Planned Ford incinerator gets council thumbs-down
They've said they will challenge the decision if it's approved
Arun councillors have given a solid thumbs-down to the idea of an incinerator being built at Ford.
Plans for an energy recovery facility in Ford Road – complete with an 85m chimney – were submitted to West Sussex County Council by Grundon Waste Management and Viridor.
But members of the district council’s development control committee made it clear that they would call on the government to step in if those plans were approved.
At a meeting on Wednesday (September 2), Jacky Pendleton (Con, Middleton-on-Sea) called the application ‘absolutely ridiculous’.
She raised a number of strong concerns about the noise from the site, the lighting and how it would affect such a rural community, the smell and emissions coming from the facility, the damage it would cause to the landscape, and the traffic it would generate.
A report to the meeting said HGVs would go to and from the site more than 200 times a day.
These concerns were shared by planning officers who laid out nine reasons to object to the plans.
As well as the points raised by Mrs Pendleton, officers said the need for such a facility had not been demonstrated – plans for a similar facility in Horsham were approved on appeal earlier this year.
They felt the design was not of a high quality and didn’t allow for the new homes planned for the area, and not enough space had been set aside to allow for landscaping.
Mrs Pendleton also predicted that plans to bury miles of cable leading from the site would be hugely expensive and they would wind up being strung overhead instead – another blot on the landscape.
Ricky Bower (Con, East Preston) said: “If this were to go through, this planning application would actually drive a coach-and-four through our Local Plan.”
The Local Plan allows for 1,500 homes to be built in Ford by 2031.
But Mr Bower firmly believed that building an incinerator would scupper those plans because ‘no one will want to build next to this if it is as big as is proposed’.
He also said the district’s transport study would have to be looked at again as it didn’t allow for such a development.
Members agreed with Mr Bower’s suggestion that, if West Sussex County Council does approve the plans, they would contact the Secretary of State and ask him to call in the decision and open an inquiry.