Agenda, decisions and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber, County Hall, Mold CH7 6NA

Contact: Tracy Waters 01352 702331  Email: tracy.waters@flintshire.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

172.

Declarations of Interest

Minutes:

Councillor Bernie Attridge declared a personal and prejudicial interest in the application and indicated that, following advice from the Democracy and Governance Manager, he would leave the meeting after he had spoken.

 

173.

Late Observations

Minutes:

The Chairman allowed Members an opportunity to read the late observations which had been circulated at the meeting.

 

174.

Full Application for an Energy Recovery Facility at Weighbridge Road, Deeside Industrial Park (052626) pdf icon PDF 365 KB

Additional documents:

Decision:

That a decision be sought from the Democracy and Governance Manager about whether the decision to refuse planning permission represented a significant departure from policy and needed to be referred back to Committee to be reconsidered. 

 

Minutes:

The Committee considered the report of the Chief Office (Planning and Environment) in respect of this application which had been the subject of a site visit earlier that day.  The usual consultations had been undertaken and the responses received were detailed in the report.  Additional comments received since the preparation of the report were circulated at the meeting.

 

The Senior Minerals and Waste Officer detailed the background to the report and explained that the proposal was to address the management of residual municipal waste for the five North Wales Authorities that had signed up to the North Wales Residual Waste Treatment Project (NWRWTP).  The proposal would allow the waste to be dealt with in a cost effective way rather than being submitted to landfill to comply with local and national directives.  The current figures for recycling in North Wales were 56% which was an increase from 19% in 2003.  The target was to achieve 70% recycling with 30% residual by 2025 with a target of zero residual by 2050.  Failure to comply with these targets would result in heavy penalties.  The officer explained that the waste was currently sent to a disposal facility in Wrexham or processed by the Council’s themselves and there were two digesters in North Wales for food waste, one in Caernarvon and one in Rhuddlan. 

It was reported in the late observations that some of the Local Members had not responded to the second round of consultation that was undertaken.  The officer explained that the applicant had submitted information on technical flood issues on part of the site based on Natural Resources Wales (NRW) forecasts.  Flooding had not been raised in any of the public consultation responses and therefore responses to the second consultation on this particular issue had not been expected from all those who responded to the first consultation.  He commented on the Environmental Impact Assessment requirements to re-consult following the submission of further information and the second consultation process had gone above and beyond the requirements of the Regulations that only required relevant consultees to be consulted.  Because the site ran very close to different wards, even though it was sited in Connah’s Quay Wepre ward, there had been a decision to undertake wider consultation with adjoining ward members which was repeated in the second consultation. 

The site was 10.5 hectares in size and was located in the Deeside Industrial Park.  The development was industrial in nature and would look like other sites in the area.  It was proposed that the chimney stack would be 85 metres and the site was to be fully landscaped and would include a water attenuation pond.  The facility would be reached by road from the A548 but it was anticipated that in the longer term rail links could be achieved.  The officer commented on a site visit that some Members had attended in Wolverhampton to a similar type of facility to what was being proposed.  This site could take up to 200,000 tonnes of waste whereas  ...  view the full minutes text for item 174.

175.

Members of the Press and Public in Attendance

Minutes:

                        There were 9 members of the public and 2 members of the press in attendance.