‘Historic Arundel Castle would be harmed by Ford energy facility’

Grundon Waste Management and Viridor have submitted an application to West Sussex County Council to build the energy recovery facility off Ford Road, alongside a waste sorting and transfer centre.

Hundreds of letters of objections have been received from residents, who have raised concerns about the size of the facility and its impact on the surrounding landscape as well as the number of lorry movements and the ability of roads to cope.

Parish councils in Ford, Yapton Barnham & Eastergate, and Walberton have all objected, as has Littlehampton Town Council, the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s Sussex branch and the South Downs National Park Authority.

Elected representatives from the Conservatives, Lib Dems and Greens have also spoken out.

Meanwhile Arundel Castle Trustees Ltd, which owns and manages the historic building and its grounds, has raised concerns about the visual and landscape impact of the current proposals.

In their submission, the trustees pointed out how they did not object to the previous scheme for an energy from waste facility at the site in January 2015, but the new plans are for a ‘significantly larger’ building and chimney and ‘therefore will have a significant detrimental effect upon the interests of the trustees, namely Arundel Castle’.

The submission said: “Overall, it is clear that the proposals will have a substantial impact upon both visual amenity and landscape within a 10km radius of the site, which cannot be mitigated.”

They felt that the size of the new facility would not only harm the setting of the castle and other heritage assets, but would also affect views from within the castle itself.

Earlier this month a spokesman for Ford Energy from Waste Limited said the facility would bring up to 56 full-time jobs and could be ‘constructed and operated in a way that keeps impacts on local people or infrastructure – including new housing proposed locally – to a minimum’.

But objections have kept coming in.

Arun Green Party has suggested the application represents an ‘extreme example of a collective failure to staunch the catastrophic flow of waste “upstream” and would be an ugly, damaging and false “quick fix” to achieve eliminating landfill waste’.

Councils must follow the hierarchy of waste, in which prevention is the top priority, followed by re-use, recycling, recovery and finally, landfill.

The Ford facility would be relying on recovery, but Greens argue that far more should be done at the top end to prevent the need for burning.

Carol Birch, Arun Green Party co-ordinator, an organiser of ‘take back the plastic’ events at local supermarkets, said: “We need to dramatically reduce how much we throw away: introduce the Plastic Tax earlier, use refill shops, start waste food collections and ensure we get recycling right.

“Let’s pressurise local and national government to get our waste production down so there is no need for the Ford incinerator. At a time when CO2 emissions need to be reduced the incinerator will be yet another source.’”

Although waste is collected by district councils, it is West Sussex County Council’s job to safely dispose of household waste.

Green district councillor Isabel Thurston said: “Energy from Waste, by incineration, is supposed to be a last resort. Many of us probably thought that burning our rubbish was a thing of the past but nationally, recycling rates are stagnating while incineration is on the up. This naturally makes us worry that it will take over from recycling. “

Faye Catterson, a Green district councillor for Arundel and Walberton, added: “This application is for a massive, ugly building, far too big in scale and height for its setting in the flat landscape just south of Arundel.”

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