left in central Essex with reasonably dark skies at night for people to enjoy the stars and for nocturnal wildlife to thrive. A 24/7 waste plant covering over 60 acres is clearly a major threat to this tranquillity.
7. The incinerator stack height was not agreed at the Inquiry and it is highly likely to be subject to further planning applications. The Inspector set a limit of a 35m x 7m stack – a big enough intrusion in open countryside, but the true size is likely to be larger, perhaps 60m to 70m, as the Environment Agency have indicated. The applicant argued for 40m at the Inquiry.
In short, it is the wrong plant in the wrong place and we will continue to fight it with every legal means available.
Thanks Interested Bystander. How large is the paper mill they are proposing? Will they not struggle to secure feedstock given there is a new, highly efficient mill recently opended in Norfolk and another mill in Kent?