The engineer behind plans for two biomass burning power plants in Tenbury Wells and Bishop’s Castle has revealed they could be operational by the end of 2008.
Chris Day, of CJ Day Associates, believes both plants will be up-and-running within 15 months.
More than 2,000 people living in Tenbury Wells have objected to plans for a £5 million biomass burner in their town.
And people in Bishop’s Castle claim they have not received sufficient information to support plans for a similar £5 million plant on a local business park.
However, Mr Day, who visited Tenbury Wells yesterday, has hit back at critics of both plants and said the biomass burners will provide green, clean electricity for both areas.
He said: “These plants are not a threat to human health or well being. I envisage the planning applications being submitted within a month to South Shropshire District Council and Malvern Hills District Council.
“It will take about eight weeks for the plans to be determined. If they are approved, it will take less than 12 months to build the plants and make them fully operational.”
Mr Day said he was dismayed by repeated criticism of the plans and said many people had been ill-informed.
He added: “We have held a number of public consultation meetings but people still say we are not giving them information.”
Mr Day said both plants would create many jobs and local teenagers would be offered apprenticeships.
He said other eco-friendly schemes to develop biodiesel could follow.
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2 Comments
Why should low-efficiency developments like these get the go-ahead? We should use the earth’s finite resources as efficiently as possible.
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1. The Tenbury site is too small for the size and scale of the proposed development. A similar building at Eccleshall is located on a large industrial site which is more appropriate and allows ample room for visual containment and mitigation eg: extensive screen planting, mounding and screen fences. The proposed Tenbury development will dominate the site and dwarf other existing buildings and will be visible from adjacent residential properties. It will also distroy an area of high landscape quality at the entrance to the town.
2. Tenbury gains nothing from this development.However, it will suffer hardship during it’s construction as the town centre is thrown into chaos by 6 mths of road works necessary to connect the site to the national grid on the Burford Industrial Estate – indeed one might ask why has n’t the developer been asked by the local authority promoters of the scheme to locate his plant at Burford. A site far more appropriate with better road links to the A49 etc and hence save the needless disruption in digging-up the town centre.
3. The proposal at Tenbury will create only a handful of Tenbury based jobs. Existing users on the site occupying a similar land take employ over 70 persons – CJDay’s proposals will only employ 4 site persons – infact these sites care so automated they could run un-staffed! It seems ashame that such a large amount of land produces very little employment.
4. There have been over 2000 petition signatures against the Tenbury proposal. Furthermore at the recent local government elections Coucillor Penn and Grove canvassed and won their seats on the basis (in part) of their objections to the Tenbury site. If local democracy prevails then this scheme should be turned down. If the scheme is approved it will only foster further voter apathy.
5.It would appear that the Tenbury site has been selected because it is owned by the sponsoring authories ie: Malvern Hills District Coucil, Worcestershire County Council and Advantage West Midlands. There are no other logical reason. Certainly, it has not been a case of finding the best site(s) which in our large County there must be many with better road links, minimum disruption to existing communities and businesses and scope for proper mitigation.
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