Actor Robert Hardy backs Shrewsbury incinerator protests
Tuesday 21st June 2011, 11:57AM BST.
Veteran actor Robert Hardy has criticised the proposed £60 million incinerator in Shropshire as a “blasted chimney” and threatened to resign from his role with English Heritage over the burner.
Mr Hardy, who is known for roles including Siegfried Farnon in TV’s All Creatures Great and Small, is furious with bosses of the organisation after they changed their stance to back the controversial burner in Battlefield, Shrewsbury.
The 85-year-old, who plays Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, in the Harry Potter films, is a member of English Heritage’s own panel which advises on how to preserve battlefields. But he has threatened to resign if the organisation continues to back the scheme by waste firm Veolia.
The plans to build the incinerator were rejected by Shropshire Council’s strategic planning committee last year but an appeal will take place by way of a public inquiry in September.
A statement from English Heritage said: “This is a finely balanced case. English Heritage accepts that the plant will affect the setting of the registered battlefield, but it is also true that the archaeology and understanding of the battlefield itself are not threatened.”
A spokesman for Veolia said: “The proposed site is on an industrial estate which is an existing employment area. A detailed environmental impact assessment was provided as part of our planning application which was recommended for approval by Shropshire Council’s planning department.”
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I was left wondering what motivation an organisation such as English Heritage could possibly have for supporting a company like Veolia. A quick search on Google reveals that Veolia has made several financial contributions to projects also supported by English Heritage through its spin-off Veolia Environmental Trust. In view of this, English Heritage is hardly in a position to object to anything that Veolia Environmental Services (UK) plc proposes, for fear of souring their relationship.
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Bravo Mr Hardy! At last an actor with some sense. You need only stand by Battlefield Church to see the ugly march of supermarkets, ringroads and ‘ business parks’. Hardly a fitting vista for one of our most historic sites.
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i have always been of the view that the old buildings and the landscape is Shrewsburys USP without which its finished, yet in the name of progress we are vandalising our townscape and often the most guilty party is the very planning authority who has a statutory duty to protect it!! Its economic lunacy
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Very true! As with many planning departments up and down the land SCC works against many of the usp’s in our town. Pity the councillors are too weak/ill informed/brainwashed to tackle the planning officers.
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true true, the worst buildings in shrewsbury architecturally are probably shirehall, the theatre, princess house, scat, the indoor market and that sixth form college building on barker street
the common theme!
all Council buildings!!
Then they have given planning for the likes of that tin shed tennis club in sundorne, the posh cattle shed that is lidl in harlescott, most of the battlefield business park, the list goes on…
they are truly inept, uncaring about the importance of conservation and design, undermining our tourism potential, our history and basically they are just generally toothless and too soft on developers.
why cant we building anything half decent looking any more with traditional architecture and natural building materials? its such a waste, the planners should insist
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Agreed the Council is ruining this town with ugly buildings
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Well done Robert Hardy. He’s probably as dismayed as I am at the links between Veolia and English Heritage that are publicised elsewhere (by Veolia themselves). As my earlier comment was deleted presumably this is too sensitive for the Shropshire Star to print.
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Well done Mr. Hardy.
How many times do Veolia have to be told that the scheme is not wanted or welcome in Shrewsbury.
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I think it’s called living in the real world attica.
I remember back in the 1970s when we just had country roads serving Shrewsbury.
Due to many many more people choosing to drive in cars and a larger population than we had then, we have gradually built more and more roads and also facilities to serve those people.
Ther has been a gradual improvement in the landscaping of these roads, dual carriageways, roundabouts, bypasses but we can’t step backwards or live in aspic. Old and new can work together very successfully with well considered design but we cannot go back to the horse and cart.
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I can almost hear the curmudgeonly hand wringing of the NIMBY brigade. “We don’t want an incinerator here, lets stay in the dark ages and hope no one notices us”. Shrewsbury needs an incinerator and it is high time this selfish whining about skylines, supermarkets and ring roads stopped. These things happen. Like it or not it is called progress and it happens in every town or city in the land. Deal with it.
The fact is that year after year we produce more and more rubbish. This rubbish requires more areas of landfill to bury it in. We can’t afford to keep doing this, from a financial standpoint or from an ecological one either. Instead of moaning about the building of an incinerator which will clear this rubbish cleanly and efficiently bring some alternatives to the table and stop your whining.
As for Robert Hardy, great actor and so on but give him a few weeks and if someone asks him about the Shrewsbury incinerator he’ll be saying “What!! Where!!”
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what is this “need” based on Norman? the amount of waste produced in Shrewsbury is declining year on year and there is not enough waste to fill the capacity of the plant, they will be shipping it in from Cheshire and Telford!!!!
There is incinerators in Wolverhampton, Dudley, Birmingham and Stoke, all of these have spare capacity again because of declining amounts of waste.
So in terms of capacity and as such “need” there is no need for this development
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Norman Foster said:
“an incinerator which will clear this rubbish cleanly and efficiently bring some alternatives to the table…”
No it won’t. It will pump thousands of tonnes of toxins and CO2 into the atmosphere. Doesn’t matter how tall the chimney is, what goes up must come down – there will be long-term health implications for Shropshire folk and beyond.
Robert Hardy has brought the oxygen of publicity to this case and has shamed and humiliated both English Heritage and Shropshire Council into some furious back-pedalling!!
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i totally agree – the view from haughmond hill overlooking town has been ruined by unconstrained cheap development and this is a step too far
i agree with the other comments re – relations between english heritage and veolia and am suprised the press arent investigating more the “donation” towards landscaping which smoothed over the initial formal objections that were made to the planning application
there is no doubt if it proceeds that this develpment would scar the landscape and undermine the historic character of this precious site
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good man
i hope he uses his harry potter spells to put a curse on veolia’s lawyers and thier attempts to ram through this unpopular, inappropriate, misplaced, unwanted, ugly, expensive, outdated and unnecessary, unsustainable development
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i think the council is actively making shrewsbury a less attractive place, most of its own buildings are clad in pebbledash or concrete blocks, they permit development on floodplains, in conservation zones and no on a battlefield, they are utterly inept and devoid of appreciate for the design and conservation aspects of the planning system, i think its disgraceful and the whole planning department wants shaking up and heritage and historical design standards and QUALITY not quantity needs to be made its core mission statement and overarching objective
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Well said Mr Hardy.
Mr Hardy obviously cares about Shropshire,
as his father H H Hardy CBE was a Headmaster of Shrewsbury School
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And I as a Wyle Cop resident, grew up in the same village as he lived – Bishop’s Cleeve, just this side of Cheltenham.
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I think the historical and aesthetic issues are sound grounds to turn down the application and clearly material planning considerations but they miss the point that most people are against this development because its not in the interests of recycling and waste minimisation. Having an incinerator makes Councils lazy about recycling if you look at the Councils who use incineration from London to Hampshire to Wolverhampton and Dudley they all have a common theme which is some of the lowest recycling rates in the UK. Incineration is not an alternative to landfill, sadly for many its an altrnative to recycling and composting and thats why we should all be agains this development.
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I am opposed to this development, they are “dumping” the waste problem on a poorer side of town because they think we dont matter, it would never even be considered in Copthorne, or any of the leafy suburbs
I think its scandalous they dont value our health or our property
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House prices you say, Theres a large coal burning power station in the Ironbridge Gorge and some of the houses there are amongst the most expensive in Shropshire.
Rubbish desperate argument..
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wrong spencer
ironbridge houses are much cheaper that the equivolent house elsewhere
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Well done Mr. Hardy. And thank you Iron Flag for your usual wise words, a Shrewsbury person thro. and thro. not many of us about. Have you ever thought to become a councillor, we need somebody like you to bring some common sense to politics.
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Is the voice of one thespian supposed to carry added gravitas to a discussion?
Are his views to be considered greater than should say Sean Connery or Jimmy Crankie speak up for the ‘pro’ side?
I can already see in my minds eye the new town motto gracing the boards as I enter the town limits.
“Shrewsbury,home to clutching of straws”
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Well said, although I sense there will soon be people making scurrilous remarks about your likely parentage.
Apres moi le deluge?
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I think the thespian link is a red herring. His role at English Heritage carries the weight.
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“I think the thespian link is a red herring”
Surely what he gets up to in private is no concern of ours?
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You’re right, Jake. Just because he’s an actor doesn’t make him a bad person.
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I agree with Pete entirely, however, had it have been Vinnie Jones instead of Robert Hardy, well, you’d have to listen or he’d be round your house and give you a good thrashing!
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[quote]Is the voice of one thespian supposed to carry added gravitas to a discussion?[/quote]
Only when the thespian in question is also a historian and as such a renowed expert in medieval battles.
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actually he is an expert on medieval battles so its irrelevant what acting he does you should listen to his opinion because of his historical expertise
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Indeed.
Mr Hardy is a great actor – but I can’t see that he has any expertise on this subject. He once played a vet – I wonder if on the bass of that rural Shropshire folk would trust him to treat their livestock?
I’d hope not, but the responses to this make me think otherwise!
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Mr Hardy is an actor which is fortunate for him because to continue to live in fairy mediaeval land you need to pretend.
If any of you protesting about the roads and infrastructure that have been built in the last 30/40 years can honestly put your hand up and say you have not used any of them then fair comment. If not then think a bit harder about what you expect from our planning system.
We had a shopping centre designed to look like fake timber framed buildings in the 1980s and it is a disaster, akin to Disney land. Have none of you used it?
I disagree with Lucy p the design is not an issue here with the so called historic site. As previously pointed out the road infrastucture around that site is not mediaeval it is modern for modern vehicles to use.
If the incinerator was built to look like a giant castle or motte and bailey it would be ridiculous.
The councillors just used that reason to fail the application because they were being two faced having struck a deal and contract with Veolia long before this proposal and were grasping at straws for a reason to refuse it so to look better with the electorate.
If you want to fight the incinerator use valid arguments and stop dissing any progress in our town about anything.
Harlescott Billy, come to London Road and Shrewsbury College, where chemicals have been pouring out for 40 yrs from the crematorium.
Now that situation is going to be addressed by a private entrepreneur but we lose a profitable public owned facility in exchange for a cleaner chimney. With better financial mangement from our councillors we could have had the improved, cleaner chimney and continued to benefit from our inevitably busy and profitable crematorium.
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i think its a terrible place to site such a thing
its too close to houses people will be living in doors all day in fear with the windows locked
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..they probably said something similar when they put the bridge up at Coalbrookdale, still whilst they’re locked up in doors they can go online and think up all manner of fears and tribulations to put on sites like this.
Welcome to the 21st century
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he has revealled a real scandal here because English Heritage should be squeeky clean but they have been comprimised badly here
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I suppose who ever gets Cheryl Cole and Katie Price on their side will hold the high ground and should it be the anti brigade Iron Flag will also be hailing them as the nearest thing to Mother Teresa
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does HE live in shrewsbury???????? no I did not think so!! so what as it to do with HIM??
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What’s it got to do with him? There are some clues in the article:
“…controversial burner in Battlefield, Shrewsbury”
“[English Heritage] changed their stance to back the controversial burner”
“[Robert Hardy] is a member of English Heritage’s own panel which advises on how to preserve battlefields”
…are three of them.
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Good points well made, however does it mean that his lone voice from EH should drown out all the others?
Would the S-S have run the story if 10 others who hadn’t been an actor-luvvy, once again ‘celebrity’ seems to rule the roost in so many peoples lives, just look at when that well known person with a criminal record and was jailed in Shropshire graced the S-S offices for his latest failed attempt at getting a pardon.
All in all it is quite sad :-(
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That was probably a fair and well made point, but can you get someone famous to say it instead? I might read it all the way through then.
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Surely practically every field in england has had a battle at some point, is he proposing no modern buildings should be put near any of them, in that case there would be zero development and economic stagnation, now the not in my back yarders (NIMBYS) have gone BANANAS build absolutely nothing anywhere never atall.
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he is a recognised national expert on battlefields, thats why his opinion matters not his fame, he is right the development is inappropriate and english heritage ought to be fighting it all the way
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TO QUOTE “English Heritage accepts that the plant will affect the setting of the registered battlefield”
so they should formally object then! this application is completely unsustainable environmentally it relies on hundreds of thousands of people consistently wasting more and more stuff and chucking out rubbish every week when all the evidence suggests that this type of consumerist behaviour is on the decline, waste to landfill in Shropshire has declined every year for the last 10, there is simply no need for this burner. Add to that the poor landscaping and the obvious visual impact on the battlefield and it should have been thrown out ages ago.
EH COULD KILL THIS WHOLE RUDDY APPLICATION STONE DEAD WITH AN OBJECTIION
they are being negligent in their duty to conserve heritege in my opinion
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I think this is a timely intervention so well done to Mr Hardy, he has managed to make this point more eloquently than I could but basically its ugly modernity intruding on the countryside, we need to set boundaries, the bypass here is a natural barrier and the edge of Shrewsbury must be sacrosanct, no development should be allowed to tower over a charming field like this, its been like that for 500 years, lets keep it like that for another 500, the Battle of Shrewsbury was one of the most important events in English history, can you imagine Bosworth, the tower of london or the beaches of Normandy being subjected to such a rape? Shropshire council should hang its head in shame, to be fair the planning committee turned it down correctly, its the waste managers who should be blamed for this
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It’s a field, full stop. Did you have the same reservations when somebody desecrated the field that your home now sits on? Thought not.
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irrespective of siegfried farnon, this was always a daft site for an incinerator. eh up mr vitinary try siting it near wrecsam
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A sad state of affairs but we have a growing refuse problem, holes in the ground are being filled as quick as they are dug,incineration seems the sensible and perhaps only solution because if you try and create digesters that create methane that can be then used in power stations another pressure group starts their individual bandwagon rolling. We create the problem why should we send it to other areas for them to have to deal with it?
Clearly recycling is the preferred option but just take a look at what your neighbours are throwing out each fortnight, a lot of the time it’s plain laziness that creates some much refuse that needs a new home, perhaps that’s where the pressure should centred.
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The best way to encourage people being lazy with their waste is to build an incinerator, Preringo.
Recycling levels are shooting up across the country, as people learn more about the waste problem and environmentally-friendly ways of dealing with it.
Well done, Mr Hardy, for taking a stand.
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[he is a recognised national expert on battlefields, thats why his opinion matters not his fame, he is right the development is inappropriate and english heritage ought to be fighting it all the way]
Leon the battlefield has now moved to the internet!
He is no loss to English Heritage if he thinks it is about no change.
English Heritage is about places evolving so they will demand that a listed building can only be altered/respected by good design and that most likely will be a contemporary solution so that it is clear how a building has changed over the decades and can be read more easily in the future.
#21 ian allfield is absolutely right we are constantly changing history and all sorts of history is under our feet.
A good example is Burr’s Field in Shrewsbury by the river. 100 yrs ago a massive lead works stood on that site and today an attractive recreation area though I would be reluctant to grow veggies there! I wonder if they did in the war? A lot of the Quarry was given over to the war effort I believe!
Preringo makes a good point, there’s a lot of hypocrisy about.;)
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i think to be fair to the planning committee they unanimously backed the people of Shrewsburys verdict and turned this thing down citing impact on the battefield as a material reason for the rejection so they are obviously aware of the heritage value of this internationally signicant site
the problem is the stupid idiots in the waste department signed a contract which meant they would not only have to support but have to PAY FOR (with OUR money!) the developer to go an hire a QC and appeal to the regional planning inspector on this
Its an absolute scandal this whole rotten deal is bankrupting the council and may lead to the ruination of this area and the credit card spending of the council is coming back to haunt it now
would your really knowing the current finanical position of the council sign up to not only build a £60,000,000 plant but to hire it on a PFI credit card and end up paying back £400,000,000 over the next 25 years for it
its utter utter folly sadly its worse its criminal negligance its stupidity and its frankly p%^&**ing taxpayers money up the wall like a drunk man with a corporate expenses account
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Robert Hardy has expressed his opposition to incinerators accurately and eloquently. Burning waste and pumping thousands of tonnes of toxic gases and CO2 into the atmosphere annually is clearly madness. Councils and Government need to focus far more attention on reducing waste before this option is even considered:
1. Reduce, Re-use, Recycle. Monthly bin collections are more than adequate if this is practiced. Councils must continue to improve re-cycling services.
2. Apply an excess packaging tax to manufacturers and retailers with the aim to reduce waste by 50%
3. Place a 10p deposit on all bottles, cans, and per kilo of paper. Micro recycling services will spring up everywhere!
4. Have citizenship classes in schools to teach young people to take responsibility for their environment and their future. Seems a bit too late for the older generation.
Isn’t it strange – a NIMBY is only a NIMBY when their not in my back yard?!
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well said that man
Our heritage is priceless
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Eva, Burr’s field. where the lead works was situated is the one that is completely overgrown, and a company was seeking to build houses on it with a price tag of £1 million plus each.( Planning permission was refused about 2-3 years ago ) The next field on is the recreation field in my day called Coney Green.
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I think this is a timely intervention and I hope the planning inspectorate will take note!
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