Shropshire gets go-ahead for major waste transfer station

The facility, to be built on Battlefield industrial estate in Shrewsbury, will cost from 3.5 to 4 million to build, and will have a capacity of more than 100,000 tonnes a year. It is especially important to Shropshire's recycling plans because of the closure last month of the county's main landfill at Betton Abbots in Shrewsbury. The county now has just two landfills left.

Phase one
The Battlefield HWRC and transfer station will be run by Shropshire's waste disposal contractor SITA, under its Shropshire Waste Management group. This will form just the first phase of a possible four, which could see a MRF, in-vessel composting facility and energy-from-waste plants built on the 10-acre site in the future.

County waste management officer Steve Burdis said: “Battlefield will be our flagship site, and I am not aware of any site of its kind in the UK that's better.” Mr Burdis said the design of the building, which will be completely enclosed and have portholes for the deposit of different materials, was the best he had seen. Generous and easily-accessed recycling banks would also feature in eh site, he said.

The council will cover the cost of the new site itself. Mr Burdis explained: “We get 1.5 million unsupported credit approval as part of our Local Public Service Agreement, which means the government has given us permission to borrow this money. But we don't get any assistance or grants with that – we have to pay for it ourselves.”

Building will start on the site as soon as it receives its waste management license, and it should be up and running by Autumn 2004.

Whitchurch
The council is now waiting for official planning permission for a 2 million HWRC and transfer loading site in Whitchurch, North Shropshire. This will have a capacity of 40,000 tonnes and will have a similar design to the South Shropshire Craven Arms facility which opened in October 2003.

Shropshire's recycling target for 2003/04 is 14%, and the target for 2005/06 is 21%. Mr Burdis said he expected the county to comfortably exceed these goals. “I am pretty confident we will hit over 20% by the end of the year and I&#39d; be very surprised if we didn't meet our 2005/06 target this year.”