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Developers in incinerator row 'confident'
Go-ahead sought for huge energy from waste plant
Alexandra Wood
DEVELOPERS say they are "quietly confident" of getting plans for a huge incinerator that will dominate the skyline for miles around passed by local authorities.
Three years after the Government threw out plans for an incinerator in Foster Street, Hull, a planning application has now gone in to Hull and East Riding Councils for a similar facility just off Hedon Road.
Visible from the other side of the river, it will have a stack of 95m (311ft) – higher than BP's cooling towers at Saltend – and could produce 22 different pollutants from nitrogen dioxide to particulates.
Although less high-profile than the campaign against Foster Street, thousands have signed petitions in protest.
Many who live east of Hull have had faith in agencies like the Environment Agency, which will monitor the plant, dented by its apparent failure to control the stink from the "odour-free" sewage works nearby.
Former Mayor of Hedon John Dennis said: "Unfortunately one becomes cynical. With all the promises we have had in the past we are somewhat lacking in faith."
Protesters are being invited to a meeting at South Holderness School, Preston, on Thursday, with guest speaker Rick Anthony, an expert on "zero" waste.
Barry Robinson, who has campaigned against the incinerator for six-and-a-half years, believes recycling could be pushed far higher than the 45 per cent aimed for by 2010.
"I do fear that batteries and other materials that are not easily recyclable will be thrown in the incinerator. The real danger is the toxic material and also the particulates that are produced which can go into the lining of the lungs and attack your body.
"Incineration has been chosen as an easy way out but not enough attention has been paid to the minimisation of waste or other methods of treating waste."
The incinerator is meant to burn 240,000 tonnes of household waste, producing electricity for about 30,000 homes.
According to the application, the amount of pollutants added to air will be "tiny" and will meet all air quality standards. Tests to judge long-term exposure to heavy metals, dioxins and furans concluded they did not "pose unacceptable risks to the identified receptors".
Although Waste Recycling Group (WRG), which would build and operate the plant, insists it is not looking at importing waste, the application reveals that may not always be the case.
It states: "Should the input of waste to the energy from waste facility be less than projected, surplus capacity will be available for suitable non-hazardous waste." However, Hull and East Riding waste "will have precedence."
On the same site WRG wants to build a facility to take 38,000 tonnes of recyclable paper, metal and glass a year – with anything considered unrecyclable going into the incinerator.
The developers are now sending thousands of news-letters to homes and holding public exhibitions in high-profile centres like Princes Quay.
Project manager Keith Whittle was "quietly confident" of getting the scheme through. He said similar incinerators had been built in city centres, including Sheffield. They had looked at 145 sites. "We think that we have picked a site that is very suitable because it is industrial and because of its good transport links.
"We understand some people are concerned about it and we are hoping through this process to adequately inform them."
He added: "I think the limits on putting waste into landfill has put a whole different view on what we do with landfill."
n An application will be going in soon for new recycling and composting facilities, taking up to 60,000 tonnes, at an existing landfill site at Gallymoor, near Holme-Upon-Spalding Moor.
Exhibitions will be held on July 12, noon to 8pm, Holme-Upon-Spalding Moor village hall; July 13, same time, Beverley Wall Memorial Hall; July 14, same time, Hedon Town Hall; July 15, 9am to 3pm Central Atrium, Princes Quay, Hull.
alex.wood@ypn.co.uk
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