The Allerton Park incinerator decision
Posted by Andrew Jones, MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, at 16:46, Thu 1 November 2012:
The North Yorkshire County Council’s Planning Committee approval of the proposal for an incinerator at Allerton Park is a very disappointing result for all of us who have campaigned against it over many years. But although it is a setback for the campaign against the proposed incinerator, it is by no means the end of it.
The incinerator is simply unnecessary – the plant will be both too big for the amount of waste the County generates and will use technology which has already been superseded. In my view, the alternatives have not been fully researched by North Yorkshire County Council.
Recycling is increasing in North Yorkshire and particularly in the Harrogate district. This is a good thing. The County Council has not taken this into account. More recycling means that there will be no need for drastic means of waste disposal such as incineration.
There are new methods of separating waste for recycling and waste is now viewed very much as a resource. The answer to our waste problem is not simply to burn it.
Nigel Adams, the Member of Parliament for the neighbouring constituency, and I have written to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government asking him to call the application in to be considered by a planning inspector. We have done this because we believe the application has too wide an impact across our region for the decision to be taken by a small group of councillors. We are working with your parish councils and local residents to convince the inspector that this decision should not stand.
I want it to be clear straight away that the fight against the incinerator does not end here. Instead, it has progressed to a new stage and the arguments will be made strongly once again.
I would urge everyone, despite this setback and the disappointment that we all feel, not to think that this is the end of the road. It is not, as many similar circumstances in the past have shown.
Support for the call-in request is critical and people who have been involved have received an email from the North Yorkshire Waste Action Group (NYWAG) regarding this.
Please take a moment of your time to write to the Planning Inspectorate stating why you think this application should be called in to Public Inquiry, please write or email to:
National Planning Casework Unit, 5 St Philips Place, Colmore Row, Birmingham, B3 2PW. The email address is bev.jones@communities.gsi.gov.uk, with a copy to npcu@communities.gsi.gov.uk.
In your correspondence you state that your letter refers to the Allerton Waste Recovery Plant at Allerton Park Quarry near Knaresborough as determined by North Yorkshire County Council.
Thanks to everyone who has supported the campaign against this incinerator and thanks to all of those who have taken a very active role in the campaign to date.
Andrew Jones MP, 01423 529614, andrew.jones.mp@parliament.uk www.andrewjonesmp.co.uk @AndrewJonesMP
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Posted by David Graham, 17:58, Thu 1 November 2012: (Is this post abusive?) #
Whilst I'm not involved in this project, I understand that the Allerton Park facility will include an Anaerobic Digestor for biodegradable waste, and that this will produce a combustible gas containing Methane, like modern Towns Gas (but not so calorific). Presumably they will be doing something with that gas.
I also understand that there will be an element of waste sorting, to segregate recyclables from other material, the latter being combusted to produce steam. The steam is intended to drive an electricity generator, which surely in overall terms must be rather better than merely landfilling the waste, because landfills actually do produce gas, as well as liquid run-off, and it's rather more smelly than gas produced in an AD plant. Luckily, I don't live near Allerton Park and my house value won't be affected.
If, as seems likely, the plant will be expanded to take waste from Lincs or Durham, etc., then the plan as it stands will simply have been a Trojan Horse, (One foot in the door....)
It would have been better in my view if the incinerator had been built near the industrial areas round Stockton or Immingham or Leeds, which could readily use the waste hot water as well as the steam or electricity and the biogas. Has anyone got a copy of the Front End Engineering Design, with its process outlines and cost estimates?
Did the County Council attain the services of an independant process engineering company to analyse the Developer plans and highlight inconsistencies or errors? If not, they should have done.
For example, no equipment is completely reliable. When it breaks down or gets clogged-up, what happens to the interdependant processes and what unfortunate plant technician would have to fix the problem? In the first case, would there be a plant upset and an emission of noxious gas?
Warren Spring laboratory in Stevenage did some research on dealing with bin-wagon loads of waste, a long time ago. The stench was enormous, and as environmental health officers know, stench = copious bacteria resulting from waste degradation. No doubt the technology has improved, and there are of course some incinerators operating in Sheffield and Holland etc., and of course the Developer has promised to operate the processes in sheds with a negative pressure within. Presumably this negative pressure will be created by fans exhausting via an abatement column to get rid of noxious and harmful gases, and destroy any bacteria in the fumes.
Finally, AD plants are themselves well proven in the UK, and so is mixed waste combustion. In the USA, waste production is so enormous that authorities have had to develop waste "hills", like colliery spoil-heaps, (though I've not seen one). If we as people will not reduce our waste output, what medium term option is there?
Be pleased to see what options there are, which don't cost an "arm ....".