High Court moves to block planning consent for a new municipal waste incinerator near Southampton have failed.
Local residents had challenged Hampshire County Council’s grant of planning permission for the incinerator at the Marchwood Industrial Estate near Southampton.
They claimed that a “fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal” into the matter had not taken place, contrary to the provisions of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
However, the judge dismissed all their complaints. “I am satisfied that their case fails to get off the starting blocks on the facts”, he said.
The incinerator – formally an energy-recovery facility and waste-transfer station – will stand within 2.14 miles of the homes of more than 64,000 people. Although it will not be operational until 2004, it will eventually handle 165,000 tonnes of waste each year.
Neil Fordham, counsel for the objectors, argued that the council’s planning committee had been “misled” when they resolved to grant planning consent for the scheme in November 2000.
He claimed that the county planning officer’s report, upon which the committee had based their decision, was wrong to say that the plant “would not lead to a breach of air-quality guidelines and standards, and so any risk to health would be negligible”. He claimed that evidence indicated that levels of key pollutant, nitrogen dioxide, in the area were already “in excess of the relevant legally recognised air quality standards”.
However, Sullivan J said that the report was a “faithful summary” of an environmental statement on the scheme and had been designed to make complex issues more accessible to lay councillors and the public.
PLS News 15/6/01
