January 13th, 2010
East Sussex County Council is threatening to dump large amounts of toxic waste along the
A22 corridor, and has identified five 'areas of search' for appropriate sites.
Chris Bowers is in the forefront of opposition to what's being termed 'land raise',
and is calling on residents of all parts of the county to oppose the county council's
waste disposal ideas. The county council is currently consulting on how it should
dispose of the waste it has to deal with, much of which comes from Brighton & Hove
and a fair bit from Hastings. The consultation has not been well publicised, probably
because the council will have known that opposition to its proposals in our area
would be very strong. And quite right there is unnecessary destruction of the
countryside on our doorstep in these plans, and what is proposed flies in the face
of how governments ask councils to deal with waste disposal.In short, the county
needs to dispose of certain amounts of waste. It has therefore identified five
areas of search where it will look for sites of about 25 hectares (around 60 acres)
of land to create what's known as a 'land raise' basically, jargon for a heap
of rubbish. One of those areas of search is pretty much the whole of the land between
East Hoathly and Laughton, another is north of Hailsham around the Boship roundabout,
and there's another in Wealden district (but not parliamentary constituency
near Golden Cross. It is thought the East Hoathly/Laughton site is fairly high
up the council's priority list. The reasons for opposing 'land raise' include:
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The county council is building a controversial incinerator at Newhaven - one
of its lines of argument for the incinerator was it would limit the need for
land-fill, so why do we need more sites?
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The calculations for working out how much waste we need are flawed. It is based
on 'norms for disposal' set out in the South East Plan, not on what could
actually be achieved in this area.
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If we recycled more, there would be less waste needing to be disposed of, but
the county council has set a maximum level for paying East Sussex's districts
for recycled materials, effectively capping recycling levels. That is
environmentally daft!
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There are no railway lines in the A22 corridor, so all waste would have to be
brought in by road, which is environmentally bad.
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More appropriate sites exist in West Sussex, but because Brighton & Hove were
in East Sussex before they became a 'unitary authority', Brighton's waste has
to be disposed of in East Sussex. In other words, administrative considerations
are winning out over environmental good sense.
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The environment secretary of state Hilary Benn said in Parliament on 10 December
that land raise was not an environmentally satisfactory way of dealing with waste
and should only be used as a last resort.
There are two things that are important for people do to protest. Firstly to write
to the county council to object to the proposal creating land raise sites in all
five areas. People should write in their own language, using some of the arguments
above. Letters should be addressed to Transport and Environment, East Sussex County
Council, C4 Waste and Minerals Policy (AP), FREEPOST (LW43), Lewes, BN7 1BR. They
must be received by 15 January, but the earlier they are received, the better.
'This is not Nimbyist,' says Chris, 'it's just a terribly bad way of disposing of
waste that will wreck unspoilt countryside in the Low Weald and leave more headaches
for our children and grandchildren.'