The energy-from-waste facility had been devised with a 350,000 tonnes-a-year capacity, with 290,000 tonnes-a-year delivered directly from local contracts and the remaining 60,000 tonnes-a-year supplied by residual waste from the materials recycling facility.
Planning officers had recommended that the Taunton-based firm's plans should be approved dependent on Viridor making an “appropriate contribution” to an ecological study set to be undertaken in Avonmouth/Severnside and paying Bristol city council £7,014 to cover the costs of monitoring the agreement.
Viridor submitted plans for the facility – known as the Severn Road Resource Recovery Centre – to Bristol city council in November 2009, with it anticipated that the plant would cost £180 million to construct and generate 30MW of electricity once it became operational (see letsrecycle.com story).
Viridor
Viridor intended to develop the plant at the now derelict Sevalco site in Chittening, which was previously used to produce carbon black, in the industrialised area just to the north of Avonmouth.
The company already has a waste transfer station at Filton, which is just six miles from the proposed Avonmouth development, and it provides waste and recycling collections throughout Bristol.
Commenting on the refusal, Dan Cooke, external affairs manager at Viridor, said: “We are naturally very disappointed with the decision of Bristol city council's Development Control (North) Committee to deny planning permission for our Severn Road Resource Recovery Centre.
“We feel our proposal provides businesses and local authorities in the west of England with a solution that not only meets their recycling needs but can efficiently recover value from the residual waste produced.”
Rejection
In the lead-up to submitting its planning application, Viridor had held a number of public consultations and exhibitions for local residents. The firm had been hopeful of having the energy-from-waste plant up-and-running by 2012.
Mr Cooke added: “Over the next few weeks we will be considering in detail the reasons why planning permission was turned down and will take stock of our next course of action. We have nothing further to add at this time.”
Rejection of the Avonmouth proposal comes almost exactly one year after Cardiff city council voted to block plans for Viridor to develop a facility of the same size at Trident Park in the South Wales city (see letrecycle.com story).
Bristol
Further discussions on waste in Bristol are set to take place next week, with the city council's cabinet meeting on Thursday (June 10) to vote on plans to introduce a ‘Recycling for All' trial for 20,000 households in the city and also to reduce the size of residual waste bins.
The ‘Recycling for All' trial would see households in the pilot area required to separate waste from their recyclable waste and remove contamination. The scheme would be used to boost recycling rates for paper, cans and glass.
The pilot would be coupled with a leaflet campaign, letters, telephone advice lines and ‘waste doctors' visiting households to explain the system, while the city council has raised the spectre of taking “risk enforcement action” against those who continue to put recyclable material into the residual waste stream.
Bins
With regards to residual waste bins, the city council has tabled plans to supply households with a bin dependent on the number of occupants in a household rather than each house receiving the standard 240 litre bin.
Households with one or two residents would receive a 140l bin, households of between three and five people would be given a 180l bin and households of over six occupants will be allowed to keep the 240l container.
Councillor Gary Hopkins, cabinet member for strategic waste, said: “We have already carried out a small piece of research on a sample of the waste collected by our refuse crews, and this showed that 46% of waste could have been recycled using our kerbside recycling service. So we know there are still some people who are not recycling as much as they can.”
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