Residents will have the chance this month to examine plans for a multi-million pound incinerator designed to tackle Telford’s growing mountain of waste and reduce landfill.
Bosses of SITA UK and its partner Cyclerval hope to persuade the public that the plant will be an efficient and safe way of dealing with rubbish and providing electricity.
Critics, including Friends of the Earth, claim an incinerator would be potentially hazardous.
The consortium hopes to build an incinerator at Granville tip, on the eastern outskirts of Telford, as an alternative to burying the 62,000 tonnes of waste generated each year by the borough’s households.
After unveiling its proposals last week, the consortium will now hold three public exhibitions before it submits a planning application to Telford & Wrekin Council.
The sessions will be at Donnington Wood Lifelong Learning Centre on April 25, from 3.30pm to 7pm, and April 26, from 10am to noon, and at Priorslee Community Centre on April 26, from 4pm to 7pm.
SITA UK general manager Geraint Rees said: “This is a small-scale facility that has been carefully designed to provide a local waste management solution for Telford & Wrekin, so we are keen to hear the views of the community.
“There will be displays showing what we want to achieve at Granville.”
Members of the public can also register any questions or comments on the freephone number 08003 283079.
4 Comments
Will Sita be showing Telford residents my maps showing elevated infant mortality rates in the electoral wards downwind of their incinerators at Kirklees, Coventry and Edmonton?
They must have seen the maps in the Dorking ADvertiser as they had a follow-up article “If it was dangerous it wouldn’t be built, say incinerator bosses” in the 17 January 2008 issue which starts:
“The company behind plans to build an incinerator in Mole Valley has hit back at claims that the plant will kill babies and increase the rates of suicide and asthma in the area.”
Surrey County Council have wisely obtained a report by Mott MacDonald that shows plasma gasification to be the better option.
Why is Telford considering unsafe and expensive technology when a cheaper and safer alternative is at hand?
8 1/2 hours, over 2 days in 2 locations is not public consultation. SITA must think we’re stupid! These plans need to be displayed for a longer period of time in every library throughout Telford and in Telford Shopping Centre for at least a week, including a busy Saturday.
This is very clever controlled “consultation” that SITA will cite as evidence of consensus amongst the people of Telford, when the plans for this unnecessary and unethical proposal have quietly slipped through a Planning Committee.
This plan just gives the non-recycling population of Telford an get our clause for not bothering. Burning our waste is an ill-thought out, short-term solution to a much more serious problem. Telford Council should be brave and come up with more imaginative ways of reducing our waste, by encouraging the population to do their bit.
We could also do with evidence of a bit of investigative journalism from the Star, not just repeating glossy press releases from SITA.
The Nottingham Evening Post of 14 April 2008 article “Nottingham concerns over baby deaths”, by Clare Boyd, Health Correspondent, starts: Health bosses have vowed to cut the number of babies dying in Nottingham. The city has the highest rate of infant mortality in the East Midlands, and the number of babies under 12-months who die is consistently higher than the national average.”
Ms Boyd “forgot” to give the relevant data, which was that in 2006, there were 34 infant deaths in Nottingham City, and 3,909 live births, ie an average infant mortality rate for that year of 8.7 per 1,000 live births.
“So what has this to do with incinerators?”, you might think.
Nottingham has a municipal incinerator sited in Incinerator Road, off Cattle Market Road, which is in Bridge ward, which had a 2003-6 infant mortality rate of 12.4 per 1,000 live births, which is more than double the national average rate.
Sherwood ward, also has a very high rate of infant deaths, namely the highest out of the twenty electoral wards in Nottingham. It’s extremely unlikely that PM2.5 emissions from the municipal incinerator, also known as “Eastcroft”, were a major factor in the high rate of baby deaths in Sherwood ward, but that ward, and also the adjacent wards which also have high rates of infant deaths, are downwind of Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station with a SW wind, which is the most common wind direction historically, and is one of a few issues on which Dr Catherine Woodward and I agree.
The incinerator action group at Nottingham, which is known as NAIL, seem reluctant to use information that might persuade Councillors and officials to examine ONS data to check the health and mortality rates in electoral wards which get PM2.5 emissions from incinerators, or power stations or other industrial sources.
Sita are farming old technology (moving grate) with upgraded filters.
They could have used and MBT or autoclave process either combined with either a plasma gasifer / gasplasma or anaerobic digestion facility.