The application was pulled from the agenda of the 2nd
December meeting of the planning committee at the very last minute. I wrote to
Joe Nugent (planning officer) for clarification and his reply was, “In
terms of the application being withdrawn from the committee agenda this is due
to additional information being submitted by the applicant. This additional
information requires full consideration by the Council prior to the application
be (sic) presented at the committee.”
It seems that we are now in that dark period where meetings
are held behind closed doors, compromises are made (a different shade of green
paint, slates on the tank roofs, playground facilities, promises to never use
domestic food waste or energy crops, promises easily made but hard to keep) although
the plans just put up on the website show that the drying shed has been axed.
This does make the location of the site even more stupid as there is now presumably
no use for the copious amounts of heat produced by the CHP. Hint: that’s why it’s
a good idea to have a small AD plant beside your farm building and losing the
shed doesn’t make it any less of an eyesore.
I have been assured that the changes will probably not affect
the recommendation for refusal in the planning report which is still available
at http://committees.northumberland.gov.uk/aksnorthumberland/images/att19783.pdf
but it will be rewritten. Assuming that
the first possible available planning meeting will be on January the 6th,
2015, we now have only two inputs into the process, the deadline for more objections
was extended by 14 days and there is the five minute opposition speech allowed
in the meeting, which is being organised by Warden Parish Council.
I am a natural optimist but there is big money to made by
this development. £80,000 a month clear profit
at the Silloth plant that probably has higher costs as Duncan Findlay (an
engineer and a rigorous , disciplined manager) is doing
the job properly. The applicants are
likely to make millions from the overly generous feed in tariff and they will
not give up without a fight. They will almost certainly put up a very
strong and ‘professional’ defence. I suspect they will roll out strong
arm tactics as Prism depends for its consultancy reputation on aggressively
achieving these sorts of planning permissions.
If you have anything to add to the objections, now is the
time to do it. If you have anything that you strongly feel should be raised in
those precious five minutes at the planning meeting, get in touch with Warden
Parish council http://www.wardenpc.co.uk/WPC.htm . I
believe Steve Heminsley is dealing with it but the parish clerk, Robert
Macfarlane should be able to direct your request to the right person. If anything surprising happens over
the Christmas, New Year period and the application is on the agenda for the 6th
January, it can be discussed on the Loomio group here, https://www.loomio.org/g/InoJQRtV/fourstones-ad-group It’s a sort of group decision making tool, still in beta (trial version) but it works
really well. Have fun.
