Mercia EnviRecover

• News
• Downloads
• Public Inquiry
• Blog
• CLG
• Community Engagement
• Planning Application
• FAQs
• Contact

Where

In beautiful parts of the country like Worcestershire and Herefordshire there is a limited number of appropriate locations to site any form of major industrial plant. Whilst the waste planning authorities - Worcestershire County Council and Herefordshire Council are working towards producing Waste Core Strategies that will provide a framework for the development of all new waste management infrastructure, this work will not be completed before we have to address the issue of siting new facilities.

To find the best place for a single plant to manage the residual waste across the two Counties, we have undertaken a detailed site search exercise based on local, regional and national planning policy and guidance. To begin with, the company consulted with the planning authorities in order to agree the site search methodology. In summary (and in no ranking order), it was decided that a new plant should:

• Be close to the main arisings of waste (largest population centres) in order to minimise the distance that waste has to travel;
  
• Be located close to the major road network to avoid the excessive use of inappropriate or minor roads;
  
• Be on a suitably sized site that is allocated for industrial or commercial employment use, or other ‘brownfield’ land;
  
• Not be located on a flood plain, nor on or close to important protected national heritage or natural habitat sites that it might affect; and
  
• Be commercially available for the proposed use.
  

In addition, more subjective but no less important criteria will include:

• Consideration of sites that would not cause undue harm to local amenities or create other unacceptable environmental impacts; and
  
• Consideration of sites that are capable of supporting such mitigation measures that may be required to make a waste facility environmentally acceptable recognising the nature of its location.
  

This means, for example, that a particular plot of land might have to be large enough to enable a landscaping scheme, or screening works to be implemented.

Having assessed in detail all the possible prospects, we have concluded that the most appropriate place for the EfW facility is on the Hartlebury Trading Estate. The planning application for Mercia EnviRecover, together with the accompanying Environmental Impact Assessment, will set out the merits of this location and the reason why it is the preferred site. In summary, it ‘ticks all the boxes’ in respect of the search criteria set out above, with the additional benefits that the connection to the main electricity grid is close by, and that the Trading Estate represents a tremendous opportunity to maximise the energy potential of the facility through the direct supply of energy to other businesses on the Estate.

The proposed site for Mercia EnviRecover already benefits from planning permission for over 17,000m2 of industrial type buildings. In addition, it has had planning permission for major waste management uses. These facts, together with a lack of a better alternative site that meets the search criteria (listed above), will assist in justifying the development at this location and in the context of planning policies relating to the site.

Click here to see a plan of the major population centres in Herefordshire and Worcestershire, and the location of Hartlebury trading Estate