Welcoming the decision, Grundon Waste Management's managing director, Richard Skehens, said: “We are delighted that planning has finally been granted for this 'super MRF' and Oxfordshire, which currently exports most of its recoverable waste, will now have an in-county facility which will cut down unnecessary lorry traffic.”
The material recovery facility (MRF) will be designed to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, processing both household and commercial and industrial wastes.
However, a spokesman for Grundon told letsrecycle.com that while the company had contracts in place to receive commercial and industrial materials to be processed in the plant, no such agreements were currently in place with any local authorities in Oxfordshire.
And, he also explained that while “normally” the MRF would only deal with waste from within the county's boundaries, it “could handle materials from other plants if they had a mechanical breakdown, for example”.
Traffic
The Kidlington plant will be located near to the A34 trunk road network, but the spokesman explained that, despite the facility being open 24-hours-a-day, traffic impact would be kept to a minimum.
“The traffic movements will be limited by planning condition, which is yet to be agreed,” he said. “The company will seek to limit traffic movements during the night.”
Kidlington will be the fifth MRF operated by Grundon in the UK and the spokesman indicated that the company had plans for two more in the pipeline.
One of those two is a proposed smaller facility at Cherwell, also in Oxfordshire, a plan that Mr Skehens said would “provide much needed facilities for north Oxfordshire”.
Referring to both the Kidlington and Cherwell plans, he added that “the two plants will complement each other and help to provide self-sufficiency for the county”.
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