2007 Campaign Update

Well : A few short weeks ago it was Christmas and thoughts moved away from Highways Agency Relocations and Composting, towards our families and friends.

That said, we are soon back into the campaign and the issues return to occupy our minds.

The David and Goliath fight continues as we battle with the council and their agent who have significant resources and more spin than a highways agency van wheel as they push forwards to ruin Grassmoor and other local villages.

To reiterate we are campaigning to prevent the construction of the Highways Agency, AND the heavy industrial composting plant. The accumulation of these two random proposals nobody should have to suffer.

If constructed the plant will expand to fill the demand for this type of facility, and will operate indefinitely. They say it’s for 25 years, but the Avenue site was there, polluting for many years longer than they originally said !

Anyway, what is new ?

Derbyshire County Council kindly took some members of the campaign group to Edmonton, to see their troubled compost facility, which is 1/3 of the size of the one proposed for Grassmnoor at only 30,000 tonnes. Here residents for miles around have suffered, and the operator ‘Agrivert’ (http://www.agrivert.co.uk/) stated that they had been through a learning curve and that the problems were fixed.

This is not the case according to the local people whose lives have been blighted and who are fighting for enclosure of the whole facility. Also they have not tested the facility in the summer, where common sense suggests it will smell the worse than the winter months ! (although our research suggests they still smell in winter as less green waste goes in !)

More information will come out on the next leaflet that will drop through your doors soon. Suffice it to say, the reception area (where the lorries drop off the rubbish) had a horrendous stench of rubbish, and the composting areas were extremely smelly. Very different types of smell.

The system proposed in Grassmoor is the CRS system (http://www.crservices.co.uk/about.htm) which constantly vents the malodorous air out, and consists of concrete tunnels, in which diggers move the ‘compost’ around to turn it.

EMDA (East Midlands Development Agency) have released their plans and intention to reclaim part of the Avenue location, and to clean it up, as part of a massive £ 104.5 MILLION investment. This is needed to undo previous damage made by the decisions of DCC historically.

EMDA want to clean-up the Avenue, build a sports area, wetlands, and mixed-use buildings.  – Interesting stuff, why then do DCC want to build a monstrosity next door ?

CPL who are also in the local area want to do some work in their section of the Avenue, and their application can be viewed on the DCC website  (http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/ )area as well.

We ask. Just how much can the Grassmoor, Wingerworth, Hasland, Tupton area take ?

Each day we hear of vehicular pollution issues and health impacts to children who live near roads - As David Jones (The DCC consultant from Axis) said in November, the bin lorries will be able to queue on the site. No doubt with heavy engines pumping out fumes !

Initially DCC wanted to put this before the planning committee in November 2006 ! – We are very pleased to have made them sit up and listen to us. As this is written it is now February 2007 !

The families and people of Grassmoor have really united and come together to fight this, in an unprecedented way.

People in Wingerworth are now more aware and are rightly furious. They have also banded together to fight these plans.

THE BREAKING NEWS is that Derbyshire County Council has announced their intention to put this before the planning committee on the 12th March, and anyone who objected should receive a letter. We urge you to come along to fill the council chamber on the day. Time will be advised here once DCC tell us.

Grassmoor is a nice place to live, it’s never in the papers as a bad area, or a problem to anyone….. Together we can keep it that way.

We have stated our clear intention to continue if DCC planning vote yes to this horror. More on this at our next community meeting.