Another waste plant for Corby?

New Year, same old problems.  The prospect of waste plants has raised its ugly head again.

Northamptonshire County Council granted planning permission in 2009 for a gasification plant on Gretton Brook Road.  The proposals for Brookfield - which Corby Borough Council disposed of in December 2014 - were to link to this.

To run effectively, waste plants need vast quantities of waste.  In Scandinavia they now have to import waste to keep the plants they've built running.

The company proposing to run this plant in Corby - DRENL Ltd - have applied to NCC to have the 30-mile limit on from where they can bring waste removed to make this plant economically viable.

They want to bring waste in from 90 minutes away.  The map they've provided shows waste transfer stations and the vast area this covers.

It includes King's Lynn in Norfolk - which had an application for an incinerator rejected - some of Essex, Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Milton Keynes and Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, Banbury in Oxfordshire, Wolverhampton and Birmingham in the West Midlands, Warwickshire, Cannock in Staffordshire, Nottingham and Newark, Derby, Lincoln and Boston, Leicestershire and Rutland.  That covers stations in 15 counties, at least, and includes major cities.

Why should Corby become a dumping ground for all these counties? Imagine the number of lorries this will create on our already clogged roads, the increased pollution.

Interestingly, the hierarchy of waste management has reduction of waste at the top, then reuse and recycling as the main priorities.  Then follows recovery (i.e. gasification) and landfill as the least preferred options.

In my opinion, NCC should be encouraging more reduction, reuse and recycling in the county, not building waste plants and importing waste from far and wide to be incinerated, spewing out toxins and creating ash residue to be buried in landfill.

If you feel the same, please e-mail NCC at developmentcontrol@northamptonshire.gov.uk and tell them why the 30-mile limit shouldn't be lifted.  Have pride in Corby and in Northamptonshire - we deserve better.