Plans for Essex Waste Incinerator Confirmed
A planning application has been submitted to Essex County Council for a 360,000 tonne per annum waste incinerator on Rivenhall Airfield, part of an application for a regional waste site with a total capacity of well over a million tonnes of waste a year.
The incinerator would have 4 chambers, each of 90,000 tonnes per annum capacity and is specifically designed to meet the Essex County Council Waste Strategy and PFI bid of burning nearly 200,000 tonnes of MBT derived shredded black bag waste plus capacity to burn other wastes including paper wastes from across East Anglia.
The developers claim that the HGVs in and out of the site would be "no more than" that from their previous scheme of 510,000 tonnes per annum, yet the current scheme is about double the total capacity of the earlier scheme and now includes a paper pulping factory and a large incinerator, which the previous scheme did not. Even at the lower figure, HGV movements would be over 400 a day to a site which is in the middle of the countryside, with a main access off the already over capacity A120 at Bradwell. But campaigners believe the actual traffic would be significantly higher and that many HGVs would use local roads to get to the A120 at Bradwell.
Cllr. James Abbott, Braintree District Councillor said:
"Essex County Council's pretence that there will be no major incinerator in Essex now has to end. They have broken their pledge.
"This proposal is for a 360,000 tonne per annum waste burner, which will incinerate about 200,000 tonner per annum of shredded black bag waste from the whole of Essex plus a similar amount of other wastes from Essex and beyond.
"The planning, legal, regulatory and physical description of this plant is a waste incinerator.
"Local people and wildlife could be subjected to over 20 years of emissions including a host of harmful gases and particulates, raining down on homes, gardens, play areas, schools and crops in the fields. The filter systems used cannot extract all of the pollutants and some are very long lasting - they will build up in soils.
"The developers claims the emissions will cause no harm and they make vague statements about prevailing winds. The reality is that the pollants are potentially harmful and will drift in whatever direction the wind is blowing on any particular day. And in stagnant air conditions the pollutants will not disperse.
"We will take no guarentee from the developers about the safety of their plans and we are calling for a full planning inquiry to look into all these issues.
"Meantime, Essex County Council needs to end its rediculous pretence of no incineration in Essex. The developers, who have been in dialogue with County for years, have stated quite clearly in their application that this plant is being built to comply with the Essex County Council Waste Strategy and PFI scheme."
The Stop the Incinerator campaign is a non-political cross-community campaign to oppose the regional waste site and incinerator proposed for Rivenhall Airfield, which is a site in open countryside with villages around it. These include Rivenhall, Silver End, Cressing, Bradwell, Coggeshall, Feering and Kelvedon. Witham could also be affected.
For further information, including the full 4 page briefing note on the application, please contact
James Abbott
01376 584576
07951 923073
Visit www.bugleonline.co.uk
and www.ukwin.org.uk
