Proposals for an advanced thermal treatment site to be built in the town have been opposed by Westbury Town Council following a recent meeting of the Highways, Planning & Development Committee.
Plans to build the centre on Stephenson Road between the Northacre Resource Recovery Centre and Arla Foods Dairy were unveiled in October last year, which showed a site capable of producing 22 megawatts of power per year – enough to power 10,000 homes.
Westbury Town Council has submitted an objection to the centre, citing concerns about heavy traffic and the emissions produced by burning waste.
The decision whether to go ahead with the treatment site will ultimately be made by Wiltshire Council.
Westbury Town Council said their objections were as follows:
1. Chimney height; fumes from the Lafarge plant blew horizontally to ground level near houses in Newtown/Studland Park and fear the same will happen.
2. Serious concerns of additional lorry movement onto the B3097 and A350, as up to three quarters of the waste will be imported from outside Westbury.
3. Concern over the composition of the emissions from the chimney.
The renewable energy centre would be ventilated by a double flue 60m chimney stack. The chimney at the Lafarge Tarmac cement works is twice that size at roughly 120m tall.
Westbury Town Council is so far the only authority to have objected to the plans.
Natural England, the Environment Agency, and an independent Air Quality Assessment report all registered no objections and concluded that the effect on air quality from a 60m chimney would be insignificant.
Floodline Consulting deemed the 2.6 hectare brownfield site to be at low risk of flooding, because there is an existing drainage system.
Dilton Marsh Parish Council registered ‘No Comment’ on their official response.
Chairman of the Westbury Highways, Planning & Development Committee, cllr Russell Hawker said, “We are concerned about the heavy traffic such a facility would bring to the town. Traffic is already an issue in the town, as is lorries using the bridge on Station Road. We’d be talking of thousands of new lorry movements.
“As well as that, the height of the chimney would mean that, in strong southerly winds, there is potential for fumes to be blown horizontally onto Studland Park and Newtown as we saw with the Lafarge plant.
“This is a worry because although we’re repeatedly told the fumes would be insignificant, we just don’t know their chemical composition. I’m sure they’d be cleaner than those from the cement works, but I find it hard to believe they’d be totally free of poisons. We have to ask if residents would notice the smell, or even if it would affect their health.
“It was our experience with the cement works that made us wary. The council thought it better to try and have their concerns directly addressed by the applicants. The objection was more of a precautionary measure; we don’t object to the plant on principle, but Stephenson Road is just not a suitable location.”
Northacre Renewable Energy, a division of the Hills Group, registered their planning application with Wiltshire Council in December, and following an extension of consulting time, a decision is expected in April.
The centre would be built between the Northacre Resource Recovery Centre, and Arla Foods Dairy. It would heat recycled materials to create electricity.
To find out more about the project go to www.hills-group.co.uk, or search www.wiltshire.gov.uk for planning application 14/12003/WCM.
