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Good on you - but where were waste bosses?
The pretence of the "public consultation" into plans for the giant waste treatment plan at Manvers became startlingly clear at a public meeting this week when the concerned residents turned up... but the waste bosses did not.
When NO-ONE from the Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham (BDR) Waste Partnership project took up the invitation to answer questions from a full house at Mexborough Resource Centre on Monday night, it was left to anti-waste plant campaigners to educate their fellow residents about the environmental and traffic horrors Don and Dearne people can reasonably expect.
These include up to a staggering 336 bin lorry trips per DAY on local roads, to and from Manvers.
The Times has finally obtained figures from the three authorities for the number of bin wagons currently in use - which total 56... five more than even the protesters had estimated.
And the campaigners warn of two or even three trips per day to and from the facility - totalling 224 to 336 daily!
Despite waste bosses offering an excuse for absence of "not being able to add anything more...to the considerable amount of information already given out to members of the public", residents who live within half a mile of the site said they had never heard of the plans until they read the coverage in the Times.
Committee members of the Dearne Valley Against Incineration in Manvers (AIM) group, told the meeting the BDR Waste Partnership had only sent letters and leaflets to a total of 1,300 residents - roughly 0.016 per cent of the 770,300 combined population of the three boroughs - about waste site plans!
Dearne Valley AIM chairman, Peter Stuart, said: "They advertised the consultation in places such as Doncaster bus station and Barnsley Library and the latest public drop-ins only drew 130 attendees across three sessions because no one knew it was taking place.
"They didn't even put a sign up on the door at the Bolton venue and when we leafletted people to get them there, they changed the date just days before, blaming the England World Cup game."
Bolton-upon Dearne resident Malcolm Chappell questioned the council's legal handling of the consultation.
He said: "When consultation is so scant, this could be an abuse of process. Can we trust the councils or have they abused the proper process all the way down on this one?"
The absence of any local councillors from Rotherham and Barnsley and local MPs Ed Miliband and John Healey, also caused annoyance with the residents - as did the revelation from Mexborough councillor Sue Phillips, who chaired the meeting, that she had been gagged from taking an active part in the debate.
Coun Phillips explained: "As councillors, we signed up to the constitution of Doncaster.
"As the decision to support the waste plant was taken at a full council meeting then we must abide by that decision and the democratic process, and not speak out against it, whether we agreed with it personally or not.
"Otherwise, we will be up before the standards board", she added.
Residents also raised health concerns about what an incinerator would mean for resident's well-being.
Sue Sharpe, another member of Dearne Valley AIM told the meeting: "If they build an incinerator, they will have to burn the waste at a certain temperature or it creates dioxins and toxins".
Mr Stuart added: "For every 100,000 tons of waste burned, it creates 33,000 tons of ash.
"Of that, the top ash is used for road building, and the rest is fly ash which is deadly and which needs to be taken and disposed of in a licensed landfill site."
AIM chairman Peter Stuart said: "Each of the three local authorities has dozens of waste wagons, and everyone of these will be coming at least twice a day into the site in both directions - in and out.
"Do people want this kind of movement on their roads for the next 25 or more years?"
When asked what routes the lorries would take, Sue Sharpe replied: "I emailed the BDR group for a colour map of the traffic routes.
"But I was told we couldn't have it because, although they had made a map, they didn't have a proper (copyright) licence for it!
"We are aware the lorries will be going either up past the Plant Hotel in Mexborough or the Montagu Hospital."
Bolton-Upon-Dearne resident Brian Francis said that the Joint Waste Plan, produced by the three councils, stated the Manvers plant could also take waste from Sheffield.
And fellow Bolton resident Mick Marsden added the plant could potentially have waste from Europe too.
He said: "They are all chasing the same waste but there is only so much waste to go around.
"Sheffield's waste incinerator is under capacity and there is nothing to stop a company bringing in waste from Europe or wherever. It will be your misery in the end though."
Others queried the Waste Partnership's motivation for pursuing the Manvers site.
Malcolm Chappell said it was a strange coincidence that all the developers bidding for the project, who had made the final stages of the process, had each picked the Manvers site.
Sue Sharpe said: "They will not let the plant go anywhere other than Manvers because the council own that land. It's a fait accompli".
She told the meeting protesters have only until August 9 to officially register their protest at the plans.
But she added that it was essential for objectors to complete the Barnsley, Doncaster Rotherham Joint Waste Plan Pre-publication Consultation Response Form as it was the ONLY means of being further included in the council's consultation process.
The form is available from Dearne Valley AIM at www.notinmanvers.co.uk
It must be completed and returned to: Development Control, PO Box 652, Rotherham, S60 9DE, or emailed to LDF@Doncaster.gov.uk
The group are also planning their own public meeting within the next two weeks, at a venue to be fixed.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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