Diary Ernesettle Spring 08

Diary from 18th January 08

Someone called at my door asking me to sign a petition.

Its not like me at all, but  I am now getting involved in issues relating to Incinerators in Plymouth because very few people I know seemed to know anything about it and I am very concerned about the whole spin-off issues.

 I only found out about all this some two months ago. There seemed to be little or no info about this locally except on the indecipherable Plymouth City website. I suppose it must not be easy inputting info. into this website since the volume of gunk being processed must be astronomical, but the pdf files here sent me dizzy with their jargon and so few maps or diagrams and they were not written in plain English.

I probably would not have bothered at all, but whilst digging in the Plymouth City Council website, I discovered a whole summary of the debate. A consultants team came down from Bristol in 2005 and made Ernesettle the least favourable of five options they investigated for a waste incinerator.  They included  Coypool, Chelston Meadow, Prince Rock, and Moorcroft Quarry, Plymstock.

Somehow Ernesettle went gradually up the list and became favourite with Coypool.

It was a new thing for me but I went to a workshop on the 17th January  from 10am to 4pm.(when most people are at work) about the future plans for Ernesettle and Honicknowle over the next 15 years. It was very smartly presented by the Plymouth City  Planning Dept. as part of their involving the local community. It was good to meet them instead of trawling through pdf. files on their  website.

 I think just only one or two people at the meeting lived in Ernesettle. There were just around 30 people attending who seemed to be on a Council list. They were working as leaders in some way, of the Honicknowle and Ernesettle communities. But other members of the public could come along if they phoned the Council first. It was an  awkward time, but I decided to cancel my work for that day.

The meeting went without a hitch. Everyone was very civilised looking at plans for the area, such as future housing and services and other environment issues except 'Waste'. The Waste topic was summarised for five minutes at the beginning of the meeting by an officer from the Council.

However we were told that the topic of Waste Incineration was the work of a different committee. This was not the place to discuss it, except in the tea break or at lunch-time. This 'Waste'  committee had now gathered much information that had been sent to a Government Inspector. The process was still continuing and we were not to bring up the subject of 'Waste' within the group meeting itself.  

 I said, 'It was like building a McDonalds on the outskirts of a village and not discussing the effect!'

Could this group really design a plan for the community over 15 years without taking this 'Waste Installation' into consideration? How realistic would the results be? They would not budge.

 We were set little tasks about 'what was sustainable' and 'what was not'. ie for housing, crime, health, sport, shops etc. There were some good discussions. On our small group discussion we recommended that a sporting facility and enhanced recreational facility be placed on the land earmarked for an Waste plant.

I know  that there were so many other local issues, such as buses, care, health, sport, houses, crime etc but I still felt 'Waste' should have had a slot for discussion.

Within a couple of days we learned that the Councillors  had voted and approved the Waste Incinerator for just the  two sites: Ernesettle and Coypool. I was told by officers on the phone that they needed a reserve site in case there was a problem with their first choice which was Coypool.

Diary: March April  08

Gradually the the whole issue about the site for Waste in Plymouth has ground to a halt for the public, until the Inspector (Mr Machin) makes a judgement in Spring 2008. Our city council and Inspector, basically refused any more comments after a deadline in late Nov. 07, even though a collegue of mine, Geoffrey Hillier, accompanied him, as a member of the public, to visit an Incinerator at Marchwood near Southampton . Geoffs letter of feedback on the visit is enclosed here.

 It was refused by Mr Machin who later, as expected accepted the councils proposals to use Ernesettle and Coypool for Waste. We are now waiting for the Council to vote for accepting a 90m grant from Gov. to start the billion pound Incinerator plan. It seems these people we put in power to serve us, just don't listen, even when we supply rational, realistic arguments. The people who live under the shadow of this Incinerator in Ernesettle, St Budeaux, Crownhill and Honicknowle have not been consulted.

This map shows the prevailing winds in the area and the extent of human settlement affected by the Incinerator