The writing on the wall?

Have waited a few days to gather my thoughts on the Kirkstall / Burley Forum held on Tuesday.

The forum was well attended with standing room only for those arriving close to the start. It was a heated meeting, many members of the community voiced their concerns, at times frankly and with considerable passion. The council officers appeared as if rabbits caught in the full beam of car headlights.

It is envisaged Leeds will produce 180,000 tonnes of residual waste per year, the Kirkstall site is listed to process 80,000 tonnes, 44% of the total residual waste for the city, this will mean additional traffic movements including HGVs.

The officers from were clearly of the opinion that it will go ahead and we should just accept it. The site has been used for transfer in the past, is still to some extent, so its fair game to continue to the end of time.

The planning outline in the 1990 Consultation was dismissed by the officers as never adopted, shame the Council didn't tell the community that the result of the consultation had met with the shredder, perhaps it didn't come up with the right answer. The officers referred to the UDP (Unitary Development Plan) for justification of use of the site, a large complex document that turned in to a lawyer’s goldmine at the public inquiry (‘public’ as in 'public school’)

Council: Initial Road Assessments show no problems

Well that is strange, a detailed assessment for the A65 presented to the Inner North West Area Committee, “A65 and A660 Corridors – Traffic Flows and Vehicle Speeds” [February 2007], showed average speed during the peek periods from Bridge Road to the City Centre as 10 – 20 mph, significantly less than the designated speed limit due to congestion, and the peek period was ‘spreading’, morning peek is now 3 hours either way, how long will it be before the morning peek hours meets the evening peek hours. The paper records 45,800 vehicles a day on Kirkstall Road (A65), that’s compared with 24,470 on Woodhouse Lane (A660).

Accidents and pollution in the waste industry are a fact of life!

The officers from the council tried to convince the meeting that a modern facility will solve all the problems, no odours, no flies, no rats, however when challenged about the track record of some of the companies on the shortlist they gave the impression that in the waste industry some accidents and pollution are a fact of life ...... ok, very reassuring.

What happens next?

It will probably go a bit quiet, but we need to keep the momentum of public awareness and outrage at this proposal going, as well as putting together the technical and planning case against it.