WESTBURY Town Council will not take legal action against the decision by a Government Planning Inspectorate to approve the highly controversial waste incinerator in the town.
Councillors agreed on Monday night that having spent £49,500 so far on the battle to halt the incinerator, they did not want to risk £66,000 more tax payers’ money in a fight that they said has the odds stacked against them.
At the extraordinary meeting of the town council on Monday 27th March, attended by 25 residents, councillors heard passionate pleas from Westbury residents for 45 minutes, before discussing what route to take with the incinerator.
Local MP Andrew Murrison also attended the meeting virtually from his office in London and gave an overview of what work he has been doing in the House of Commons to lobby MPs to agree a moratorium on waste incinerators. (See story page 2).
One resident at the meeting, Dr Biggs, questioned why the town council was considering spending more public money to fight the incinerator. “We have lost it,” he said. “Wiltshire Council, who is in a better position financially than this council, is set to pay costs from the inquiry and they have also agreed not to appeal the decision. If you decide to spend even more money and lose, I will take the council to court over spending money that they do not really have on a case they have no chance of winning.”
‘No viable grounds’
Cllr Mark Bailey presented the town council’s task and finish incinerator group findings saying, “Wiltshire Council have been told that there are no viable grounds for challenge. Any High Court challenge would have to identify legal errors in the decision-making and it would not be a re-examination of evidence. The advice received is that there were possible grounds for a challenge, but none were very strong and the chances for a successful challenge were put at 30% to 40%.
“In the unlikely event that it was successful, the most likely outcome would be that the planning permission would be quashed and the inquiry would be re-held. NREL have also said that the gasification plant is their fallback option if the energy from waste plant was refused – any challenge would be in effect a choice between the waste plants. The task and finish group recommends that the town council agrees not to proceed with a High Court challenge, but to work to mitigate the effects of the incinerator and to ensure that all planning and environmental conditions are vigorously policed.”
Cllr Dean added that he and the other town councillors had been strongly against the plans since their first iteration but that they are now, “out of road”. He also suggested that the town council should now buy air and traffic movement monitoring equipment to help hold NREL to account with their planning conditions.
‘Disgraceful outcome’
Speaking in support of a judicial review, cllr Kate Knight said, “I lay the blame for this disgraceful outcome fully at the door of Wiltshire Council planners. Members of the strategic planning committee were let down badly by their officers.
“My initial reaction was not to spend more money, however having looking further into how NREL is setup and financed by Hills and Bioenergy Infrastructure Group, I feel disposed to do everything to stop the building of this monstrosity. If I can be reassured that none of our residents would be disadvantaged by this, then I would support a judicial review.”
Cllr Jane Russ sad, “I was appalled with the decision by the inspector. We all know why this shouldn’t be here, but we now have to ask ourselves what we can do now. I agree that the longer we can delay the better, but a judicial review is a huge commitment. We now have to hold NREL’s feet to the fire. The point is that if we won a judicial review, it would go back to another inquiry which is a lot of money to spend just on delaying. My immediate gut reaction was to fight this, but financially this is hard. We have smaller pockets than both Wiltshire Council and NREL.”
Cllr Philip Harcourt added, “If we decided to go down the route of judicial review, I’d happily pay £500 towards the £66k, but the reality of the situation is that all we could accomplish is delaying it. If we think that delaying it will mean that Government policy will significantly change to prevent this, then that is the only reason why we should be going for judicial review.”
Cllr Gordon King said that the council must be “rational” in its thinking. He said, “I have opposed this ever since it first reared its head and I will continue to do so. Part of me thinks that shouldn’t we be biting Leigh Day’s hands off for a 30% chance of a judicial review, but we have to be rational and reasonable. My heart is with cllr Knight as this incinerator really is a monster, but as cllr Bailey said very wisely, we must now look forward and hold NREL to account and spend our money wisely to make sure we can do that.”
The council then went to a vote with the majority agreeing to the task and finish group’s recommendation to not proceed with a high court challenge.
Speaking about the decision following the meeting, Dan Gmaj from the local anti-incinerator group WGAG said, “The mighty foundations of the Laverton appeared to give way a little tonight as councillor after councillor told of how they are so anti-incinerator, but in the case of one notable presence, councillors said, ‘We are doing our best for the town,’ by voting against the call for judicial review.
“Out of the 12 councillors present there were three exceptions to this, two in favour of judicial review and one abstention. We learned that the additional 60k spend would have been a capped (total) amount but still a spend too far for the council to find from the public purse. Of course, it was pointed out by the amazing public gallery (thank you all!) that possibly the town council should actually have asked the public this rather basic question and indeed show them the evidence that a 30% to 40% chance of a successful outcome (based upon questions posed by the town council to solicitors Leigh Day) was pointless.
“Ok so what does all this mean? Well although it is difficult to be too hard on our town council, it must be pointed out that although the spend so far would have appeared to have been not as well used as some may have expected, the travesty that a £60,000 commitment that would guarantee several months of re-evaluation, reflection of the mistakes and errors made and the possibility of something burning away for us rather than, as another councillor was recently quoted as saying, ‘We need to learn to live with it’. Well, I think we, as a community, may well have happily fronted up an additional £10 per household and got right behind it! Of course, now we shall never know!”
