2:00pm Monday 22nd February 2010
I OPPOSE the incinerator for Middlewich but can see Covanta gradually chipping away until planners eventually grant permission.
If we fail to get this rejected outright then I feel a fallback should be that the planning committee attaches a permanent, legally binding restriction on any planning agreement for the use of any incinerator to just process local Cheshire waste.
The planners should receive no objection to this from Covanta (although I doubt they wouldn’t), in fact Covanta should support it as they have stated categorically they have no intention of bringing in waste from outside the county.
This restriction should not be left to the whim of Covanta but should be legally binding in any permission and a restriction of this nature would easily be within the remit of the planners and should be imposed.
If Covanta did raise any objection to this then they would effectively be expressing their intention to bring in waste into the county in the future, making their previous statement of intent a lie.
If this happened, this in itself should support an outright rejection of the permission by the planners with the company’s obvious intention to further significantly increase the traffic and pollution in bringing in outside waste.
In addition this would also show the company is not to be trusted in even a simple statement so how far would they be likely to go in also processing toxic waste.
The first choice still remains for the application to be rejected outright but failing this we must press for tight restrictions to be imposed by planners if permission were unfortunately to be granted.
GRAHAM POTTS Middlewich
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