Shropshire Council officers back Shrewsbury incinerator
Monday 12th July 2010, 2:30PM BST.
Shropshire planners are being recommended to approve controversial proposals for a £60 million waste incinerator on the outskirts of Shrewsbury.
Backing for the scheme at Battlefield has come from Shropshire Council officers in a 171-page appraisal which will be presented on July 26 to a special meeting of the authority’s strategic planning committee.
The report concludes that while the proposals are “not fully consistent” with the Shropshire Waste Local Plan, they represent a “potentially acceptable” solution for cutting the amount of rubbish going to landfill and helping the to recycling targets.
But today campaigners fighting the scheme said a number of “serious anomalies” had been found in the appraisal and they would be issuing a formal rebuttal.
Veolia Environmental Services, the council’s waste contractor, lodged plans for the energy-from-waste plant with the authority last year.
It claims it could generate enough power to supply 10,000 homes and reduce the amount of waste going to landfill to just five per cent.
The report says the choice of the incinerator as the “preferred waste management technology” has been justified following a detailed appraisal of other solutions.
It recommends that the council permit the development, subject to the signing of a legal agreement and various planning conditions.
But the application will have to be referred to the Government Office for the West Midlands as the scheme “does not fully accord” with the waste plan.
Miriam Walton secretary of the Safe Waste in Shropshire group, said: “We will be issuing a formal rebuttal. We are quite horrified by how many mistakes there are in the report.”
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Please remember Councilors, That you have been voted into your position by the people who now wish for you to vote on their behalf, and that is AGAINST THIS PROPOSAL.
Please kindly note that anyone voting FOR this proposal, are voting against the wishes of the majority of Shrewsbury residents.
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Agreed – Any councilor voting for this will never get my vote ever again.
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I fully agree with everything Mike has said; in fact I do not know a single Shrewsbury resident who is for this proposal.
Any councillor voting for this will never get my vote.
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here here – i will happily stand against any councillor who votes for this white elephant and i promise them this they will loose their seat if they vote for this
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Does Mike really know what the “majority” of Shrewsbury residents want, or just the small minority that turn up to anti-waste incinerator meetings?
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I would imagine that the Shrewsbury and Atcham candidates in the general election know what the ‘majority’ want, Noddy.
If not, could you explain why Daniel Kawczynski, Charles West, Jon Tandy and the Green Party’s Alan Whitaker publicly declared their opposition to the burner?
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“Veolia claims the facility could generate enough power to supply 10,000 homes and reduce the amount of waste going to landfill to just five per cent”
A project that removes waste, stops landfill from occuring and can produce electricity? What’s there to complain about? There will be strict controls on any fumes and is set outside of the main town centre area.
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The council officers accept that the incinerator doesn’t accord with the Waste Local Plan but still recommend it for approval. As someone who spent many voluntary hours engaging in the Waste Local Plan process a few years ago I find this incredibly galling. What’s the point of having these long winded cumbersome procedures if they can just ignore the results a few years on?
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fair point dave
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The waste incinerator will cost £10.8 million every year. This is £120 per tonne if the plant burned 90,000 tonnes. In fact they only had 77,664 tonnes to dispose of last year so that would work out at about £150/tonne. There are lots of better options to spending £150 q tonne to burn waste.
The officers report tries to make out the burner is a cheaper option when it not and also does not tell the members that there is not enough waste to keep it burning.
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i agree economics is the best line of attack on this, because it is more expensive than ladnfill FACT it costs £48 per tonne to landfill waste and this will rise to £80 per tonne in future but the governments own figures on incinerators suggest even with big plants where there is economies of scale the minimum cost per tonne is £100 for little plants like this one its going to be £110-£130 PER TONNE minimum, so one heck of a waste of money, which hopefully is why the conservative dominated planning committee will have the nouse to say NO to help reduce the burden on council taxpayers
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doesnt suprise me keith. Despite the planners saying basically ” we spoke to veolia and they told us other technologies dont work so we have done no research to bother looking into this. well ive just looked on google and in five minutes ive learned more that Shropshires planners seem to know. i tell you just go on google.
look at Annex E of DEFRAs waste strategy, our own government shows this is not an economic solution SAYING DIRECT COMBUSTION TECHNOLOGY WOULD BE £79.20 PER TONNE for this size plant, (so your figures show the council is clearly being fleeced if theyre indeed paying that much!!)
Pyrolis and or gasification plant of the same size would be only £69 per tonne according to the governments Waste EXPERTS (who are emminently more qualified than Veolia or the council planners)
more to the point Anaerobic digestion costs as little as £37.90 per tonne and the governments waste experts say i quote “Our recent research1 has suggested that AD has significant environmental benefits over other options for food waste and may be particularly cost effective for food waste2 if separately collected.”
and recycling well… when plastics are worth £250 per tonne, clothing over £500 per tonne and aluminium over £1000 per tonne and copper over £3000 per tonne, well…. recycling can actually MAKE YOU MONEY – imagine that a council service generating a surplus to help keep council tax down, thats just what the public sector needs right now i would say.
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This is part of their so called zero waste experiment for shrewsbury but the truth is as anyone with a fire at home knows burning stuff just produces mounds of ash which gets landfilled anyway, so its really just a very expensive pre treatment for landfill a thoroughly wasteful process which will just redistribute the waste into small airborne particles and some ash which is toxic
all this ‘blue skies thinking’ was paid for by yours and mine taxes – nice work numb skulls
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As the governments new office of budget responsibility finally opens up the books on Gordon Browns failed PFI projects, we have come to realise that many of the capital projects planned in recent years have been bought on a credit card with high interest rates which will lead to higher than neccessary taxes for years to come.
One such unaffordable programme in the Harlescott incinerator a project rumoured to be in the region of £60million to build, through the PFI process Shropshire council will hand over hundreds of millions of taxpayers money in the coming years to pay for this unpopular and out dated project. The small print in the recent emergency budget shows the UK as whole already pays £10,000,000,000 each year in PFI costs.
PFI is a con to keep capital costs hidden ‘off the books’. Professor Allyson Pollock, looking at PFI hospitals showed that the calculations of risk are arbitrary and unreliable. The National Audit Office has called the value for money calculation “pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo where the financial modelling takes over from thinking”. The true cost of PFI for the taxpayer is now becoming clear. Private construction firms like the french multinational Veolia borrow at far higher rates than the government can, add in the profit margin often over 30% and you see why such projects inherently cost more through PFI than conventional financing. Add in the millions of pounds of consultant and legal fees preparing for complex 25 year contract and you why these projects are so expensive.
A recent freedom of information request reported in this very paper showed that on top of repaying the capital cost with interest, taxpayers will pay over £120 per tonne of waste burned! This is a cost we can all do without.
When will our elected members start representing the public will and getting a grip of the high levels of tax paid by Shropshire residents? When will they show some real politically leadership by cutting the big ticket items like this rather than salami slicing services and cutting back on real front line services like bin collections, free swimming, meals on wheels and the rest of it.
The Council has signed a contract to build this white elephant but it still has a massive opportunity to save the tax payer millions now, by turning down the planning permission for this project. There is a strong case in planning policy already to do so because it is out of keeping with the waste heirarchy. The Councils own figures promoted on their website show already as high recycling and waste reductions has completely undermined the need for this facility. Telford & Wrekin Council recently turned down a similar planning application based on lack of need and the fact that recycling is more cost effective, greener and popular. Also Shropshires Waste Local Plan specifically rules out incineration of waste and as such there would be no issue with turning down this application and allowing the Council to save millions of pounds in the process.
You would hope a Conservative Council would be prudent with our money, if they are committed to low Council tax, then they must turn this planning application down.
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surely they cannot be serious, this is totally unneccessary
Shropshire as a whole only recycled 48% of its waste last year and yet it only had 77000 tonnes of rubbish to bury – imagine if it recycled 58% like South Shropshire District Council did, that would leave only around 68000 tonnes of rubbish to bury, no imagine if it went for 75% recycling like the experts in Wales are proposing, and some parts of Belgium and the USA already doing, this would leave only a mere 35000 tonnes of rubbish to bury
Now remember the council for legal reasons only needs to avoid sending BIODEGRADABLE waste to landfill, so only 2/3 of rubbish is biodegradable, so that makes only 23000 tonnes which actually count
that would cost the council at present £48 per tonne to bury or £1,250,000 per year, that is about 10 million pounds a year cheaper than building the incinerator
Yet Veolia say they NEED to build a 90,000 tonnes per year plant!!!! how can this be so unless they are planning to import rubbish from telford and birmingham or burn the recyclign too neither should be allowed on environmental grounds
DO THE MATHS COUNCILLORS – YOURSELF -
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i hope our MP will be at this meeting to keep up his support against this incinerator being built so close to housing which will effect health and house prices badly
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How do we stop this? When will people ‘in power’ start listening to those of us who vote for them and are going to have this waste of money polluting pile on our doorsteps?
Of all the dangerous money wasting proosals by this council it has to be the absolute worst. Totally disgusted.
Can we find out exactly who voted for this on ‘our’ council?
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Can we ask that the Shropshire Star publishes the names of all Councillors who vote for this, so that the people of Shropshire can then make them pay? Even our MP here in Shrewsbury is against it, along with anyone who doesn’t want more children to develop cancer.
We have to stop these idiots!
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It is well known that incinerators cause health problems for surrounding houses – i guess this is Shropshire councils answer to the affordable housing crisis hey?? What next a nuclear power plant in Church Stretton ?? An abatoir in Ludlow, perhaps a wind farm in Oswestry and a big oil refinery in the middle of North Shropshire! that ought to sought out the house price situation!!!!
i assume the locals will have legal recourse to some kind of compensation for this, i guess they will sue, like most people get compensation for major road building projects in their area and the like, I hope the Council has set some money aside for this
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Given that I have a compost, a waste disposal unit, a solid fuel burner and the local council felt fit to furnish me with half a dozen separate bins for recycling. What exactly is it you plan on incinerating at £150 a tonne? You could build a fully automated recycling plant for that kind of money. What happened to austerity? I do hope my council tax isn’t funding this?
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mike – its barely £25 PER TONNE to get waste sorted at a M.R.F (automated recycling centre) this compares with £50 per tonne landfill and £100 per tonne to incinerate
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That is my whole point Graham
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Being recommended by who?
Obviously the stakeholders who stand to make a lot of money from this. And I bet not one of them lives close enough to breathe the toxins in themselves
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Veolia claims that with the incinerator, only 5% of waste will go to landfill. So what will they do with the 25% left as ash? Even after metal extraction that is a lot of landfill. Some ash is too toxic for ‘normal’ landfill so it will get trucked off to special sites – in lorries past people’s homes. Who trusts Veolia not to make mistakes with this?
Every time the Shropshire Star mentions the incinerator it repeats Veolia’s claim that the incinerator will ‘generate enough electricity to power 10,000′ homes’. This has led some people to believe this means free electricity for homes near the incinerator. Think again! It means big money for Veolia and will not in any way affect local electricity bills.
The incinerator is a licence to print money – for Veolia. The planners have advised passing it on old and faulty figures which paint a picture of waste rising and landfill costing the earth.
Remember: an incinerator is actually a ‘giant landfill in the sky’. It doesn’t magic away our waste; it burns it and it goes up in the air – and comes down again in the form of toxic material, most of it invisible, on you, your children, your gardens, fields, animals. The tiny particulates in the ‘plume’ enter your bloodstream via your lungs and the very young and the vulnerable will be the first to suffer. Many credible studies have shown this but our elected representatives and Quangos prefer to pretend that this isn’t the case. Is anyone surprised that the Environment Agency considers incineration to be safe when its pension fund is known to have investments in Veolia?
Do we really want to take this risk when cheaper, safer alternatives exist to incineration (and landfill) such as anaerobic digestion, waste reduction, more comprehensive recycling etc. All these methods would also create more jobs than an incinerator which will be junk after about 25 years and still be costing us.
Question: why have some Shropshire Council officials been telling people that there are ‘problems’ with the Ludlow anaerobic digester? It couldn’t be anything to do with the clause in the Waste contract that obliges Shropshire Council to support Veolia’s planning application for an incinerator, could it? Surely not?
Many past developments have caused those who came after to curse those who passed them: asbestos, smoking, high-rise developments. Those who have the power of ‘life and death’ over Shropshire residents must think long and hard about their decision on 26th July if they wish to avoid leaving a deadly and expensive legacy for their electors and their electors’ children.
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Keith is absolutely correct and incineration is an expensive option and could be even more costly when stricter CO2 rules come into force. Incineration produces high levels of CO2. There are cheaper and less CO2 producing ways to deal with waste and it does seem odd councils wish to waste your money on a long term contract having been possibly mislead by questionable advice from waste consultants who allegedly some say have interests that lie elsewhere.
Health issues over incineration frequently crop up as a concern (promoted by Messrs Michael Ryan & Dr van Steenis research), but no one has every done any real empirical studies to prove the health effects downwind of incineration. I would suggest that local residents start taking soil samples from various locations around where the proposed incinerator is to be sited. These will be the control samples and should be independently taken and safely stored. If in years to come it can be shown that there is a change in toxicity in the soil from further sampling, thus demonstrating a possible health issue, these test samples would be very important evidence. So if Messrs Ryan and Van Steemis are correct, the councillors voting in favour of the planning application could be on the wrong end of a future class action lawsuit. Just a thought to concentrate their minds……
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i think the headline says it all
“not consistent with the waste local plan”
end of conversation, throw it out then
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shame on them, these ill read planners have misdirected their councillors with this recommendation, read the facts about the cheaper greener alternative solutions and give them the facts about how cheaply waste can be send to the plethora of merchant facilities in the west midlands which are operating below capacity at the moment
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im not really bother so long as its not here, our rubbish used to go to wrexham for years before now its only fair shrewsbury deals with it, so long as its not here
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Superb bit of NIMBY-ism there Dave.
At least you say it how you see it though… ever thought of being a councillor? (I’m sure honesty wont hold your campaign back tooo much :) )
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#2
[The officers report tries to make out the burner is a cheaper option when it not and also does not tell the members that there is not enough waste to keep it burning.]
Has it not occured to you Keith that we will probably be burning other authorities waste too? At a cost of course!
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What a bunch of NIMBYS on here. Energy from Waste plants are used across Europe with no problems and they reduce landfill.
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there is a problem in Holland at the moment, not enough waste to burn so the price has crashed and plants are sat idle and they are having to burn recyclable materials like paper and garden waste to operate them
hardly sustainable is it
there is also evidence of cancer clusters around industrial sites in Denmark
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I wonder how many posters regarding this issue have got UVPC windows. It is this sort of unnecessary product that is highly polluting to produce and highly polluting to dispose of and need not be produced at all when wood is still the best material to use.
We should be aware of what we are creating in waste and not being hypocrites when it comes to the unenviable task of getting rid of our waste.
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Outstanding off-topic rant there by someone making wooden widnow frames?
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Could some of the posters on this list i.e. those who seem to have taken the ‘Veolia injection’ please consider the following:
a) Many of the ‘NIMBYs’ who oppose the incinerator don’t actually live anywhere near its proposed site. Fortunately, some people are able to think a bit more globally than others. It is true that campaigners in these and other matters of inappropriate development tend to be locally-based at first but hasn’t it occurred to you that there just might be a national network – ukwin.org.uk of people who oppose all incineration and landfill and support each others’ campaigns often 100s of miles away?
b) Those who might have been expected to be ‘NIMBYs’ i.e. people living in Harlescott and Sundorne right next to the site have kept mostly very quiet about it. We do know that one reason is that some people have been conned into thinking incinerator = free electricity because of course propaganda seems to work. Sadly, the other reason appears to be apathy or even cynicism; people regard the council as bent and that any such scheme will get railroaded past us whatever we do to try and stop it. We all know that there is some basis for this view.
c) Castigating people for using PVC windows and the like is disingenous. People tend to get them because they’re the cheapest option and because they have been pushed at us in favour of more ‘environmentally-friendly’ options. But blaming the public displays the same lofty attitude that says ‘if you’re naughty and don’t recycle ‘copious amounts’ you deserve an incinerator’.
Please think again! This is an issue for us all: overpackaging, reliance on fossil fuels, wastefulness, incinerating things that can be re-used, dumping stuff in the ground are all linked and we can’t go on doing it.
The only answer is everyone, starting with Government, has to start ‘doing the right thing’. Now!
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I think it’s a good idea, we need to get rid of waste and this is an affective way. It’s no good moaning about house prices in that area and living, it’s an industrial estate which is no where near houses to be fair so it won’t even affect people. You won’t even know it’s there. The only reason it’s being hyped up is because of the bigots who have nothing else better to do with there lives except vote tory…
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Darren, what do you mean nowhere near houses? What about the thousands of people living in Harlescott and Sundorne? Or are these people with houses that don’t matter? To be honest it might affect FEWER residents if it were to be situated in the Quarry Park but I can’t see Shropshire Council passing plans for that (the STCRA would certainly have something to say). The fact is that Veolia are only trying to build this plant here because SC are a soft touch for big business, where other councils have refused them. This plant will do NOTHING for Shrewsbury, NOTHING to help our environment, NOTHING to help our waste management. It will make a very small number of people wealthy but none of them are local residents. It’s the local residents that SC has a duty of care to, and not their business backers.
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its only council houses though so who cares about them, so long as its not in my back yard i dont care, harlescott is a dump so lets dump our waste on it, job done let them eat cake
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If incinerator emissions don’t harm health – as alleged by those who want them – why is there such a reluctance to examine and publish relevant data around existing incinerators?
I note from Simon’s blog that the council might be heading for a class action for health damage. Corby Council thought they’d be able to cover-up their negligence over steelworks remediation that caused horrendous birth defects.
Councillors would be more likely to make correct decisions on health matters like incinerators if they had unlimited personal liability for future claims.
Wolverhampton’s got an incinerator. Why hasn’t Shropshire Council looked at health data around that incinerator that’s almost on their doorstep?
Maybe they’ve already done that, but think they can bluff it out – just like Corby did for a few years before Solicior Des Collins was on the case.
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interesting the guardian published all the councils with high co2 per capita at the weekend and the top ones were isel of scily, sunderland and stoke all councils with incinerators which add to the local carbon footprint. Shropshrie Council was already one of the worst on the list if they add on the incinerator how on earth will they ever reduce their CO2 performance
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good point dave – shropshire council cannot only never meet its financial targets if this gets built but also it will fail to hit its co2 targets which will mean more fines and cost
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everybody knows that incinerators reduce recycling rates – even the Audit Commission has said this, once an incinerator gets built shropshires relatively high rate of recycling ca 50% will be capped at this level for ever more, without it 60-70% is achievable which would be a massive environmental benefit and create more jobs, save more carbon and save more energy
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It would almost certainly be ruled illegal in planning terms if it went to the regional inspector / secretary of state.
I cant beleive the Council would support this when they are democratically accountable.
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the problem emma is that the Council is not obliged to refer it to the minister, it has the power to give permission for waste and minerals sites itself!!! not fair i know but hopefully the members are wise enough here to realise the planning officers report is not the full picture and they will research for themselves the true cost of the PFI contract and the other alternatives which the planners claim dont exist
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Is it ok to continue incinerating Shrophire’s waste in other counties then? I’m fairly sure Shropshire’s clinical waste is shipped off to be dealt with in somebody else’s backyard. There used to be an incinerator at the Royal Shrewsbury hospital and there is an incinerator at the Crematorium. I think perhaps the worriers need to pay a visit to a facility similar to the one being proposed for Shrewsbury and then way up the correct facts and figures rather than listening to all the hysterical hype.
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the hospital incinerator was closed because of its pollution cloudy so your comment seems a bit misplaced there
do you know the history of the site, what it was burning, including human body parts and faeces and such, there are some real health issues there
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Perhaps the guru can enlighten everyone with his/her scientific expertise without trying to scaremonger with gory detail.
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Darren, interesting point, I thought the opposition was left wing do-gooders :)
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im definately right wing and im against this because its public money we should be saving it for lower taxes and paying off the debt which shropshire council and the government ran up under labour
true conservatives we would turn this down and save the taxpayers money
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When will our planners realise that this is the 21st Century.I suppose most of them will not be around when the effects of this Inconerator are felt.
There is no proposal for proper 24 hr monitoring which is mandatory in some European Countries.
Shropshire can with proper guidance and facilities recycle up to 75 % of our waste in a safe manner and produce many jobs in the process making this Incinerator obsolete.
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well said mate i totally agree, 75% is the minimum target in wales by 2020 and in shropshrie we are already ahead of the game so why not go even higher
it could save the council hundreds of millions being enough to save all the schools buses oap services street sweeping etc etc etc
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Not off topic Andy as these products are unnecessary and harmful and no I do not work for a window company!
We’ve had a polluting crematorium right next to a college for decades which has only fairly recently had it’s chimney up graded at a cost of £500,000 to meet the higher European standards.
It sounds a bit like we are supposed to be making money out of this deal with Veolia. As they say “Where there’s much there’s brass!”
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PVC windows are unlikely to be found in the black bag waste they are planning to burn here
of course burning PVC is not sensible (dioxin etc) but even landfilling PVC has issues so better to avoid it in the first place but its not an arguement against incineration on its own, but what veolia should look at is some kind of pre sort or setting up a recycling scheme for PVC atleast, theres alot of lino and such out there in homes which will end up in the residual waste stream and if burnt thats when you get the cancer causing emissions yeah
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Actually I mean’t to type ‘muck’ but on reading it now, I can see that where there’s ‘much’ applies exactly to Shropshire where the well off in the community would far prefer everyone else to make the apparently right choices than to do so themselves.
[Castigating people for using PVC windows and the like is disingenous. People tend to get them because they’re the cheapest option and because they have been pushed at us in favour of more ‘environmentally-friendly’ options.]
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funnily enough the councils needs to make £60 million in cuts it says on front page here – so could this possibly be the best way to save all our schools and hospitals and save jobs in one fell swoop just turn this monster down for planning job done and everyone is happy
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this must not be allowed to go ahead in the current climate cheaper solutions like reyccling must be explored more first
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utterly disgraceful
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this is ludicrous, you cant apply for planning permission to yourself this is not right it must not be allowed its against the waste local plan so it shouldnt even be considered
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Im not entirely convinced by the people who say we can recycle all waste. It would be feasible to do 70% but probably only economic to do 60% recycling but this zero waste well thats just silly. The laws of thermodynamics dictate that you must have some waste from any system. So say you go for 60% recycling with the 152000 tonnes of waste produced in Shropshire every year. Given that you would still have something like 60,000 tonnes of rubbish from Shropshire Council. Ok with a bit of effort on waste minimisation call it 55000 tnnes then but thats still a big pile of rubbish and you cant go on with landfill, by 2014 it will cost the council about £5million per annum to landfill that much!!
So something must be done, but i dont like Veolias solution, its not elegant or well engineered, in my view as an engineer with experience of commissioning plant in the US, it would be far cheaper to build an advanced thermal treatment plant using technology like gasification or pyrolysis which works better for the tiny amounts of rubbish Shropshire has. Straight combustion as proposed by Veolia is really only suitable for big cities because you need to get the economies of scale of tonnages around 200-300 K +. If you want a little plant in each town around Shropshire then you should look at the other technologies first because they are cheaper and wont get the kind of resistance youre getting here because they are more efficient and produce lower emissions too
(hopefully i posted on the right wall this time!) p
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Paul, you said that zero-waste policies are ‘just silly’.
Caroline Spelman, the new environment secretary, announced on 15th June 2010, that driving forward a “zero-waste society” would save money and create green jobs and industry.
Why is this ‘silly’?
Some Shropshire councillors are investigating the possibility of food waste collections and creating energy from it using anaerobic digestion, as they have done so successfully in South Shropshire.
Is this ‘silly’?
Forward-looking companies including Honda, Toyota and Xerox have implemented zero waste strategies.
Zero-waste is clearly a long-term aspiration.
Why do you see it as ‘silly’ to create an efficient, circular waste stream out of a wasteful linear one, Paul?
Surely this is just good housekeeping.
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shocking
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I can see there are a few Tory voters on here commenting…
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If it were to be refused, and went to appeal, the likelihood is the inspector would grant it and award costs against the Council…..aren’t we better off approving it ourselves and saving costs?
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it would be cheaper for the council to turn it down though D
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#26 earl
[im definately right wing and im against this because its public money we should be saving it for lower taxes and paying off the debt which shropshire council and the government ran up under labour
true conservatives we would turn this down and save the taxpayers money]
Typical tory solution. Where’s the waste to go then earl? Will it just magic away?
Last night I heard Rita Chakrabarti on the radio speak about the huge rises in allowances the tory councillors awarded themselves in the London Borough of Barnet. Ministers are furious in this time of shortage for public spending but apparently can do nothing about it. There is going to be a naming and shaming of these guilty councils of whom Shropshire is one. Councillors voted themselves 100% and even 150% more in allowances when the unitary council started.
Why should we be cutting back on the professional and qualified staff at our council when councillors historically put themselves forward for public service in a voluntary capacity, not to get a decent income as now seems to be the case.
These are the people we have to rely on to make very important decisions for Shropshire. The huge cost of our theatre is an example of how good they are at the job and certainly does not fill me with much confidence.
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Nice attempt at a red herring, eva land, but why do you see Conservatives as the only people opposing the burner, when their position as a party is, at best, ambiguous on this issue?
Conservatives oppose the Shrewsbury incinerator, but have not always opposed incineration per se.
In fact, in the European Parliament, Conservatives actively PROMOTED incineration, while the Conservaitve MEP helping to draw up the legislation, Dr Caroline Jackson, took consultancy fees from waste company, Shanks (see Financial Times, Friday 13 June 2008).
Any views on this conflict of interest, eva?
Conservative MEP, Philip Bushill-Matthews, devoted his Shrewsbury Chronicle column on February 22nd 2007 to promoting incineration as the best solution to dealing with the 534 kilos of household waste, which the average EU citizen discards every year.
It is great to see that Daniel Kawczynski MP has been so active in his opposition, but this just surely shows that he is a good democrat, listens to his constituents and sees which way the debate is going.
The Green Party opposed the re-branding of incineration in the European Parliament, and have been long-time opponents of incineration and champions of zero-waste strategies.
Lib Dem MEP, Liz Lynne, and the Lib Dem Shrewsbury and Atcham parliamentary candidate, Charles West have publicly voiced their opposition to the Shrewsbury incinerator.
Here’s Labour’s parliamentary candidate campaigning against the Shrewsbury burner in October, 2007:
http://www.shropshirestar.com/latest/2007/10/01/protest-over-incinerator-plans/
Surely the above is more salient to the Shrewsbury debate than councillor allowances in Barnet?
As a supporter of the incinerator, eva, do you think it offers residents good value for money for the next 27 years?
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this must not be allowed to go ahead, how can they preech austerity whilst going ahead with all these big building projects, knowing as we do that its bought through PFI as well its a complete waste of taxpayers money
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devils advocate an inspector would never approve this its a departure from the waste local plan, why spend millions on policy and strategy units and do all that consultation to get people involved get a plan signed off by councillors and then go and change it, its totally rubbish to say this is a green or financially affordable option for anyone
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this should not be allowed so close to housing and town it will blight the area and its not fair if you just bought a house in the area when the local plan promised it wouldnt be built, they should compensate every single person who has bought a house within the area in the last 5 years becuase they have lied to them basically and their house has been bought under false pretences
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Not exactly a problem it’s only the grange thats near by….. i know then lets build more social housing and re-house them…. may be not.
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no way i dont believe it, everyone i know is so anti this, how can a democratic organisation ignore its customers so much, they just dont listen because they are guarenteed their income, they need to understand we are paying customers!!
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what i was concerned to read in the planning report is that English Heritage was objecting to the application based on its impact on the ancient battlefield and associated historical site and church. This is something i feel is a material planning consideration on its own worthy of rejecting the application.
English Heritage obviously agreed but then the applicant has paid them a site management fee and as a result they have agreed not to object!!! this is nothing short of scandalous, how can they change their opinion on something so important.
We all now it will ruin this area but as real people no one listens to us, we need formal agencies like this to add their weight to the objections formally for planners to take them seriously. English Heritage’s opinion counts for the same weight as thousands of actual tax payers, so I think we should assume they are still against this really because that was obviously there original position
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this is an excellent point, the incinerator WILL have a negative impact on battelfield historical site, as such it should be turned down no matter how many interpretive boards veolia pay for, it will ruin the view and make the place feel modern and ugly
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i think the headline is unfair on our elected members i wrote to mine and he’s against the incinerator – the council is not for it, just one of their officers their senior planning manager, i suspect the rest of the council are against it because they want to see more recycling and lower council tax and more frequent waste collections and proper frontline services which people value, this have never been democratically voted on and its not the will of the council as a whole, lets just hope its not the will of the planning committee, maybe im wrong but im optimistic the committee will restore my faith in humanity and throw this out for all the material reasons odour, noise, pollution, impact on historic site, traffic, aesthetics, landscape impact but also on the policy reasons its not the lowest carbon impact option or the most cost effective, its against the local plan, its not been voted on by the council, the other options have not been set out in the report, its being offered as the only option when we all know its not, its really got nothing going for it and i think and pray they will listen to the people and throw it out
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If you are aaginst this Incinerator go to the planning meeting on 26th July at Meole Brace School,if you do nothing it will certainly arrive to the detriment of ALL Shrewsbury residents. We all pay these planners and councilors so they must wake up and lissen to the residents of Shrewsbury
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#44 Faisel said [
i think the headline is unfair on our elected members i wrote to mine and he’s against the incinerator]
#37 Devil’s Advocate says [
If it were to be refused, and went to appeal, the likelihood is the inspector would grant it and award costs against the Council…..aren’t we better off approving it ourselves and saving costs?]
So you see our well paid councillors can retain their popularity by voting the way we indicate but it is all just costly and rather meaningless in the end, isn’t it?
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you are wrong eva, many many many councils have turned down incinerators in their area and its their right to do so, planning is there to protect our town from inappropriate development and that is what this incinerator is, its old technology in the wrong location and its not needed
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telford council turned down and incinerator recently with out bother
and cheshire west and chester council just turned down another
because they have good reason to, there is over capacity for incineration in the region and this is supressing recycling rates and wasting public money
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As a supporter of the incinerator, eva, do you think it offers residents good value for money for the next 27 years?
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short answer is NO
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its bought on PFI of course its not value for money Huw
would you buy your house on a credit card?
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Huw you surprise me! I’d never have seen you as a supporter of the incinerator.
I have no idea whether it will offer good value but it does look like we would perhaps be getting some sort of return for burning other authorities rubbish. You probably know more than me about this being such an avid reader.
I take it you don’t live near to to the proposed site then Huw?
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Do you think mis-representing my position on the incinerator helps or hinders your case for the burner, eva?
I have consistently opposed this incinerator, not because I live near to the proposed site, but because I think burning valuable resources, which could be re-used or recycled, is not sustainable in the long-term, particularly when the government are talking enthusiastically about ‘zero-waste’ policies.
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eva eventually responded to this on another thread:
http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2010/07/20/plastic-added-to-shrewsbury-kerbside-recycling-scheme/ #20
Interestingly she said that she had not ‘written anything in support of the incinerator’.
Anyone re-reading eva land’s contributions on the above thread (#16, #18, #28, #29, #38 and #46) might find it hard to agree with her.
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interesting article here about another option
http://www.letsrecycle.com/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=37&listcatid=217&listitemid=55817
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fair point Asif, technology has come a long way since this was decided what almost ten years ago, gasifcation is a cleaner, cheaper PROVEN bankable technology and yet the planners say there is not another option, on that point alone you have proved with this finding that their report is not accurate or balanced or fair
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hang on a minute Asif, the planners say there are no other options, they say they spoke to the applicant who assured them there are no other options avaialable! could it be that the planners report is innaccurate?? that would call the whole thing into question then surely because the committee would be unable to assess the merits of the application vis a vis the alternatives
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this is going to kick off if its approved i reckon swampy the protestor will be there digging in to stop it
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it will be a close decision i think because people are either totally for or totally against there is no one on the fence on this, major controversy hey! My main priority for Shrewsbury is aesthetics, design and conservation of old buildings, i loath (most) modern architecture
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you should be against this then attica!
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im against this going ahead because it will have a negative effect on the perception of the town and be visible from the railway, so its hardly a welcoming site on the main north entrance to the town is it, i mean we have put alot of effort into tourism, why on earth would be locate a waste incinerator here
im not really bothered about greenie arguements or financial ones, but just pure looks and feel and character its just not the right development for this town
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this must be turned down, surely its not acceptable in our charming medieval town, this is an inappropriate development for this site and must be refused on the looks alone it looks like a space ship landing in the middle of the countryside and will ruin the view from the ancient historical site and the lovely 4 star hotel there
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true true, i bet that hotel will close off the back of this loosing hundreds of jobs, what a crazy location they chose
also the planners report is full of mistakes so surely it should be thrown out
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I dispair – what the hell are shropshire council playing at they seem to be in the pocket of big business they are absolutely ruining this county desperately seeking big business and industry and supermarkets on every corner. This is undermining small little local businesses crowding them out. We already have local businesses involved in waste disposal so why put them out of a job.
The Policy of Industrialisation which seems to have been adopted by shropshire council is against the will of the people and not in the public interest, its not what we want we are a small agriculutral histortical charming rurual county with low population (therefore low waste) we dont want industry all over the place pumping out fumes and ruining the views. The whole thing that makes this place nice is being threatened and in the long term this means our comparative economic advantage of being a pleasant place to live, work and visit which is what brings people and jobs to shropshire is at threat.
Please please please stop ruining our town and our county with this.
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i dont want this here or anywhere it will ruin the town
we should demand monitoring and evaluation of PM2.5 fine particles of dust which get deep into the lung and cause cancer, we all know this is a massive problem yet the pollution control people dont measure them!
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i think these people should be sacked, they are clearly out of kilter with public opinion and dont understand their customers one iota, to propose something like this for a town like Shrewsbury shows a complete lack of understanding of locality and local peoples wants and needs, get back to basics fix the pot holes and clear up the dogs muck, no more public art, fancy building projects or dirty polluting waste disposal sites in the middle of a town, stupid
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im staggered by the lack of technical knowledge of waste this planning officer has demonstrated here, this is just wrong
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The Planning meeting date for the Incinerator has now been changed to 1st Sept at Meole Brace School at 2 p.m. any objector can request to speak but must register this request with http://www.shropshire.gov.uk/planning well before hand.As many as possible need to come to show the strength of our objection
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