Andrew submitted oral evidence by Teams yesterday (Tuesday) against the incinerator planned for Westbury and opposed by the planning authority Wiltshire Council, Westbury town council and the community at large.
Andrew said;
I very much regret that I am unable to be at the Laverton in person due to ministerial commitments in the House.
I am here to register my strong objection to the proposed incinerator which is a major concern in the constituency, right at the top of my constituents’ list of priorities.
Scotland and Wales have put a moratorium on new incinerators. The Environment Act of 2021 points England in the same direction.
Others will show that this county, by the end of the decade, will have incinerator overcapacity even if no more burners are built.
We must reduce, reuse and recycle. Indeed, compliance with the waste hierarchy is more than rhetorical – it is a legal and moral obligation. Yet the only way the proposal can be viable is if it shunts waste over its lifetime down the waste hierarchy – ie less recycling, less reuse, less recycling. Wise to this, in July Defra announced that ‘the government’s view is that EfW should not compete with greater waste prevention, re-use or recycling.’ It went on: ‘Proposed new plants must not result in an overcapacity of EfW treatment provision at local or national level.’
Commensurate with this, in February 2021 the minister refused permission for an incinerator in Kent, stating it ‘would divert a significant proportion of waste from recycling rather than landfill.’ In other words, the basis of the appellant’s case – that its incinerator would relieve landfill – is well wide of the mark.
But still the appellant – an undertaking of poor reputation in the Westbury given the nuisance caused by its current waste generation – ploughs on. It insists, despite the evidence, that there is a long-term need for more incinerators locally. Wiltshire Council, the waste authority, say not. Wiltshire Council has further pointed out that the import of lots of waste from outside the county – necessary to sustain the appellant’s business case in the long-term – is in conflict with the proximity principle. It would, naturally, involve lots of big lorries, travelling long and longer distances, partially loaded, adding to traffic and air quality misery in the centre of Westbury, an air quality management area. We should be especially mindful of that following the tragic death of nine-year-old Ella Adoo Kissi Debrah from respiratory disease causally related to air pollution.
The Government has told us where it is going on this in the publication of draft environmental targets following the Environment Act 2021. It is consulting on what it calls a ‘wider suite of targets’ to be laid out in draft SIs as soon as possible – the subject of a Defra written ministerial statement last month.
Those targets explicitly include the reduction of waste burning, including by so-called EfW incineration.
Government intent is very clear. My constituents too want waste managed in this waste hierarchy and not consigned to the great landfill in the sky contrary to our ambition for net zero by 2050.
I beg the Inspectorate to support the democratically elected planning authority and reject the appeal.