Martyr’s Lane is safe

December 15, 2009 — admin

Surrey County Council announced today that it was no longer pursuing Energy from Waste Plants, known to you and I as incinerators, in Surrey. Thus ends one of the most expensive and fiercely fought policy battles in the area’s history.

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There will be no incinerators in Surrey - including Martyr's Lane

The county council has obviously come to the conclusion that residents in all affected areas would fight any proposals to the wire and they couldn’t justify the cost in terms of money and time in battling their own residents. It’s a message that should have got through a while ago – when you find yourself being taken to court by the people who fund your wages and pensions, something is not quite right.

There is an hint of new brush as well, with Cllr Andrew Povey making what I hope will be the first of many sensible and pragmatic decisions in his new regime and change of direction with what came before. Instead of the waste plants, there will be an Eco Park that will cost a quarter of the £200m Surrey wanted to spend on its incinerators and a gasifier and anaerobic digester will be among the “attractions”.

So that means that Martyr’s Lane will not be the site of an EfW plant, which is a relief following the recent good news about Heather Farm. Whether or not it’s the future of waste management, the authorities failed to convince residents of its need and there is no reason why a government should do anything to make its people sleep less easy at night.

And I’m delighted to see some common sense finally emanating from county hall.

One final thing though – the Surrey Joint Waste Management Strategy for 2006-2025 still says:

“Whilst acknowledging the concerns of some people, but with due regard to the waste hierarchy, we consider energy-from-waste recovery via incineration (with the most up to date controls on and effective monitoring of emissions by the Environment Agency as the most practicable (sic), financially viable and sustainable approach currently available for that residual part…[that cannot be dealt with any other way]“

Will this strategy now be changed? And won’t that require all 12 Surrey councils’ consent?

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Common sense at last?

November 12, 2009 — admin
Horsell Common with Heather Farm on far left and Common Close visible

Horsell Common with Heather Farm on far left and Common Close visible

I’ve never quite understood why a possible site for one of Surrey’s two required energy-from-waste plants was smack bang in the middle of a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

Horsell Common is a precious resource – a haven for wildlife and rare plants, a respite from the bustling town life all around, a place for walking dogs and riding horses and somewhere of cultural importance to Woking being identified so clearly in HG Wells’s War of The Worlds. It stretches much farther than the width of Shores Road and cuts across the majority of the west and east Horsell areas. It is generally undervalued within Woking but has a number of staunch supporters who are dedicated to protecting it and its natural beauty and preserving it for others to enjoy.

What it is not is the correct place to site a large industrial building for generating power. It is not a place where large vehicles can enter and exit easily and it should be protected from the noise, odours and detritus of medium-scale industrial activity. To me, this is plainly obvious; but two sets of local authority officers have worked in such a way as to make exactly such an industrial eyesore a realistic possibility. Thankfully, it now looks unlikely.

Horsell Common Preservation Society has successfully argued to overturn a Woking Borough Council planning decision against a change of use for the site to include small-scale industrial and storage buildings. The borough council refused the application on the basis that the Surrey Waste Plan had set aside the site as a possible location for one of its two energy-from-waste plants. But the inspector decided there were compelling reasons – not least of them concerning HCPS’s control over access to the site – that meant Heather Farm was unlikely to be viable prospect as a EFW location and he granted the original application.

His report is pretty clear and it won’t make for comforting reading at county hall. But it should do in Horsell; if a buyer can be found to take on the operation of the site, we should have seen off the bizarre prospect of a waste plant on the doorstep of one of the county’s most environmentally sensitive areas.

Posted in Environment, Woking Borough Council, planning. Tags: , , , , , , . No Comments »
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