Another waste burner on the way!

There have been several occasions in the past when CWAC has been faced with interpreting the planning rules in favour of TATA or the local community. The record shows that TATA usually wins out.

A similar situation has now arisen involving a business named Organic Waste Management Ltd. (OWM) which is apparently seeking to change an existing planning permit, granted in 2008 to Bedminster, for a mechanical biological waste processing plant on the Lostock site into a waste incinerator.

This was recently brought to CHAIN’s attention by a member of a local parish council and we want you to know about it and, although time is short, consider lodging an objection to the planning application via the CWAC website. The application reference no. is 17/01678/S73 and the final date for lodging objections is midnight on Thursday 1 February.

There is a minimal amount of information about the application and the council is unable to fill in the gaps. What we do know is that permission is being sought to increase the chimney height to 52 metres (164 ft) compared to the original 20 metres and to utilize ‘moving grate technology’. The height of the process building has also been significantly increased.

The planned throughput for the plant is 200,000 tonnes per year which for comparison purposes is the same as the Stoke incinerator on the A50 near the football stadium. For clarification, it is also separate from the TATA incinerator and the DONG waste processing plant.

Brian Cartwright, CHAIN Chairman, is planning to lodge an objection on behalf of CHAIN in the next day or so and there will be others.

The main grounds for objection will be that the new plans are significantly different, in several adverse ways, to the original consented planning application and the full impacts have not been disclosed to the public or properly investigated by CWAC council.

The fair solution to this problem is obvious.

CWAC should call a halt to what appears to be a plan to stealthily change an existing planning permit for a plant based on environmentally friendly and responsible technology to something far inferior and which the local community has certainly not been informed or adequately consulted about. It should then request OWM to do exactly what Peel Holdings recently did when it reduced the size of its planned incinerator in Ince, near Frodsham, which was to submit a new planning application.

One helpful step we have just been informed about is that Cllr Mark Stocks, CWAC member for Shakerley, has requested that the planning application be ‘called in’ which means, if granted, that it will go to planning committee for decision rather than be decided by a planning officer. Let’s hope that he succeeds and at least the unnecessary time pressure is removed.

The immediate priority, however, is to please get on the CWAC website and lodge your objection. Otherwise, the mess facing Northwich is bound to get worse.

Thanks again to our supporters for their continuing encouragement and assistance