LONG SUTTON & WELLParish Council

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VEOLIA PLANNING APPLICATION 33619/007

Veolia proposed ‘Advanced Energy Recovery Facility’ on A31, Near Alton, Hants.
Planning application no: 33619/007
Comments by Long Sutton & Well Parish Council, Hampshire.

Long Sutton & Well parish is located less than 4 miles north of the site of the proposed facility. The parish comprises the village of Long Sutton and the hamlet of Well.
Despite the parish’s proximity to the site (in particular Well) the parish and its inhabitants have received no formal notification of this proposed development, nor has it been included in the consultation exercise conducted by Veolia.
Yet the environmental impact of the development stands to affect our parish, in terms of its visual impact on the wider landscape of the Wey Valley on the edge of which our parish sits and which it overlooks; the additional HGV traffic the development would generate on the A31 and adjoining road network, of which our parish forms part; and on the air quality of the wider area.
For these reasons Long Sutton & Well Parish Council wishes to enter a strong objection to the proposed development.
In particular, the Parish Council objects to the proposed development on the following grounds:
A development of this type, size and scale is completely out of keeping and wholly inappropriate for the proposed location, a predominantly rural, agricultural area, less than a mile from the northern boundary of the South Downs National Park.
With a main building at 40 metres high and two chimneys at 80 metres tall, the visual impact of the development on the surrounding, predominantly rural area will be excessive and disproportionate; as the application acknowledges, it will be visible from numerous points around up to 10km distant.
As the application makes clear, the facility would be intended primarily for commercial and industrial waste originating not only from Hampshire, but across the wider South East. This would generate a substantial increase in heavy goods vehicle traffic from the present daily level of 128 vehicles to (according to the planning application) an estimated 216 vehicle movements a day, between 7am and 7pm, for 362 days a year – a total of some 78,000 movements a year – thus adding considerably to traffic levels, noise and air pollution in the general vicinity.
Incineration is a poor and inefficient way of disposing of waste and generating electricity, creating carbon emissions and toxic gases and, although the application says it would be “capable, of exporting heat in the form of in the form of steam, or hot water, to local heat users” no such local users are identified. Further, it appears that Veolia has no control over land owned by others in order to access grid connectivity. This, combined with the lack of local heat users, leads to the conclusion that if permission is granted it would purely be as an 'incinerator' of South East commercial and industrial waste with no ability to supply energy at all.
For all these reasons, the Parish Council considers this is the wrong type of installation in the wrong place. We urge Hampshire County Council to improve its performance in recycling, which, at 41.3% is currently well below its own target of 60% by 2020 in the Council’s waste management plan.


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