Yet another unanswered letter from Director of Environmental Health and Leader of the Council. I wonder why they cannot answer such straightforward questions?
A Gift voucher will be forwarded to the best suggestion within two weeks of posting, answering the question:
"Why will Rugby Borough Council not answer these questions?" Suggestions sent into this blog please.
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Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006
To: 'Karen Stone'; 'craig.humphrey@rugby.gov.uk'
Cc: 'all.councillors@rugby.gov.uk';
Subject: IPPC application 2001 and IPC 1999
Dear Mrs Stone and Mr Humphies,
It seems that this Council and the public have been totally mislead, whether deliberately or not, by RBC officers and the EA. I think the people of Rugby deserve some answers. I would like to know the following please:
1. Why did you present the 2001 IPPC application as being "only a Tyre Burning application"?
2. Why did you commission an AEAT report into "tyre burning only"?
3. Why did the PCT commission an HIA into tyre burning only? "Is it better for the people of Rugby to breathe coal dust or tyre fumes?" Cook and Kemm.
4. Why did you totally misinform the public and all the Rugby Councillors about the nature of IPPC consultations, and what needed to be considered, and that the "whole IPPC permit was open to question and scrutiny?"
5. Why did you not tell the public that the information given out was incomplete, and that that information being given out was related to the "tyre burning" aspect only: see Rugby Group Limited, Rugby Works, Application under IPPC to allow burning of tyres. Incidentally that application did not include any mention of particulates at all though it listed pages of all the other main emissions from the plant, and the public consistently expressed concern about particulates and dust from the plant as a whole. The Councillors and public were not aware that the whole application was on the Public Register, and that the whole operation of the plant was to be taken into account?
6. At the Indian Club 2001 Roger Wade said, at the opening of the meeting, that "this application is like IPC, and is now called IPPC, and so there is no difference. It has IPC, so let's get on with the tyre burning." What
was the RBC response to the IPC application in 1999, and the public response to it? What public meetings did RBC call in 1999 to discuss the IPC application? Where is the Public Register containing this IPC information?
7. How did you brief councillors, such as the Environment panel, and also the Community Leadership Panel, that lead to the March 2002 "marathon meeting"? What was the objective of such a meeting?
8. What guidance did you use to advise you, on what the roll of RBC was at statutory consultee, and what guidance did you use also on how to advise the councillors and the public?
9. Why are the Minutes, Agendas and attachments, of the RCCF and the Rugby Cement Liaison meeting not available to councillors and the public at RBC offices?
10. What action is RBC prepared to take against the Environment Agency for its part in this deceit?
11. Please send an email copy of the Minutes of the meeting RBC held with the EA on 13th September 2001 as a pre-meeting in preparation for the Indian Club meeting of September 20th 2001.
12. What was the role of the Rugby Cement Liaison Committee in all this? What was the RBC's role in that Committee? Why were no Rugby Cement Liaison Committee meetings held from March 2002 until 23rd October 2002, during the crucial part of the IPPC application, until when it "evolved" into the RCCF?
13. What is the RBC role in the RCCF? (Rugby Cement Community Forum)
14. What is the RBC role in the TBRG? (Tyre Burning Review Group)
Thank you.
Lilian
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(Their initial reply is in the comments section...)
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3 comments:
One MONTH later this came in...
13 October 2005
Dear Mrs. Palliakoropoulos,
RUGBY CEMENT
I have been asked to reply to the questions which you put to the Rugby Area Committee on 14th September because they are similar to questions put in a recent letter from Richard Buxton in the context of ongoing and prospective legal proceedings.
Your first question was:
It would appear from the WCC planning files, and the Environment Agency Public Register, that WCC has given permission for a 6,000 tonne daily production in the cement plant in Rugby, which requires a total of about 1,200 heavy Lorries through the town and along Lawford Road each and every day. That equates to about one a minute, but there are more in the daytime hours, and less at night. Rugby Borough Council has written to say that the plant has nothing to do with them, and that the County Council has permitted it here, and thus is the responsible body. WCC has presumably considered all the issues carefully before granting permission for this, and I would like to ask by what exact process you arrived at this "unacceptable" decision, and how you think the total overall pollution, and 1,200 HGVs and the loss of amenity, serves to enhance the environment, air quality and health of Rugby residents?
The process is set out in the planning files that you have inspected on several occasions and particularly in the committee reports and minutes for the decisions in 1996. I am aware (e.g. from your e mail to various officers and councillors on 24th August this year) that you have a detailed knowledge of these records and I am not sure what we can add about the decision-making process.
We do not think that pollution and heavy goods vehicles add to the quality of residential life and your suggestion that we do caricatures the reasoning behind planning decisions. As a planning authority, we have to consider the nature and extent of environmental impacts, in the context of mitigating and offsetting measures, and balance that against all other material considerations.
Your second question was:
In 2003 the WCC also gave the plant permission to become a CO-INCINERATOR by the grant of a planning permission for the equipment necessary to feed wastes into the plant, and now we have a cement plant whose main purpose is to make cement (6,000 tonnes a day of it) and the other purpose is to "dispose of waste". The WCC now has a pre-application in for the fitting of bag filters to allow, according to the application, "to meet the Waste Incinerator Directive emission limits for the increased use of various types and quantities of wastes and to allow for the increased production" caused by the new pipeline that RBC says is the County's problem. What environmental impact assessment and measures are you going to take to protect the people of Rugby before you allow the plant to increase the use of all wastes, and to increase the production up to the annual design capacity of 2 million tonnes, up from what it is currently about 105,000 tonne a month, to the permitted 180,000 tonne a month?
We have issued a "screening opinion" requiring submission of an environmental statement and I know from your correspondence with Mrs. Kaur that you are in the process of examining the submitted statement. With the application only recently validated and registered, it would be premature to attempt to identify what other measures might be taken at this stage.
For the record, we did not issue a permission for the plant to become a co-incinerator. As you know, it was our view that the co-incineration proposed did not amount to a change of use requiring planning permission. I appreciate that you regard granting permission for the conveyor and hopper as tantamount to permitting co-incineration but it is important to be precise on this point.
I should say that we do not recognise the specific figures that you quote about vehicle movements and production capacity and this response should not be taken as confirming those figures.
I understand that you have now also asked for a reply to your original 16 questions and we shall provide the answers as quickly as we can. However, it is unhelpful and wasteful, and can actually cause delays, if you duplicate and supplement the work being done by Mr. Buxton. If you do feel it necessary to pursue separate lines of inquiry and correspondence from Mr. Buxton, I do think that it may be more appropriate and efficient if in future questions are directed either to myself or Jasbir Kaur and Matthew Williams, given the legal context and the procedural restrictions that apply, rather than use Public Question Time at the Area Committee.
Yours sincerely,
I Marriott
for County Solicitor & Assistant Chief Executive
The above reply was not of course from RBC, from whome we are stil waiting a reply. It is from the September 2005 meeting of the Warwickshire County Council Rugby Area Committee that said I could only ask two questions.. they did not like my original 16 questions about how the cement plant came to get a planning permission to be of six times bigger capacity than the old one.
This is being followed up, but in the meantime WCC and the Environment Agency are playing "pass the parcel" with the responsibility for this environmental disaster they have created together. RBC try to say "we have no responsibility in this", so it is a three way game.
"Why will Rugby Borough Council not answer these questions?" Suggestions sent into this blog please.
Because they are afraid of the TRUTH! And they place the economic prosperity of the town above environmental and health issues.
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