Council approves controversial incinerator permit despite protests

Last night, campaigners who are very worried about potential health impacts it may have on them protested about how the decision process was being handled outside a meeting of the full Calderdale Council at Halifax Town Hall, saying they believed the decision was imminent.

Calder Valley Skip Hire has planning permission to operate the small waste incineration plant (SWIP) but could only do so with the permit, initially in the council’s remit.

A previous permit application was effectively refused by a Government Planning Inspector following a public inquiry into the council’s deemed non-determination of the issue, John Woolcock believing it was potentially harmful to human health. The company has argued it does not believe the incinerator is harmful to human health.

Despite that decision, current rules nationally mean fresh permit applications can be made.

Today council officers using delegated powers – itself an issue contested by campaigners who say Cabinet councillors should have made the decision – have approved the latest application.

Publishing the decision on its website this afternoon, the council says that when determining the environmental permit, consideration had to be given to a number of factors, most importantly the protection of the environment and human health, in line with Government and European legislation.

Other specific issues were considered, including the large number of representations made on a wide range of issues during the three consultation periods, it says.

“In approving the application, it was acknowledged that this, and previous applications, have generated significant interest in the community, with a number of concerns being raised about the potential impact of a small waste incinerator plant at the Belmont site.

“However, the basis for the determination for this application had to be confined to the objective technical and legal considerations identified within the Environmental Permitting Regulations, but all community concerns were fully acknowledged within this framework,” says the council.

The council says the decision therefore includes a number of conditions “to ensure that the plant will not have any detrimental effect on local residents, their amenity, or the wider environment.”

The council will implement a monitoring and compliance plan, which focuses on four key elements – physical site inspection, scrutiny of the required monitoring data, continuing air quality monitoring in the area and involving the local community to ensure concerns and issues are addressed.

The plan will be used to ensure that any future operations at the site are robustly regulated and that any issues can be dealt with quickly and so can maintain the confidence of the local community, says the council.

Calderdale Council’s Assistant Director for Neighbourhoods, Andrew Pitts, said: “I have granted permission for an Environmental Permit in accordance with the Environmental Permitting Regulations of 2016, using the powers delegated to me under the council’s constitution.”

Leader of the Council, Coun Jane Scullion said: “We understand the strong local feeling around this permit application, and I know that this decision will be disappointing for the community.

“It has been made very clear that there must be absolute compliance with the conditions of the permit, and this will be robustly monitored by the council through a planned programme of inspections as well as continued air quality monitoring in the local area.”

The Labour Party’s Sowerby Bridge and Ryburn Councillors – Adam Wilkinson, Dot Foster, Simon Ashton and Leah Webster – have given their reaction to the decision.

“As ward councillors we remain of the view that there were serious flaws in the incinerator application.

“We will take time to digest the officers report and continue to work with the community to figure out the next steps in this decade-long campaign.

“We remain committed to fighting for clean air in Sowerby Bridge,” they said.

Coun Martin Hey, who raised the issue at full council last night, said: “This ruling is a disaster for Sowerby Bridge and will further damage air quality in an area already suffering from high levels of pollution.

“Residents of the town remain mystified as to how the application was approved when it was seemingly opposed by all Calderdale councillors.

“The Labour Cabinet left this decision to council officers rather than taking control of the process themselves – in our opinion this was a huge mistake that now leaves residents paying the price.”

A complicated history stretching back nearly 10 years has seen Calderdale Council refuse planning permission for the incinerator, that decision being overturned on appeal to the planning inspectorate, and objectors winning the right to a judicial review of a subsequent decision by the council’s cabinet to grant an environmental permit, after which the permit was quashed.

Following this, the status of the permit application was deemed to be “undetermined”, hence the company’s appeal, which Planning Inspector John Woolcock dismissed after in inquiry, effectively refusing it, and now the new application.