26,000 say no, no, no to incinerator in Aylesbury Vale

A protest in Aylesbury passed peacefully through the town earlier today. About 200 people converged in Kingsbury before heading to Buckinghamshire County Council’s headquarters to have their voices heard over incinerator plans.

Almost 26,000 people have signed petitions organised by campaign group Stop Aylesbury Vale Incineration (SAVI) against plans for an energy from waste facility.

Visit http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/STOPAVI/ and add your name to the petition

The Bucks Herald article continues:

Addressed by Helen Howard before the group handed over boxes from parishes throughout the Vale, she said their campaign was not about NIMBYism, but about fighting incinerators anywhere in the country.

The group was formed ahead of Bucks County Council’s decision, due on Monday, when they will announce their preferred location for a facility that will deal with up to 300,000 tonnes of waste every year.

There are two bidders left in the running for the contract, one is based at Calvert to be run by WRG and the other is for Violia in Bedfordshire.

The crowd brought Aylesbury town centre to a standstill with their chants of “26,000 say no, no, no.”

John Bercow, MP for Buckingham and Commons speaker, was unable to attend the rally because the date had been changed due to BCC bringing the decision date forward. However, he wrote to SAVI saying:

I have corresponded with the county council on your behalf. I have written to every member of the county council cabinet to counsel them against lumbering local people with such a facility. I have met the cabinet member responsible for this subject and underlined to him in the most robust possible terms why local people should not have to suffer this unwanted burden and hazard. It threatens to damage our environment. It threatens to add hugely to traffic congestion and the incidence of noise. It threatens to pose a risk to human health. It threatens to make a landscape that is beautiful at present ugly in the future. It threatens to cost taxpayers dear and reduce our quality of life in the process.

Visit the SAVI website for the latest

On 29th July 2009, reporter Jack Abell posted the following news item under the heading Anger over ‘nimby-ism’ claims

BUCKS Residents Against Incinerators (BRAINS) have hit out after a Bucks County Councillor accused another anti-incinerator group of scaremongering.

Martin Tett, Buckinghamshire County Council’s (BCC) cabinet member for planning and environment said that he believed that SAVI, a group set up to oppose a possible incinerator in the north of the county, were using scaremongering tactics to put people off an incinerator being built in that area, and said it was a case of nimby-ism.

This has incensed BRAINS, who have fought BCC over the possibility of an incinerator being built near Beaconsfield.

Peter Brogden, chairman of BRAINS, said:
This is not about nimby-ism or some misguided health and safety concerns, as BCC and Mr Tett claim. It is simply a case of miscalculation and a head in the sands attitude of BCC on about every measure you could consider. They are about to make the biggest single economic error in the county’s history. What does it take for them to reconsider?

The financial justification made by BCC for a municipal incinerator, already deeply flawed by their overestimate of future waste volumes, is totally invalidated by the threefold increase in cost to dispose of incinerator bottom ash which will follow on the probable reclassification by the Environment Agency of it as a hazardous waste.

BCC decided last year to put a household waste incinerator in Calvert near Aylesbury instead of near Gerrards Cross or Beaconsfield, but there is a still chance that a commercial waste facility could be placed in the area. A decision on the location of that facility will be made towards the end of this year, and BRAINS are continuing to fight BCC on the issue.

According to FoE, the Friends of the Earth’s local groups conference is the biggest event in the calendar of the local groups network. It’s a great opportunity for local groups, staff and Board members to get together. It features a number of events including the John Preedy Memorial Lecture, presentations on campaign successes by both local groups and staff, setting the agenda for the year ahead, workshops, a Motions Debate, exhibitions, plenty of networking time, a party, and much more. Visit http://community.foe.co.uk/events/conference/ for details.

A special hello to everyone there in Loughborough!
Don’t forget to visit and offer to help out at the UKWIN stall.

We are all looking forward to the announcement of this year’s Earthmover Award at the special Earthmover Award and Review of the Year ceremony at Conference. This award is presented at Conference each year to acknowledge the diversity of contributions that people from across the local groups network make to Friends of the Earth.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-891648414273978043&hl=en

Mark Phillips Former Waste Incinerator engineer

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4880932945839457189

Moto Tanaka Retired Advanced Waste Technology Engineer

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6012848273212767741&hl=en

Covanta Energy and Waste Recycling Group (WRG) are still in the running. Both of these bidders are proposing to build a new incinerator, with WRG proposing an incinerator on their landfill site at
Calvert, while Covanta Energy’s solution will be based outside of Buckinghamshire. Buckinghamshire County Council are refusing to name the site “for reasons of commercial confidentiality”. The ‘preferred bidder’ is expected to be announced later this year, or early in 2009.

“Any proposals by the county to develop an Energy from Waste facility for household waste must be guided by and fit with the Minerals and Waste Core Strategy – when it is approved.” Further information is available from Buckinghamshire County Council’s website.

A press release from UKWIN members Buckinghamshire Residents Against Incinerators (BRAINS) gives local campaigners’ reaction:

BRAINS welcomes the news that the Wapseys Wood site, and we assume Springfield Farm, the designated reserve site, will not be used for a BCC funded waste incinerator. This will be a great relief to the residents of Beaconsfield, Gerrards Cross and the surrounding villages. However,we remain deeply concerned that BCC is intent on adopting incineration as its preferred waste disposal process. It is a technology that is inflexible, costly and polluting and is far from the best option to deal with Buckinghamshire’s waste.

The news applies only to the Waste Procurement Project and not to BCC’s Waste Strategy, which implies that privately funded incinerators could still be proposed on the Wapseys Wood site. BRAINS would vigorously oppose any move in this direction. The BCC announcement gets just one cheer from us.

The full article can be found on: The Bucks Free Press Website