 The planning application deadline for the above is drawing to a close and more support is needed if this project is to be stopped. If the scheme gets the go-ahead it may cause noise and light pollution in the surrounding areas and have a dramatic adverse effect on the local bio-diversity.
If you would like to support the campaign to stop the incinerator, please read the following e-mail from James Abbott and take what ever action your are able to:
The planning application consultation is now about half way to the deadline of October 29th, so its vital we get as many objections in as possible.
We have (finally) finished reading through the volumes of application documents. Here are some of the main points:
Total waste movements – all by HGV – would be 1.3 million tonnes per annum. Thats about the same as all the household waste arising in Essex and Suffolk combined. At least 400 per day.
The catchment would be all of Eastern Region. 87,500 tonnes of south Essex waste trucked from Basildon to be incinerated at Rivenhall.
The plant would operate 24/7 – serious issues of noise and light pollution in what is currently the countryside.
The incinerator would operate 24/7, burning 360,000 tonnes per annum of processed black bag wastes, paper, paper sludge and other materials.
5 EU/UK protected species would lose their habitat (bats and newts) and the site developers would need a permit to do this. 66 species of birds are present on the site, many of the listed and biodiversity action plan species (also brown hares).
Several acres of woodland, bushes, hedges and grassland as well as old farm ponds would be lost along with about 30 acres of good quality arable land.
The sustainable elements of the scheme (which are a small fraction of the total site), such as materials recycling and anaerobic digestion, would be far better done on existing industrial areas on a district catchment scale (ie much smaller plants) – as recently supported by none other than Government Minister Joan Ruddock !
Colchester Borough Council have pulled out of the strategic agreements with the County Council needed to deliver the 2 huge centralised waste sites and incinerator. Chelmsford Borough Council are also very sceptical. Their published reasoning is the same as the Stop the Incinerator campaign – the huge waste sites are waste disposal sites rather than recycling sites, the councils do not support incineration, local recycling is doing very well and is the best way of building support for ever higher levels of recycling as well as waste reduction – the big sites would need large amounts of waste contract agreed for 25 years. Braintree District Council is so far continuing to support Essex. Please write to the Leader of the Council, Graham Butland, to ask him to withdraw support for the Waste Strategy and to object to the application – neither the strategy or major site is in the best interests of residents in mid-Essex.
Here is the latest on the campaign:
4 public meetings, 2 done, the next 2 being Feering Community Centre, 7.30pm Friday 10th October and Bradwell Village Hall 7.30pm Friday 17th October with leaflets currently going out advertising these – many thanks to all who have helped.
6,000 orange information packs with enclosed sample letters for people to send to Essex County Council and Go-East are being delivered to all the villages around the airfield plus parts of Witham – many thanks to all those helping – but we will need more helpers if we are to get round north Witham and all the villages before the deadline.
We have done a reprint of the campaign posters – though not many people appear to be putting these up – we need a lot more in windows to show the strength of feeling.
Web updates are being posted to www.bugleonline.co.uk – with soon the sample letters for people to download.
There will also soon be a contacts list to lobby the county councillors on the planning committee and the local MP.
You can post comments at
www.braintreeandwithamtimes.co.uk
or write letters to the local papers:
We would suggest keeping comments and letters short to allow more on the same subject to be published.
One of our campaign supporters has come up with a great idea – to do a campaign video to post on YouTube. Does anyone have access to a reasonable quality video camera or ideas on what we could include ? If so, could you contact me off list. We are looking to film the video this Saturday afternoon at the airfield near where we held the protests. Phew – thats all for now. Thanks for reading this far !
For further information:
James Abbott
01376 584576
07951 923073
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