Hadfields says it is “devastated” as this is the first time in its 35-year history that it has had to stop taking material from contracted customers at the two sites.
The firm’s website states: “We offer long-term contracts and guarantee an open gates policy to contracted customers.”
However, it says it was forced to close gates after being “threatened with Enforcement Action” by the Agency for not complying with new “unworkable” Fire Prevention Plan (FPP) guidance on the storage of combustible materials at the Middlesbrough site, where it has invested £250,000 on fire prevention infrastructure.
The Middlesbrough site, which is operated by Hadfields’ sister company UK Wood Recycling and feeds the Sembcorp Wilton biomass power plant next door, shut its gates to all customers last Thursday evening (July 23).
These storage restrictions also then meant the firm was unable divert material to Middlesbrough from its Manchester site, where gates have been closed to low grade wood since the close of business on Sunday (July 26).
As a result “several thousand tonnes of waste wood will have to be diverted to other outlets or sent to landfill with immediate effect”, according to Hadfields.
The firm’s suppliers include several large local authority contracts, including its work with Viridor to treat 35,000 tonnes per year of waste wood from the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority (GMWDA), for which it agreed a five year extension in 2014 (see letsrecycle.com story).
However, the firm says its third recycling site in Tilbury, Essex, is continuing to receive waste wood as normal “for the foreseeable future”. The company agreed a four-year deal with Veolia in 2014 to process around 100,000 tonnes of waste wood each year at the site from Essex county council’s HWRCs (see letsrecycle.com story).
Hadfields
In January, Hadfields leased seven acres of additional land on a site adjacent to its existing Middlesbrough facility with the aim of moving some of the waste wood to the new location, as part of an application to the EA for a bespoke fire plan to store the wood.
According to the firm, this was done following ‘favourable’ discussions with the Agency, and Hadfields said it has since been working with the Agency for a “number of months” to try and reach agreement for a bespoke fire plan for its Middlesbrough site.
But while the firm has obtained planning permission to store wood at the extended Middlesbrough site, it is still awaiting an Agency decision over whether to allow the extension its current standard waste wood storage permit.
Hadfields claims that the Agency won’t agree to the permit extension because the firm is not complying with the storage guidance outlined in the FPP on its Middlesbrough site.
The firm then took the “difficult decision” to store wood on the newly-leased site in order to keep the main Middlesbrough site compliant, but claims the Agency “deemed this to be an illegal use of the site”, which led to the Hadfields’ closure of gates to customers last week.
Managing director of Hadfields and UK Wood Recycling, Geoff Hadfields, said he was “personally and professionally devastated” but had “no option” other than to close the gates. He added that the new FPP guidance “is, in its current form, totally unworkable for any large-scale operator such as ourselves”.
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Mr Hadfield, who is also the founder and former chairman of the Wood Recyclers’ Association (WRA), said: “We will continue to work with the EA to hopefully resolve this situation as soon as possible and hope to reopen our gates at both sites in the very near future.”
Fire Prevention Plan
The WRA, of which Hadfields is a member, has for some time been involved in discussions with the Agency over wood storage restrictions, including the updated FPP guidance issued in March 2015 (see letsrecycle.com story).The Association is expected to issue a response to the Hadfields situation shortly.
The FPP guidance requires stack sizes for any unprocessed wood to be a maximum of 167 tonnes and processed wood to be a maximum of 33 tonnes. However, UK Wood Recycling is required to provide Sembcorp with 1,000-tonne batches of biomass fuel to the Wilton 10 plant.
Hadfields believes the stack size restrictions in the FPP will make it “impossible for any of the UK’s biomass boilers to operate going forward” and is calling for operators to be allowed to provide bespoke fire plans approved by the Agency and local fire services.
Environment Agency
Responding to the news today, the Environment Agency said it recognises it is “impossible to completely prevent fires” but that it needs to be satisfied that “operators have in place adequate control measures to minimise both the risk from fire and also the impact on the local community”.
A spokesperson for the Agency said: “We are aware of Hadfield’s and UKWR’s decision not to accept any more waste wood onto their sites. This is the first step towards reducing the risk and we hope that the company continues to work towards actively reducing the risk of fire.”
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