Hi Adrian
No need to apologise I really do appreciate developments cause a great deal of concern and anxiety to people particularly when it affects them more directly.
However you are not going to like the outcome as the Parish Council are supportive of the development but would want some specific condition on permission with regard to preventing change of use to food waste and appropriate long term landscape plan. Having listened to the developers, the resultant discussion and reviewed the information you and others have circulated we do feel the major concerns are addressed or can be by conditions placed by the planning authority. In addition we feel there are some real benefits to the rural economy and it is a much needed source of green energy, -I am sure you will dispute that but it is way better than traditional coal/oil methods. Making these decisions is always the most challenging aspect of local democracy, we do take that responsibility seriously and look at evidence, understand local opinion but base our final response on the basic planning tenet that decision are based on whether it benefits the wider public interest even although there may be some individuals who may feel it is not in their interests. Fully understand you are not going to feel well served by this decision but hope you can at least appreciate we have taken our responsibility seriously Regards Kirsten
There are times when you just need to get some fresh air. So I went for a bike ride. Steve Baker of Prism Planning consultants (the agents) revealed a list of supposed locations of farms supplying feedstock for the AD. Wark seemed the mostly likely average so I rode from the proposed site to a likely farm near Wark. Burmoor appealed as it seemed most appropriate for a project that will burn more (geddit?) carbon based fuel, have a massive carbon footprint driven by perverse subsidies that as usual enrich the few and impoverish everyone, " the basic planning tenet that decisions are based on whether it benefits the wider public interest" as Kirsten states is most certainly not met. It should be the responsibility of the developer to prove that their project is carbon neutral (or negative) subject to satisfactory oversight not a wooly "presumption in favour of sustainability" as contained in the National Planning Policy Framework, which is a vague collection of platitudes designed to de-democratise the planning process. So the distance from the site to Burmoor is 15.7 kilometers by the most direct route. The best estimate I can find is 3kg of carbon released per tonne per kilometer assuming 29 tonne trucks are used. The application suggests (and probably underestimates ) 40,000 tonnes of feedstock to be shifted by truck which should result in 40,000x15.7x3=1884000kg=1884 tonnes of carbon released and that doesn't include the return journey. If you have some nitpicking objection to this calculation, criticism should only be in the form of a full life cycle analysis of the carbon footprint of the whole project.I Notice that Prism are now tending to suggest transport will involve tractors and trailers which produces far more carbon than a single HGV.
The application dresses itself up to appeal to the “presumption in favour of sustainable development” which it quotes from the National Planning Policy Framework and claims that “AD plants are carbon neutral”. That is only true if they are farm scale units using animal wastes, slurries or their own surplus farm silage, or if they are located near to waste facilities and this is neither. This is not a farm scale unit, it covers an area of 3.5 hectares and describes its design as “unashamedly functional as is the case with all modern agricultural buildings” can be compared to local modern farms and can be seen to be a massive industrial investment to generate a considerable return.
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| Examples of appropriately designed buildings near the site. |
Slurry and farm waste only generate 15-25 cubic metres of gas per tonne, grass silage 160-200m3, maize 200-220m3, potatoes 280-400 m3. So this 1 megawatt plant needs 25,000 tonnes of maize (for example, other feedstocks in even greater quantities as maize doesn't grow too well around here) which requires 450 hectares of high quality land to produce. It has been calculated that using these crops, 700 grams of CO2 are released for every KwH, this is similar to a coal fired power station, (compare the ecological cost of this 1 megawatt site with the installation of one 6 megawatt offshore wind turbine). This may not seem to be a planning issue but if the National Planning Policy Framework makes “a presumption in favour of sustainable development” then this is most certainly not sustainable and this application should be rejected and thrown out.
Wonderful piece of journalism in the Courant by Brian Tilley and objection of the week has to be the one from Bywell Estate office here
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