PLANS for a new gas generation plant in Westbury have come to a halt following Wiltshire Council’s decision to reject the application on grounds that it would worsen the air quality in the town.
Wiltshire Council says that the plant would ‘exacerbate an area of existing poor air quality’ and would ‘fail to protect public health’.
The decision was made at the meeting of the council’s Western Area Planning Committee on 9th March, with Wiltshire and Westbury town councillor, Matt Dean sitting in on the meeting.
Cllr Dean said, “This was an application for a micro gas generator, a power station, on an industrial estate and the application was recommended for approval by council officers. Their central position seemed to be that although the station would make the air quality worse in Westbury, they wanted to take a contribution towards new traffic lights to improve the traffic flows in Westbury. They argued that if they put in traffic lights, over time, it would improve the air quality as there will be less traffic stationary on the A350. That was Wiltshire Council’s position.
“I was vehemently against that; my view is that the air quality in the town is very poor because of the rail freight, partly because of the traffic and partly because of the typography of the land and therefore really anything that made air quality worse in the short to medium term wasn’t acceptable.
“In the end, the planning committee considered that and went with my suggestion and refused the application six votes to four.”
The application was submitted by Eclipse Power Generation Limited who wanted to build a 7.5MW gas peaking generation plant on land at Kingdom Avenue, Northacre Industrial Park, in Westbury.
The decision notice by Wiltshire Council reads, “The proposal, by reason of its scale and nature in proximity to the Westbury Air Quality Management Area, would exacerbate an area of existing poor air quality. The proposed mitigation measure would not, in practice, offset the nitrogen dioxide emissions effectively and would therefore fail to make a positive contribution to the aims of the Air Quality Strategy. The proposal would also, therefore, fail to protect public health, environmental quality and amenity contrary to adopted Wiltshire Core Strategy Core Policy 55.”
Air quality has been a topic of conversation for Westbury residents for years following the increased number of vehicles going through the town on the A350. This has been exacerbated by a waste-to-energy incinerator application, as residents wait for the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove MP, to decide whether to ‘call in’ the application for further scrutiny, following its approval by Wiltshire Council in June of last year.
When asked if the decision by Wiltshire Council to reject the gas plant plans over its negative effect to air quality would have any impact on the incinerator application, cllr Dean said, “We shouldn’t read too much into this, but I think this could help the anti-incinerator campaign. We have now put a marker down that in terms of air quality, we should not be putting through applications that are making things worse. For the first time, Wiltshire Council has listened and has accepted that.
“I’m also very cynical that putting more traffic lights around the place will radically improve traffic flows. The only people that seem to believe that with a bit of faith are highways engineers and the rest of us seem to think that traffic flows better without more lights everywhere.”
You can view the decision notice by searching the reference number 20/10440/FUL on the planning and building control part of Wiltshire Council website.
