Westbury Councillor Gordon King objects to Westbury Incinerator
Lib Dem Westbury County and Town Councillor Gordon King outlines why he is passionately against the incinerator going ahead, demands information from Wiltshire Council and pledges to continually fight against it even if it goes ahead.
Here is the statement Gordon made to Westbury Town Council:
Planning Application 20/06775/WCM Energy from Waste Facility (by Incineration), Northacre Park, Westbury, BA13 4WD.
This council objects to the above Plan on the following grounds:
That insufficient time has been allocated to pursue, take in or evaluate 237 statements and documents comprising at least two thousand pages or commission independent analysis.
That the applicant has failed to provide a Biodiversity & Geodiversity site analysis and statement as required by the Wiltshire & Swindon Waste Site Allocation Plan 2013.
The applicant (NREL) has failed to provide any information, specification, description, or technical detail of the technology (the Incinerator) or impact analysis of the system they intend to use.
The applicant has consistently refused to provide precise detail of where they will source waste by; type, quality, composition, transport arrangements including the routing of waste by 20ton HGV to Northacre Park.
That the applicant has failed to take in to account the impacts their plan may have in terms potentially serious coalescence of increased traffic flows on the west Wiltshire transport network by relying on old and out of date data. They have not considered increases in HGV traffic associated with the Weight Restriction on Cleveland Bridge, or the impacts of the Bath Clean Air Zone or the planned introduction of its next phase.
The Applicant has failed to take sufficient account the significant impact of their plan on local air quality. NREL is not the only emitter of foul and potentially toxic pollutants on the Northacre site, the Brook Lane Industrial Area or the West Wiltshire trading Estate. This plant adds to this noxious mix and may produce a potentially dangerous coalescence of smells and pollutants that are harmful to the public Health.
The applicant because of their use of standard technical data and old pre COVID data has failed to provide an accurate assessment of the impact on local receptors of the noise emitted from the facility, especially at night, when mixed with the array of noises that are currently recorded and which are considered significant.
The size, mass and bulk of the proposal presents an unacceptable impact on the landscape and is contrary to the principles of good design as expressed in CP - 57
In conclusion this council recommends:
The applicant by their over reliance on old, pre-COVID data has made a series of assertions and conclusions that are based on entirely on assumptions. By doing that, they have failed to provide any report or assessment that comes close to adequately providing either a reasonable or accurate assessment of the Impacts of their development.