THE Environment Agency, who will decide whether to grant an operating licence to Northacre Renewable Energy Ltd (NREL) for their planned waste incinerator in Westbury, has asked NREL for more information, which has now been submitted. However, Westbury town councillor, Mike Sutton, says the EA should be ‘more stringent’ with their dealings with NREL.
He says that the EA sees their “primary role as trying to accommodate large and powerful organisations rather than protecting the public.”
A new waste incinerator for Westbury was given the go-ahead by Wiltshire Council last summer.
In documents sent last month to the town council, the Environment Agency says, “We are still determining the permit application we have received from Northacre Renewable Energy Ltd (NREL), to build and operate an incinerator in Westbury. We issued a second Schedule 5 notice to NREL, which requested more information from them. Now we have received it, we can continue the determination.”
Questions asked of NREL by the EA included the company’s odour taint threshold. This followed complaints about the strong odours from Hills waste plant which is part of the same company. Described as an “awful stench” the smell was caused by a biofilter which needed replacing.
Town councillors were critical of the company for the time taken to replace the biofilter and the way the company dealt with the incident. The Environment Agency has already said that Hills’ record will not be taken into account in its decision to issue an operating permit for the incinerator as it will be operated by a different part of the company.
Cllr Mike Sutton has expressed his concerns over NREL’s ability to limit possible odour breaches at their proposed incinerator site. He said, “Regarding the odours from the current plant, we are not convinced that Hills or any other branch of that organisation [NREL] will competently maintain the plant to a high standard as there has been a history of accidents and poor stewardship which keep recurring, and that is just those of which we are aware.
“It is disappointing that the EA have not been more stringent in their response to NREL regarding the operation of the existing and proposed plant, but not surprising.
“Like so many agencies, they seem to see their primary role as trying to accommodate large and powerful organisations rather than protecting the public. However, in fairness to the EA, there is a misconception as to their primary role which is to ensure compliance to legislation and not what is desirable or beneficial to the local population. An example would be asbestos where for many years companies were judged to be compliant with legislation, until that legislation was deemed to be inadequate.”
In the response to the EA, an NREL spokesperson said, “The proposed number of air changes are in excess of those specified in recognised standards for ventilation systems. The number of air changes will be maintained by extracting air from the building either into the combustion process or into the odour control system.
“Air from outside of the building would be drawn into to replace the air being extracted, thus preventing potentially odorous air being released from the building. The Tipping Hall has been designed as a fully enclosed building. It will have five automated roller-shutter doors. The roller shutter doors will only open for waste delivery vehicles to access the building. When the waste delivery vehicles are within the building the roller-shutter doors will close.
“To allow air flow into/ through the building when the roller-shutter doors are closed, louvres will be fitted across the width of the building above the roller-shutter doors, as shown on the elevation drawings within the planning application. During periods of normal operation, when waste deliveries are not occurring the doors will be closed, and the only air flow into the building will be via the louvres.”
