A five-year legal dispute, in which former boxing champion, Barry McGuigan was one of the leading protestors, has concluded with the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions blocking a scheme to create a giant waste tip on land at Dargate, near Whitstable.
The proposed scheme was to create a tip that would have covered a staggering area, equivalent to that enclosed by the city walls at neighbouring Canterbury, up to a depth of 30ft. The tip was to have been created on greenfield land, and would have been used as a dumping ground not only for UK waste, but also for waste from other parts of Europe.
However, in a signpost ruling, the minister has called a halt to the scheme, backing Kent County Council and rejecting Cleanaways’ plan on the basis that it would conflict with current thinking on waste management. In so doing, he has laid down important guidelines in respect of planning for future schemes of this nature.
The area in question, although a greenfield site, is not viewed as a Special Landscape Area. However, the report blocking the plan makes it clear that even if an area of open countryside is not top quality in the terms of landscape, that does not mean it should not be safeguarded from such development.
Public fears over possible health risks played a major role in the plan’s dismissal, even though the report makes it clear that there is no hard evidence that the tip would have posed a health risk. The report says that when it comes to granting planning consent for such matters, whether there is a health risk or not, public fears over possible health risks are factors that should be taken into consideration.
The protestors were led by Kent planning barrister, John Bishop, whose own home would have been almost adjacent to the site.
“This was very much a David and Goliath battle and all too often these days it is Goliath who wins such campaigns,” he said.
“However, on this occasion, it is the small people in the form of the local residents who have won. This tip would have been a blot on the landscape of the traditional garden of England and thankfully it has now been blocked. As it is, the threat of it has posed a major blight over property in the area.
“The planning guide-lines that have been given in the decision to block it are also going to be invaluable for the future. They are bound to help others who find themselves threatened with this sort of development.”
PLS News 12/9/01
