Council leader requests ‘absolute assurances’ of safety over Judkins Quarry
Cllr Alan Farnell, leader of Warwickshire County Council, has written to the Environment Agency as he seeks to ensure that the environment around the site of Judkins Quarry will not be endangered by a proposed soil treatment plant at the site.
Local people have been raising concerns through the media and directly to the leader that the plant, where a private company has proposed to treat soil contaminated with waste, will pose an environmental hazard to residents in the area.
Planning permission was granted by the county council’s regulatory committee for the plant but the company TCSR Ltd will still need to receive a license from the Environment Agency before it can start work on building the plant.
But at a meeting of full County Council, the leader made it clear that absolute assurances of safety would be needed before the site would be issued with a license and defended the decision by the regulatory committee who had little recourse not to grant planning permission.
Cllr Farnell said: “I have been listening to the concerns of local people and I have a great deal of sympathy with them. There has been a lot of speculation about the types of material that will be treated there and it has troubled me.
“Nuneaton is my home town and I am not about to stand by and allow an environmental hazard to be created there. Nor, indeed, would I allow any part of Warwickshire to be put at environmental risk.
“However, I must stress that it is all speculation at the moment; what we need is a detailed examination of exactly what a soil treatment plant would be doing at Judkins.
“So before the Environment Agency issues a license for trade, I want them to be 100% certain that any works at the plant will not endanger the environment in and around Judkins.
“ If they have any doubt – and by that I mean ‘the slightest doubt’ – that the plant poses any danger to the public, then I will be urging them not to grant a license for operation.”
Defending the decision by regulatory committee to grant planning permission, Cllr Farnell said; “There was no legal justification for the committee not to grant permission; the application met all the necessary criteria of the waste plan for Nuneaton and Bedworth and accorded with the government’s Regional Spatial Strategy instructing local authorities to give priority to brownfield sites. Environmental health officers could find no risk to the public in the application.”
Commenting on claims that the permission had been granted without any consultation in the area, Cllr Farnell was adamant that local people and borough councillors had been involved in the process. He said:
“As I have said, there is a long way to go before a soil treatment begins operation at Judkins and the people of the area who have raised their concerns can be assured that they have not fallen on deaf ears. Even if there are no legal arguments for opposing planning permission, that will not stop the County Council from making sure that the Environment Agency are absolutely certain of the safety of the site before they issue any license. If they cannot do so, they should refuse the license.”