I am opposed to the incinerator plan at Newhaven. I do not think it is a suitable site for such a project and I think if successful, it will be hugely detrimental to local environment and Newhaven as a whole.
1950 - Norman Baker MP
I appear today primarily in my capacity as the Member of Parliament for the Lewes constituency, and to represent the strong views of my constituents, particularly in relation to the proposal for an incinerator in Newhaven.
I also serve as the Shadow Environment Secretary in Parliament for the Liberal Democrats, and am responsible in the party for all matters relating to resource management and waste disposal.
In addition, I served for 8 years between 1989 and 1997 on East Sussex County Council, including a spell as Vice Chair of the then Highways and Transportation committee, which had responsibility for waste matters, and for 12 years between 1987 and 1999 on Lewes District Council, including 6 years as leader of that authority from 1991 to 1997.
The Waste Hierarchy
I take as my starting point the government's waste hierarchy.
Top of the hierarchy is waste minimisation, which, if promoted successfully, reduces the need for facilities for dealing with waste, as well as minimising the environmental impact. It would have made sense if a Municipal Waste Management Strategy had been developed in parallel with the Waste Plan process. It is a failure of the councils that no such strategy has been produced. There is very little in the Waste Plan which will lead to waste minimisation.
There is also little in the Plan to encourage reuse of materials, which should equally have been covered by such a strategy.
I believe, however, that even on recycling, the Plan fails. The councils appear to have decided to meet the required reduction in landfilling of biodegradable waste largely through incineration rather than recycling or composting. They have also failed to take into account the forthcoming EU Biowaste Directive, which will require source separation of organic material.
If the amount of waste continues to grow, it is possible to envisage a situation where the agreed level of throughput for the incinerator is met, whilst the proportion recycled grows. If however the councils are successful in terms of waste minimisation, in other words they succeed in reducing the waste stream, they will still wish to meet the agreed minimum throughput level for the incinerator, so that suggests a pressure to reduce the amount recycled. The only fixed point is the amount required to be delivered to Onyx under the contract. Because an incinerator needs to function at or near maximum capacity for financial, operational, and environmental reasons, clearly any absolute decline in waste arisings would impact disproportionately on the amount of material available for recycling. The conclusions I draw from this are as follows:
(a) The proposed incinerator at Newhaven is driving the Plan, not emerging from it. (a) The councils are assuming a continuing growth in the waste stream, albeit at a declining rate of growth, and that underlines my assertion that they have little in place to deliver the preferred option within the waste hierarchy, namely waste minimisation (b) The contract, read in conjunction with the Plan, therefore allows the councils to achieve waste minimisation or continually increasing recycling levels but not both, because of the constraints imposed by the delivery of the fourth best option in the waste hierarchy, incineration.
To interpret the waste hierarchy correctly, the councils should have worked sequentially from the top down, not from the bottom up, as they appear to have done.
Recycling and Composting
I believe that the two councils can and should recycle or compost a higher percentage of municipal waste than the 40% the Plan suggests by 2015.
In Daventry, for example, they already recycle 44% of municipal solid waste, achieved over a six-year period. They are currently aiming to achieve 55%. The recycling target for this Plan area is lower in 2015, twelve years away, than is currently achieved by Daventry. That cannot sensibly be called challenging, as the councils maintain.
Even in East Sussex itself, waste collection authorities are demonstrating that a higher target is eminently achievable. Wealden District Council's CROWN scheme has increased recycling rates for household waste in parts of its District from 4% to 53% in just two years. Lewes District Council has set itself a recycling target of 50% by 2015. I fail to understand why East Sussex County Council has not drawn the lesson from these examples within the Plan area that its recycling targets can be safely increased with a quite reasonable expectation that they will be met.
Recently, the government has indicated its broad support for the Household Waste Recycling Bill, currently before the House, which would effectively require doorstep collection across England and Wales by 2010. That in turn will almost certainly lead to a recycling rate considerably in excess of the target set for the recycling of municipal waste in this Plan.
Composting is important. Organic waste often makes up over 40% of the household waste stream. I suggest that any Waste Plan which does not explicitly and separately deal with composting is an incomplete one. In order to maximise the recycling rate, I believe the Plan should set different targets for recycling and composting. It does not do so.
Proposed Incinerator in Newhaven
My central objection to the Plan is the proposal to site an incinerator in Newhaven or "Energy from Waste" plant, as the councils call it, on the basis that this is less objectionable than calling it an incinerator.
I draw your attention to the recent judgement in the European Court of Justice (European Commission v Luxembourg), which I regard as a material fact that this Inquiry needs to take into account.
The judgement ruled that incineration should be classified as a disposal technique, rather than a recovery one, as the primary purpose is not to produce energy, but to dispose of waste. That seems to me entirely right. To argue otherwise is to suggest, for example, that the landfill site presently operating at Beddingham should be called an Energy from Waste facility, on the basis that it traps methane generated by its activities and feeds the energy derived from that back into the national grid.
The judgement aligns incineration more with landfill than with material recovery techniques such as reuse and recycling. That distinction is in fact underlined by the fact that the government is considering the introduction of an incineration tax, similar presumably to the existing landfill tax. The introduction of such a tax is already Liberal Democrat policy.
In addition to the general policy reasons why incineration should not be pursued in the Plan, there are good reasons specific to Newhaven as well.
First, Impact on the road network
The Plan envisages that waste from the whole of East Sussex, including Brighton and Hove, may come to Newhaven for incineration.
It seems clear that it is the intention of Onyx to move the waste by road. The councils concede that there would be well in excess of 200 return trips daily, which would have a significant and detrimental impact on traffic levels on the A26 in particular. If an incinerator is allowed here, and I fervently hope it is not, there should be both a contract condition and a planning requirement for the vast majority of material to be moved by rail or boat.
In their submission, the South Downs and Weald Primary Care Trust, whose area of responsibility covers Newhaven, says:
"We are... concerned that that the 448 anticipated daily HGV movements to and from the planned incinerator may increase already high rates of injury due to road traffic accidents in the local population. The severity of accidents due to HGV movements is likely to be considerably greater than those associated with smaller vehicles."
Second, Emissions
For the public at large within my constituency, fear of adverse consequences from the emissions from the incinerator represents their greatest worry in respect of the proposals in the Waste Plan.
I believe that the perception of increased risk, justified or not, is a material consideration where it intrudes upon the quality of life. This view is in line with the conclusion reached by the Inspector considering the proposal for an incinerator in Kidderminster.
I accept that the level of emissions from incinerators is markedly lower than even ten years ago, and that limits are to be tightened further by EU legislation. Nevertheless, legitimate concerns remain. Firstly, the present emission standards are based on what is measurable, rather than necessarily that which constitutes a health risk. Secondly, much of the emission monitoring is done on a self-regulation basis, rather than by the Environment Agency. There is no continual external monitoring of emissions from incinerators in the UK. Thirdly, most visits by the EA to incinerator plants are pre-announced, giving operators the opportunity to ensure that the incinerator is working to maximum efficiency at the time of monitoring.
The PCT in its submission makes the point that there is a heightened risk to the health of the population from a malfunction of the incinerator, and that accidental emissions from 12 incinerators were reported in the period from January 1996 and October 1998.
The PCT concludes:
"There remains considerable uncertainty about the effects of incinerator emissions, and the scientific evidence is currently incomplete. Incinerator emissions contain a variety of known carcinogens and toxic particles, which may be deposited on the surrounding land and ingested, or inhaled."
I believe that to be a fair summary of the position. Under these circumstances, I believe it right to apply the precautionary principle. The burden of proof must lie with the proposer of the development. It is for them to demonstrate to the public that what they are proposing is acceptable to the local community. It is not for others to disprove the case.
Third, Impact on the AONB and National Park
The proposed incinerator would sit on the edge of an AONB and soon to exist National Park. The South Downs Way is some two miles away. I calculate, based on the recent Hull example, that the building might be some 150 feet high, with a stack some 260 feet high. It is beyond question that an incinerator at North Quay, with perhaps a plume, would be highly visible from a long way away, right up the Ouse Valley, would dominate the skyline, and would have a severely detrimental effect on the AONB. The view would effectively industrialise a beautiful and largely undeveloped piece of countryside. This unwelcome effect would be magnified, as there no other buildings of comparable height in Newhaven.
Fourth, the effect on the economy of Newhaven
I have direct experience of working with the business community in the town. In addition to my on-going role as MP, I served throughout its life on the recently ended Newhaven Economic Partnership, the private-public vehicle set up to facilitate the regeneration of the town. I also served for four years as Chair of the Economic Development sub-committee on East Sussex County Council.
Newhaven is to an important extent a driver for the economy of the wider sub-region and is a strong centre of employment. After a period in the doldrums, business and community confidence has returned, with visible signs of quality investment appearing.
I am in no doubt that the business community in Newhaven is strongly opposed to the prospect of an incinerator being built in the town, principally because they feel that an incinerator would jeopardise all the good work that has gone in to turning round the image of the town. It is vital for the success of Newhaven in the 21st century that it loses the rundown, tatty image it has had. The erection of an incinerator would, rather than help the regeneration of the town, simply reinforce the image that Newhaven is, put crudely, somewhere you dump that which you don't want.
Fifth, proximity principle and geographic equity
Waste Strategy 2000says that:
"The proximity principle suggests that waste should generally be disposed of as near to its place of origin as possible."
The proposal to dispose of waste from the whole of East Sussex at one facility, in Newhaven, undermines this principle. Furthermore, in the judicial review into the Surrey Waste Local Plan, the judgement reached was that officers had wrongly advised that the proximity principle does not apply below the level of county boundaries. This is clearly highly relevant to the proposal to consideration of this Plan.
The proximity principle and the issue of geographic equity is particularly applicable to Brighton and Hove, where of course the largest volume of waste arisings will come from. Therefore if there were to be just one incinerator of the size proposed, the proximity principle would be better (though far from fully) met if it were located there.
Of course, for the reasons given above, I do not advocate that. I note, however, that when discussion was under way regarding possible locations for an incinerator, the political leadership at Brighton and Hove made it clear that it would be completely unacceptable for it to be situated within the city boundary, whilst strenuously maintaining that there was no risk whatsoever to human health.
Lastly, I turn to Faults in the process
I contend that the two councils have clearly failed to follow established practice with regard to the determination of the Best Practical Environmental Option.
It is clear that at least as far back as 1999 and probably before, the councils had decided that at least one incinerator would be included in the Waste Plan.
It is also a matter of record that the BPEO was not begun until October 2002 and not published until February 2003. It seems clear that this exercise was only undertaken in order that the relevant box could be ticked, and that the function of the BPEO was not to inform the choices in the Plan, but to provide retrospective justification for the decisions made.
Worse, it is clear that the production of the BPEO was fatally compromised by the decision to secure information from the successful bidder, Onyx, so as to provide justification for the strategy that that company wished to follow.
Waste Strategy 2000 states that:
"Local environmental, social and economic preferences will be important in any decision."
Local criteria were not given proper consideration in this case. In the Kidderminster Inquiry, the Inspector there ruled that the BPEO assessment cannot be carried out behind closed doors, and that public consultation was essential. That has patently failed to happen here.
There are, I am afraid, other examples where the process followed brings into question the actions of the two councils.
First, I question the seriousness with which the councils regarded the Waste Local Plan consultation process. There are 10,783 officially accepted objections to the proposed incinerator in Newhaven, as well as 1530 further objections to the Plan which have been deemed inadmissible. Interestingly, 10,783 is almost exactly equivalent to the population of Newhaven, 11071. I myself collected and handed in a petition of objection, bearing 4712 signatures, predominantly from Newhaven and Seaford.
Furthermore, the shadow of an incinerator constituted perhaps the biggest election issue in the recent District and Town elections, certainly in Newhaven and Seaford, with the result that the Conservatives, who are in the public mind associated with this proposal, failed to win a single seat at either District or Town level in either town.
I recite this, not for party purposes, but to demonstrate the depth of feeling felt in all quarters locally about the proposal, and the anger that, despite the huge opposition registered to the proposal, no change of any sort was made to the Plan in respect of the incinerator when the objections were formally considered by the councils.
The councils did set up a Waste Forum to assess public opinion, which reported in June 2001, but then promptly ignored its conclusions. It said, for example, that
In respect of BPEO, the report says:
The present strategy excludes too many options in advance of BPEO assessment.
Second, it is a matter of record that the councils decided to enter into a contract with Onyx to provide an incinerator before this Public Inquiry even began. Whilst I accept that that is not currently illegal, it reinforces the view that the councils had decided what they intended to do, and no external voice would be allowed to alter that.
I am afraid that I regard the Plan as unambitious, out of line with the waste hierarchy, inconsistent with past court rulings, and environmentally depressing. Most of all I am disgusted that the overwhelming views of the people of my constituency, in Newhaven of course, but in Seaford, Lewes and elsewhere as well, expressed clearly, consistently, and articulately, can be so brutally ignored by a council which is supposed to represent them.
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