Getting angrier by the minute!

This afternoon, I opened my emails at County Hall to find a "media briefing" sent out all councillors on behalf of Cornwall Council leader Alec Robertson.

Listed under “positive news” is the Council’s failure to defend its decision not to build a massive 240,000 tonne incinerator at St Dennis.

Positive news for who? It is certainly not positive news for me or the people of the China Clay Area!

Graham Smith of the BBC has beaten me to the blog entry on this. He writes: “Prepared by the council's press office, the document is helpfully divided into lists of "positive news" and "negative news," and as long as the former outnumber the latter then Cornwall's Tribunes can rest easy, secure in the knowledge that the bosses know what they're doing. But - gadzooks! - don't these lists look rather subjective? For example, the decision of the Secretary of State to approve the St Dennis waste incinerator is only good news if you don't actually live in St Dennis. And, er, the official policy of the council (as set out at a £1million+ public inquiry) is still to oppose the St Dennis incinerator.”

Getting angrier by the minute …

Appeal decision is more like a SITA press release, than a balanced judgement from a Planning Inquiry

Yesterday, I studied the key aspects of the appeal decision and the conclusions of the Inspector and then the Secretary of State. Here are what I consider the key elements of the decision.

First and foremost, the Inspector fully accepted the validity of the Waste Local Plan agreed by Cornwall County Council in 2002, which included a proposal for a 200,000 tonne incinerator within the China Clay Area, and the “Integrated Waste Management Contract” agreed between the County Council and SITA in 2006. He wrote: “The Contract required the appellant to deliver an EfW plant with a 240,000 tonne capacity” on the appeal site. He gave great weight to this.

The local community presented an extremely detailed case to the Inquiry, which demonstrated that this approach was wrong and the selection of the St Dennis site was flawed, but these views were ignored.

The Inspector gave significant weight to the limited amount of landfill space this is available in Cornwall. He was also critical that Cornwall Council did not present an alternative approach or approaches to waste management, or identify what he termed credible alternative sites.

He ignored the representations from Rule 6 Parties about more sustainable waste management methods, the Waste Hierarchy and a range of related issues.

The local community also argued that the 240,000 tonne incinerator was over-sized and much larger that the likely total extent of domestic waste arisings in future years. The Inspector did not accept our arguments and said he would be content to see the plant burning up larger amounts of commercial and industrial waste.

He concluded that “there is a compelling need for the CERC facility to be in place in good time to address [the] pressing problem” of what to do with Cornwall’s waste.

The Inspector also decided that the impact of the incinerator on nature conservation interests, the historic environment, public footpaths or landscape character would not be unacceptably harmful. He also failed to take note of health concerns raised by local people.

But unbelievably, he also wrote that the “CERC buildings would be of a distinctive high quality and innovative design. The curved form of the roofs of the building would reflect the rolling forms of the countryside around St Dennis.” As one person in St Dennis said on Friday: “This reads more like a SITA press release, than a balanced judgement from a Planning Inquiry.”

The Inspector did conclude that the “visual impact of the stack and, to a lesser extent, the buildings would have an intrusive and harmful impact on some shorter distance vantage points” and that noise levels “would adversely affect the amenity of those people living in the properties” at La Mount Corner, which he elsewhere referred to as a “localised” impact.

However, the view of the inspector was that the benefits of the scheme were “substantial and compelling” and outweighed the “harm by way of visual impact and the effect of traffic noise.”

Controversially, he also gave “very substantial weight … to the financial repercussions of the CERC proposal not proceeding,” arguing that the perceived cost presented to the Inquiry would “hit taxpayers and the Council hard at a time of straightened financial circumstances …”

I remain gutted at the findings of the Inspector, many of which I consider unacceptable. I am also angry that so many of the arguments presented by local people have been so casually dismissed.

St Dennis has been failed by the planning system and the political process

Shown below is the timetable that lead towards yesterday's awful decision on the incinerator,and some key facts:

1. In 2002, Cornwall County Council agreed a Waste Local Plan, which included a proposal for a 200,000 tonne incinerator within a Central Cornwall Area of Search – most of which was in the China Clay Area.

2. In 2006, Liberal Democrat controlled Cornwall County Council agreed the “Integrated Waste Management Contract” with SITA. It specified the construction of an incinerator near St Dennis. 33 Liberal Democrats and two independents voted for the Contract. It was opposed by 28 councillors (Conservatives, Independents, Labour and, I think, one Lib Dem).

3. Over the next two-three years, Liberal Democrats such as David Whalley and Adam Paynter lead from the front in promoting the incinerator proposal.

4. The proposal for the incinerator was turned down at a Planning Committee meeting in March 2009. The vote was 20 for refusal (Conservatives, Independents, Labour and Lib Dems), one against (Lib Dem) and one abstention (Lib Dem).

5. Throughout this period, both before and after the refusal of the planning application, leading politicians from the main parties came to St Dennis to offer support to campaigners (and get their pictures in the paper). These included Mark Prisk, who titled himself as the Conservative’s Shadow Cornwall Minister (see above).

6. SITA registered an appeal in September 2009. Conservative Council leader Cllr Alec Robertson attended a public meeting at St Dennis later in the same month and local people were reassured that the Council would robustly defend the appeal.

7. By early 2010, lack of progress with the Contract meant the Cabinet had the right to terminate the Contract. At the Council’s Waste Panel, I moved that we recommend to the Cabinet that they investigate the termination of the Contract. This was opposed by the majority of Conservative, Independent and Liberal Democrat councillors on the Panel. The Conservative / Independent Cabinet declined to terminate the Contract or even to investigate termination as an option. At the same time, the present administration of the Council has refused to work up a Plan B to a single centralised incinerator.

8. The planners at Cornwall Council did robustly defend the appeal, at a Public Inquiry over a period of 36 days spread between 16th March and 7th October 2010, assisted by a number of Rule 6 parties including STIG/St Dennis Parish Council, Power of Cornwall, Transition Cornwall Network and the Cornwall Sustainable Waste Network.

9. However, staff from Cornwall Council’s Waste team did prepare and present information to the Inquiry specifically to the benefit of SITA’s case. This included claims that the cost of not proceeding with the Incinerator would be in the region of £200 million.

10. This week, it was discovered that Alec Robertson, the Leader of Cornwall Council, had written to Eric Pickles in April calling on him to dismiss the arguments made by the Council at the Inquiry and uphold the planning appeal in favour of SITA. In the resultant publicity, he made claims that the failure of the appeal would now cost £332 million. Alec Robertson’s position also reflects that of the Chief Executive and his corporate directors, who have always hoped that the incinerator would get the go-ahead.

11. On 16th March, the Planning Inspector lodged his report with the Secretary of State. It recommended that the Appeal be allowed. Eric Pickles followed his advice.

12. In the ruling, the Inspector and Mr Pickles gave full weight to the 2002 Waste Local Plan that proposed an incinerator in Mid Cornwall and the Contract that specified the construction of an incinerator near St Dennis, as well as the perceived financial costs of a different approach to waste management. The failure of Cornwall Council to have worked up alternative proposals and/or found alternative sites was identified as a justification to allow the appeal. I disagree strongly with the findings and the fact that the arguments of local people have been so casually dismissed.

13. My conclusion is simple. St Dennis has been failed by the planning system, the political process and the two main political parties.

Tomorrow, I will post a more detailed review of the actual appeal decision.

Incinerator gets the go-ahead - update

I have just found out that Eric Pickles has given the go-ahead for an incinerator to be built near St Dennis. He has gone with the recommendation of the Inspector who recommended that it be approved.

Like many people, I am now reading through the 427 page decision document and finding so many assertions with which I simply do not agree. In truth, I am struggling to come to terms with what has been sanctioned.

Local people raised reason after reason why the incinerator should not be allowed, but the Inspector has simply ignored these concerns. At the same time, he has given substantial weight to the out-dated Waste Local Plan and dubious waste projections, as well as the dreadful, onerous contract signed by the previous County Council and the financial implications of not progressing with incineration

This represents a crushing defeat. The best interests of St Dennis and Mid Cornwall have been sacrificed by politicians and the planning system.

“A Dose of Reality on Cornwall’s Waste” - part 2

Following the publication of Alec Robertson’s letter to Eric Pickles concerning the incinerator appeal, waste management has become the hot topic of conversation once again. This has included a blog from Labour Councillor Jude Robinson entitled “A Dose of Reality on Cornwall’s Waste.”

Jude talks about “posturing” and “nimbyism” which I consider inappropriate and totally unjustified given the consistent approach of local members from the China Clay Area such as myself, Fred Greenslade, John Wood and Des Curnow stretching back over a decade.

In particular, Jude states that: “Although opponents of the CERC insist that Cornwall can recycle more, they have just turned down the chance to improve Cornwall’s recycling in the new waste collection contracts.”

I would love some clarity on who Jude is talking about when she states that “opponents of the CERC … turned down the chance to improve Cornwall’s recycling.”

For the record, the decision to agree a waste collection contract with fortnightly recycling and weekly collection of black bag waste (rather than fortnightly collections of black bag waste and weekly recycling collections) was taken by the Cabinet, not any of the active opponents of the incinerator scheme.

At the heart of Jude’s blog is her uncritical acceptance of a recent statement from the Cabinet that the failure of the appeal and the cancellation of the Contact would cost local council tax-payers £322 million.

I simply do not accept these figures or the suggested timescales that it would take to deliver an alternative to the incinerator, and I believe I have been consistent in making challenges over many months when presented with the myriad of exaggerated costs as we argue for alternatives to incineration.

Also, one cost not talked about by either the Cabinet or Jude Robinson is the rising cost of the incinerator itself.

In 2000, councillors were told that a single incinerator would cost £40 million. When the Contract was signed in 2006, this had risen to £96 million with a price guarantee. With inflation, this increased to £113-117 million.

The failure to start the construction by March 2010 means that the price guarantee is no longer valid and recent estimates of the cost to build the plant are over £155 million.

Jude has a strong view about allowing the incinerator to be built, but this is not a view shared by all her Labour colleagues. Labour members on the former County Council opposed the scheme as did her fellow Labour PPC Charlotte Mackenzie (Truro and Falmouth).