Waste: Key Development

Planning Application for Energy-from-Waste Incinerator at St.Dennis is now in the system.

This long-expected application from SITA UK – Cornwall County Council’s household contractor – to deal with Cornwall’s residual waste – has now arrived on the Council’s live planning applications register. Anyone wishing to view the detail should follow this link on CCC’s “Live Planning Applications Register” (reference number: 08/00203/WAS).

It is understood that a period of fourteen weeks is available to scrutinize this application and make comments but please check on this – copies should also be available through local libraries and local council offices. If you are unsure about the process you can email the County Council through its website (www.cornwall.gov.uk) and also watch out for publicity information in the local press.

There is a strong campaign running by those who feel that, if approved, this plant would be bad news for the environment; bad news for the communities of mid-Cornwall, especially St. Dennis; and bad for Cornwall’s growing reputation as a “green” peninsula. There is a belief that, crucially, this centralised approach to waste disposal is contrary to the Government’s own planning guidance, namely the “proximity principle” – which states that waste should be dealt with as close to its origin as possible.

In addition, many argue (including our MPs) that there is another way: that waste reduction rates (reduce, re-use and recycle) should be taken to a much higher level and that residual waste (the left-overs) should be processed more locally through a network of smaller units, using a mix of technologies (including anaerobic digestion) generating heat and power for the direct benefit of local communities.

For more details of this campaign, which calls for a full Public Inquiry to be held, go to the website of the St.Dennis Anti-Incinerator Group (STIG) – www.st-ig.co.uk – and note that the contract for this proposed plant lasts for thirty years.

(More information on these proposals can also be found on SITA’s own website – www.sitacornwall.co.uk.)

 

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