Waste facilities: Bexhill in the firing line

TURKEY Road and Pebsham were placed firmly in the firing line for new waste facilities when Onyx Aurora was awarded the £1bn East Sussex waste contract on Wednesday.

Confusion and uncertainty reign supreme for the people of Bexhill, who on the one hand have been promised an end to waste facilities and a Countryside Park at Pebsham and on the other face the threat of the town being flanked with new rubbish sites in the next 10 years.

Ashdown Brickworks remains the only option for a new county landfill site when current facilities at Pebsham and Beddingham reach capacity between 2005-2007.

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Onyx Aurora has failed to come up with an alternative and is refusing to elaborate on its landfill plans until after the 25-year contract is officially signed at the end of the month.

It has said it wants to build an Energy from Waste plant, rubbish sorting facilities and a household recycling centre at Pebsham - making Bexhill the centre of waste disposal for the eastern part of the county by 2012.

That's at-odds with Rother District Council's plans to create a Countryside Park there when landfilling has finished.

Onyx predict recycling and a new incinerator at Newhaven will deal with some 60 per cent of the county's waste by 2010, leaving thousands of tonnes still requiring landfill. The only alternative to landfill at Ashdown Brickworks would be the costly exercise of exporting waste outside the county, but no sites have yet been identified.

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The proposals are subject to the Public Inquiry into the county's Waste Local Plan, which begins in May and is expected to report next summer. If approved, they will face local planning procedures and Environment Agency scrutiny.

Local pressure groups PRAG (Pebsham Residents Action Group) and BALI (Bexhill Against Landfill and Incineration), will be represented at the Inquiry.

At present Pebsham houses the landfill site, a Household Waste Recycling Centre which is due to close at the same time as the landfill and the controversial Reprotech waste-derived fuel pellet plant.

In 2012, Onyx plans to open a new waste transfer station which sorts and bulks rubbish ready for recycling or disposal, a new Household Waste Recycling Centre and a new Energy from Waste plant, which produces electricity through anerobic digestion of waste.

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The county's contract to supply Reprotech with waste expires in 2007. East Sussex County Council favours Mountfield over Pebsham as a site for the county's second Energy from Waste plant.

County council cabinet member for transport and environment, Tony Reid, confirmed Onyx had tabled no firm plans to deal with the landfill dilemma. He added: "The contract requires Onyx to find suitable sites for landfill and indications are that they will be outside the county for the foreseeable future.

"Certainly they've come up with no alternatives inside the county yet. It will be down to Onyx, owners Ibstock, the Public Inquiry and local planning procedures what happens at Ashdown Brickworks in the long term.

"Reprotech's future will be decided between them and the new waste contractors because it's clear the operation there is not commercially viable."

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Reprotech was refused planning permission to generate energy from waste at the site last year.

MP Greg Barker welcomed Onyx's proposals for new waste technologies and recycling but said Pebsham and Turkey Road are wrong sites.

He added: "Nobody's going to volunteer to take waste facilities but I can't believe there are no better places than Bexhill.

"The people of Pebsham have had to suffer a great deal over the years by taking the county's waste and it's time others shared the burden. It's also wholly incompatible with regeneration plans.

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"We will need to continue landfilling and it makes more sense to use existing facilities in the West Sussex chalk downs than Ashdown Brickworks.

"The majority of waste comes from Brighton and Hove so it can't make financial or environmental sense to bring it all to this part of the county, particularly with the poor transport infrastructure.

"The county council needs to pull its finger out and find a more appropriate site than Turkey Road. I will continue to fight any proposals for more waste facilities in this town."

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