Lib Dems welcome High Court decision to block Capel Incinerator
Arising from a challenge by Capel Parish Council to the Surrey Waste Plan, a High Court judge has stated that he will quash SCC's recent planning permission for the Capel Incinerator. A similar thing happened to the previous planning consent given in 2001, though that was on a challenge by the Capel Action Group to the SCC officers' report to the Planning & Regulatory Committee.
The current High Court challenge is to part of the Surrey Waste Plan, which includes the Capel site. Mr Justice Collins has reserved judgement until mid-February, but has told the Court that he found in favour of the Parish Council on at least one of the grounds of the challenge, so he will quash the planning permission for the "Energy from Waste" incinerator on the Clockhouse site at Capel.
It is not yet known whether there will be an appeal against this decision by SCC or their contractor Surrey Waste Management, but clearly it will have an impact on Surrey's plans to move away from sending most of its household waste to landfill sites, which is environmentally damaging and becoming increasingly expensive as the Government increases the landfill tax year-on-year.
The Liberal Democrats at Surrey County Council have continuously opposed mass-burn incinerators like the one planned for Capel, saying this is not the right form of treatment for Surrey's residual waste. Yet the Tory-led county council is still relying on building these mass-burn incinerator "energy from waste" plants as the sole means of diverting its residual waste from landfill.
Lib Dem environment spokesperson at SCC, Cllr Sarah Di Caprio said: "For years we have been saying that Surrey was going down the wrong path in its choice of treatment for residual waste but the Tories wouldn't listen and have continued to vote for mass-burn incineration. There are councils investing in safer and more modern forms of treatment elsewhere in the UK and perhaps the undoubted delay the Capel judgment will cause the process will give Surrey time to think again. Unfortunately that will come at a cost to Surrey residents who will be paying for the Tories' inaction."
Although the arguments raised against the Capel planning application by objectors, including Liberal Democrats, were mainly to do with the suitability of the site and the routes for transporting waste to it, there can be little doubt that one of reasons that there were so many strong objections is the public distaste for mass-burn incineration.
Landfill is fast running out, so until Surrey has an acceptable means of diverting its residual waste from landfill, money will have to be spent transporting it to other counties. Surrey has recently signed a contract with a newly-commissioned large mass-burn incinerator at Allington in Kent and much of Surrey's residual waste will be taken there for the foreseeable future.