Campaigners Challenge Environment Agency

Cam­paign­ers Chal­lenge Envi­ron­ment Agency

- by The Breathe Clean Air Group 

Traf­ford, UK-based Breathe Clean Air Group has chal­lenged the Envi­ron­ment Agency over a seri­ous irreg­u­lar­i­ty in issu­ing the con­tro­ver­sial Bar­ton Renew­able Ener­gy Plant in Greater Man­ches­ter, with an Envi­ron­men­tal Permit.

Group Chair­man Pete Kil­vert has writ­ten to Sec­re­tary of State for Com­mu­ni­ties and Local Gov­ern­ment, Eric Pick­les claim­ing that the Envi­ron­ment Agency has clear­ly flout­ed the law and this should be tak­en up with high­er author­i­ties. The Bar­ton Renew­able Ener­gy Plant is still await­ing plan­ning per­mis­sion, but two weeks before a Pub­lic Inquiry last Novem­ber, the Envi­ron­ment Agency issued an Envi­ron­men­tal Permit.

“Not only did the tim­ing of the per­mit go against us” said Mr. Kil­vert, “but cer­tain facts about the dan­ger of the incin­er­a­tor were not revealed. One cru­cial fact that was not revealed was that the Envi­ron­ment Agency failed to notice, when look­ing at Peel Energy’s plans, that the near­est peo­ple to be affect­ed by emis­sions from the plant lived on Wil­fred Street, not Tin­dall Street, Peel Green.”

The Breathe Clean Air Group says that Wil­fred Street will receive 2 per cent extra nitro­gen diox­ide from the plant, and they are already well over the lim­it for this tox­ic and irri­tant gas, because of their prox­im­i­ty to the M60 motor­way. Mr. Kil­vert has urged Mr Pick­les, who will make the final deci­sion about the Davy­hulme bio­mass incin­er­a­tor by mid May, that he should not allow it to be built. The cam­paign group has also planned to vis­it Par­lia­ment next month to stress to MPs, the dan­gers of burn­ing biomass.

“We are not opposed to alter­na­tive ener­gy” added Mr Kil­vert, “but bio­mass should not be used as it adds to Glob­al Warm­ing and has seri­ous health impacts.”