Newhaven incinerator, anyone else seen it?

[adrian29uk]

The more I see this thing the more I hate it, and just to think how LDC held back our stadium when this thing actually had planning permission.

I understand totally our rubbish needs to go somewhere because we can't keep filling landfill. What I do have a problem with is how it looks. It's bloody awful and towers over everything.

I don't know how else they could have built it, but the new waste treatment works in Peacehaven has been sunk in to the ground and is now slowly being landscaped. Once complete you won't hardly notice it.

 

[deletebeepbeepbeep]

I do a bit of work for Newhaven Port so go past it regularly, it's absolutely MASSIVE.

 

[porkypie]

I see it every day, its a monster of a thing!

 

[adrian29uk]

I see it every day, its a monster of a thing!

Since the two chimneys have been added its finally hit home what a monster it is. Like I say I understand why its being built. The only thing that worries is what comes out of it. No one can really answer the question as to how toxic it is.

Here are the affected areas

 

[Monkey Man]

Strange that the incinerator got built despite overwhelming opposition from every local council, community group and thousands of residents and only got permission based on a handful of votes from ESCC members who don't live locally and don't have to worry about votes.

Then you have Falmer, wanted by just about everybody except a handful of self-interested whingers, which was blocked at almost every turn in the planning process and relied on a Sec of State ruling to get built.

The incinerator can be seen from miles around and makes your heart sink every time you view it. It looks like a huge metallic woodlouse that's been pinned to the floor with a couple of giant needles.

 

[Deleted User X18H]

No! But I have seen Newhaven.

 

[adrian29uk]

Strange that the incinerator got built despite overwhelming opposition from every local council, community group and thousands of residents and only got permission based on a handful of votes from ESCC members who don't live locally and don't have to worry about votes.

Then you have Falmer, wanted by just about everybody except a handful of self-interested whingers, which was blocked at almost every turn in the planning process and relied on a Sec of State ruling to get built.

The incinerator can be seen from miles around and makes your heart sink every time you view it. It looks like a huge metallic woodlouse that's been pinned to the floor with a couple of giant needles.

Exactly. It's just unbelievable. Falmer blocked at every corner, something that promotes healthy living, helps the community and improves the local area, and while this was going on the Incinerator finally got full backing.
Correct me If I am wrong, I don't know the full facts but it feels like to me LDC put more effort in to blocking our stadium than they did the Incinerator. Is it because LDC found it easier to try and bully a football club as apposed to a large corporation where they could get their fingers burned if they failed?

People in the area will wake up to its once they see it.

 

[Norman Potting]

Yes - saw it last sunday. Look very Sci-fi.

 

[adrian29uk]

Just to let you know, its called a Energy Recovery Facility lol

 

[The Oldman]

Exactly. It's just unbelievable. Falmer blocked at every corner, something that promotes healthy living, helps the community and improves the local area, and while this was going on the Incinerator finally got full backing.
Correct me If I am wrong, I don't know the full facts but it feels like to me LDC put more effort in to blocking our stadium than they did the Incinerator. Is it because LDC found it easier to try and bully a football club as apposed to a large corporation where they could get their fingers burned if they failed?

People in the area will wake up to its once they see it.

East Sussex County Council were the planning Authority for the incinerator, not LDC. Local LIb Dems were opposed to the incinerator. I agree the thing is an abomination although I'm not personally opposed to incineration as a means of getting rid or our rubbish.It's just the design and location of this plant that seems so wrong.

 

[beorhthelm]

The only thing that worries is what comes out of it. No one can really answer the question as to how toxic it is.

soot and water, not much different to what comes out of a diesel. of course, whats in the soot is a deeper question... i understand that the heavy particles (witht he dioxins etc) get scrubed out anyway. that affected area is a bit of hype. due to prevailing winds, most fallout will be in a triangluar cone going NE, pretty much uninhabited downland.

you wonder if in the effort to focus on Falmer, LDC slightly took their eye off the incinerator ball. and to think, the falmer site was earmarked for this before our stadium, so Falmer and Lewes done alright out of it.

 

[Buck]

Strange that the incinerator got built despite overwhelming opposition from every local council, community group and thousands of residents and only got permission based on a handful of votes from ESCC members who don't live locally and don't have to worry about votes.

Then you have Falmer, wanted by just about everybody except a handful of self-interested whingers, which was blocked at almost every turn in the planning process and relied on a Sec of State ruling to get built.

The incinerator can be seen from miles around and makes your heart sink every time you view it. It looks like a huge metallic woodlouse that's been pinned to the floor with a couple of giant needles.

And apparently we live in a democracy!!!

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I do believe that David Rodgers (Lib Dem) was on the East Sussex county council who approved it and is now councillor on the LDC for Newhaven. I don't think LDC took their eye of the incinerator but knew exactly what they were doing.

 

[Monkey Man]

Those who signed off the permission for the incinerator know who they are - and so do we. I'd love to see a plaque with their names and faces on erected somewhere prominent in the area so we never forget what their roles were in this.

 

[Seagull over Canaryland]

Having lived in Brighton & Lewes for many years until fairly recently we were all too familiar with the so called democratic planning processes that obstructed the application for our stadium at Falmer inspite of among other things a referendum in favour but at the same time managed to railroad through the incinerator at Newhaven, also ignoring a referendum.

A similar process is now happening in this part of the world - the landfill capacity is almost exhausted and the County Council has just ignored a 60,000 name petition against an incinerator and is going ahead. The local Borough council is trying to find £150k funding to make a legal challenge. There are huge concerns re. the health implications arising from the fallout of particulates from the incinerator upon human and livestock health, the contamination of crops across East Anglia and of fish stocks in the North Sea. For example much of the wheat and barley production for the UK food supply derives from here. Just down the road is one of the grower of barley that supplys 60 UK breweries.........a subject very dear to my heart. By implication within a year ot two wherever you live in the UK your fish chips and beer could well have an extra ingredient, courtesy of our incinerator.

Talking of perverse planning processes I found it both amusing and sadly ironic that the campaign here in Norfolk to dual the last section of the A11 from London to Norwich which has been a political football for years finally landed on the new coalition government Transport Minister's desk - none other our old friend Norman Baker MP of course. Locals here got very excited when he got involved thinking he would be an ally......if only they knew what an obstacle he was to road planning in Sussex e.g. the dualling of the A27 in particular. I always felt that his (and his LibDem colleagues) inertia directly had a negative impact on the numbers of road casualties on the A27 east of Lewes (often including some of his own constituents). Also led to that fudged and very expensive new arrangement at Beddingham.

The only good news is that Baker must be rather pissed off now that his Tory boss has just found the money to finish the A11....fingers crossed that will now make it dual carriageway / motorway all the way from here to The Amex (or park & ride)!

 

[beorhthelm]

A similar process is now happening in this part of the world - the landfill capacity is almost exhausted and the County Council has just ignored a 60,000 name petition against an incinerator and is going ahead.

so whats the solution to the landfill capacity problem then? and in that petition, how many of the 60k signatories are informed and have a properly qualified opinion? one of the problems with democracy for such issues is that people tend to default to nimbyism, or out right reject the solution altoghter anywhere, on the grounds of mis-information from pressuer groups. there have been incinerators built for decades, so you can analyse the health around them and definatly say if theres an effect, but the anti-brigade never do such studies, instead relying on theoretical possibilities: burning creates dioxins, these will become airborn, therefore they will be breathed in by the locals. but do the dioxins even get released? the toxic particles can be captured and disposed of.

i wonder if the same 60k would sign and observe a pledge to recylce everything they buy from the supermarket. if we didnt produce the waste, it wouldnt need to be incinerated.

 

[8ace]

 

[Monkey Man]

so whats the solution to the landfill capacity problem then? and in that petition, how many of the 60k signatories are informed and have a properly qualified opinion? one of the problems with democracy for such issues is that people tend to default to nimbyism, or out right reject the solution altoghter anywhere, on the grounds of mis-information from pressuer groups. there have been incinerators built for decades, so you can analyse the health around them and definatly say if theres an effect, but the anti-brigade never do such studies, instead relying on theoretical possibilities: burning creates dioxins, these will become airborn, therefore they will be breathed in by the locals. but do the dioxins even get released? the toxic particles can be captured and disposed of.

i wonder if the same 60k would sign and observe a pledge to recylce everything they buy from the supermarket. if we didnt produce the waste, it wouldnt need to be incinerated.

You have a valid point but part of the argument was that even if you accept the case for incineration, was Newhaven the place to put it? Apart from wrecking another part of the Ouse estuary/valley, it gives residents/businesses/tourists yet another reason to find Newhaven unattractive at a time when some people are trying to correct decades of cack-handed planning which has made the town the deprived place it is today. If there's really no issue with health etc, why not build the incinerator in the middle of Brighton? Too much aggro, too many votes at stake, too much risk of national publicity. Nah. Dump it on Newhaven, and no one will care or notice - that seemed to be the logic.

 

[Gordon Bennett]

You have a valid point but part of the argument was that even if you accept the case for incineration, was Newhaven the place to put it? Apart from wrecking another part of the Ouse estuary/valley, it gives residents/businesses/tourists yet another reason to find Newhaven unattractive at a time when some people are trying to correct decades of cack-handed planning which has made the town the deprived place it is today. If there's really no issue with health etc, why not build the incinerator in the middle of Brighton? Too much aggro, too many votes at stake, too much risk of national publicity. Nah. Dump it on Newhaven, and no one will care or notice - that seemed to be the logic.

Don't forget it is serving East Sussex as well as Brighton and Hove so there are many factors which would have gone into choosing the location such as proximity to where all the waste is coming from as well as how easy it is to get the lorries to and from the site.

I guess there is very rarely an ideal site for something like this so it ends up being the least worse.

 

[Monkey Man]

Don't forget it is serving East Sussex as well as Brighton and Hove so there are many factors which would have gone into choosing the location such as proximity to where all the waste is coming from as well as how easy it is to get the lorries to and from the site.

I guess there is very rarely an ideal site for something like this so it ends up being the least worse.

My point is really that, if you accept the arguments of the pro-lobby that this is not only no danger to health but also a potential tourist attraction (yes, honestly - see council minutes) they could have put it almost anywhere. So why choose a town which already has severe congestion, an image of deprivation and decline, and which is supposedly trying to regenerate itself? Newhaven needs all the friends it can get these days, and very few of them seem to exist at ESCC.