Plans for the park, to be built on land at the council-owned business park in Leyland, include 100,000 tonne capacity composting facilities, a materials reclamation facility capable of recovering 20,000 tonnes a year and a 150,000 tonne capacity waste transfer station.
The fact that the council has held a consultation before even submitting the proposal for planning permission is unusual, but something that the council hopes will speed up the process of setting up the facility.
“It's the first time we've treated a major planning issue in this way,” a spokesperson at the council explained. “We're hoping that if we talk to the public and amend the proposal after hearing the issues brought up in the pre-planning consultation before submitting it for planning permission, it will speed up the whole planning process.”
Questions
The new facility would also include a visitor education centre and would have its environment landscaped with the creation of a large lagoon. Local residents were sent leaflets outlining the proposals and were invited to attend a two-day meeting this week, where they could put questions to a number of specialists.
“At least 100 people turned up on the first day of the meeting,” the council spokesperson told letsrecycle.com, “the issues raised seemed to centre around the traffic that would be generated by the park. We're expecting a local residents' group on the second day – they're worried about the possibility of an incinerator being built – but they've no need to, there is no incinerator in the proposal.”
The myth of incineration has been one issue the council has been particularly keen to address. Leader of the county council Hazel Irving told residents: “I want to stress right from the outset that these proposals do not include, mask or imply plans for any kind of incinerator or that we are planning to create a waste tip. Residents and people already working at the business park can rest assured that this development will be good news, not bad.”
Tender
The construction and running of the facility will be going out to tender some time after the planning application is made in early December. The project will be on a preferred bidder basis, with only companies the council sees as capable of running the facility being invited to bid.
The expectation is that 'phase 1' of the project, the development of an aerobic digestion composting plant will be carried out in 2003-04 with the development of waste transfer facilities and the MRF in 2005-06.
The Audit Commission Inspection team gave Lancashire's waste management services two out of three stars in its report back in February. The county adopted a waste management strategy in April 2001 that runs until 2020 and aims to reduce landfill from 85% to 20% by 2010, while increasing recycling and composting to 40% of all waste by 2005 and 56%.
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