RBC TO CAUSE CEMENT PLANT CLOSURE?

AS LOCAL AUTHORITY POTENTIAL REFUSAL OF EWS LA-PPC APPLICATION STARVES CEMENT PLANT OF COAL.


DISUSED RAIL SIDING APPLICATION DISCLOSURE SHOCKS REDROW RESIDENTS! The advert to re-open the disused long-closed railway, described in the Rugby Observer 18/10 page 59 as New Bilton Sidings, off Lawford "Lane", was placed by applicant EWS, and is to request a new LAPPC Permit at a new site to bring in coal and other materials for burning at Rugby Cement. RBC is to consider the application which has arisen because the remodelling of the Rugby railway station HAS effectively cut the Cemex coal supply route!

People living in the new Willans Works Redrow Houses were very surprised to hear about this, as no neighbourhood notices had been sent out, and the Local Authority Searches had not revealed these plans, even though it now seems that they had been discussed frequently with Network Rail and EWS since 2004. It appears RBC had been kept in the dark by all those involved, despite this application having been considered for several years. EWS states that they do not need any planning application, to re-open the disused siding, and RBC officers are now looking into this claim.

ACCESS DISPUTES PANEL ADP13 KINGS CROSS 29 FEBRUARY 2006.
The controversy is set to grow as there is apparently some considerable difficulty about how this rail siding can be accessed, and egressed, by the 1,600 tonne train with 22 wagons. It seems that the train departing from the sidings would have to run for some of its journey in the wrong direction, i.e. down on the "UP TV Fast" line, from Newbold to High Oaks, where it would cross to the "Down TV Slow" line. We understand from the publicly available documents that the margins for these movements have been examined by by NETWORK RAIL, and recorded in an email on Tuesday 10th January 2006 sent to EWS.


NETWORK RAIL SPECIALIST QUOTE:
"I have carefully examined the requirement for a margin for a 1600 tonne freight train starting from Rugby Up Yard in a northerly direction and would advise as follows: The route taken is to depart the Up Yard via RN4179 signal to move onto the UP TV Slow as far as Newbold Junction, thence via RN9187 where the train would run in the wrong direction on the Up TV Fast, and finally via RN9669 at High Oaks where the train would cross to the Down TV Slow.

In my professional opinion the time required for such a move would be Rugby Up Yard xx.00, Newbold Junction xx/05, High Oaks xx/07. When we examine the margins for such a movement we estimate that a 10 minute clear slot will be needed in total on the UP TV Slow to get to Newbold Junction and a separate 7 minute clear slot on the UP TV Fast. We have examined the existing (not ideally flighted) presentation of trains and feel that such a movement can be accommodated in most daylight standards hours when no exceptional trains exist, e.g. not morning or evening peak, or when a fast Glasgow or Holyhead runs."

While Rugby residents concede that Network Rail's business is in running the railways, and not in the politics of it all we wonder if Network Rail should be going to such great lengths to accommodate this unlawful Cement factory, and its supplier, EWS?

This situation has arisen because Warwickshire County Council has unlawfully granted various planning permission/s, and the Environment Agency has granted various unlawful IPC/IPPC Permits, for a cement factory cum co-incinerator, with no Environmental Impact Assessment. The public were never consulted at all on each/every aspect, and there was never any proper study for the rail access of 1,600 tonne trains, or for the road access for the 800-1,000 daily juggernauts (5/6 axils) to this New Rugby Works, which was opened in the 21st century,(February 2000), on the upwind western edge of a densely populated urban area's smokeless zone.

WHAT DOES IT TAKE FOR VOICE OF REASON TO BE HEARD?
Exactly what does it take to show that this huge co-incinerating cement factory is SIMPLY IN THE WRONG PLACE! It presents an ever increasing risk to the residents of Rugby, and now apparently to the travellers on the railway, as the authorities bend over backwards as they try to accommodate Cemex's burning desire for over 7,000 tonnes of raw materials and fuel each, and every, day. Rugby's long-suffering 90,000 residents, battered, pulped, misinformed, mislead, bamboozled, stifled, squeezed, bankrupted, cheated and controlled by the so-called "Authorities", now find themselves totally dominated by Cemex, who have now, in secret consultations, cancelled all the publicly announced meetings of the Rugby Cement Community Forum, in favour of some informal discussions with the Environment Council.

RUGBY BOROUGH COUNCIL NOW HAVE THE BALL, but do they have the balls?
RBC at last have it within their power to halt this madness and blight, and to simply REFUSE the LAPPC application! At a stroke
STARVING the energy-hungry monster of its fuel/s, and forcing its closure! A happy ending as RBC rescues Rugby for its inhabitants!

DUMPING GROUND?

(please click on image to enlarge)

REFUSE DERIVED FUEL OR TRASH BURNING?
The Environment Agency has decided to turn Rugby into a "DUMPING GROUND" for household and commercial waste, as Cemex wins right to burn London's trash. Cemex imports waste from Holland, through the Associated British Ports, on a three years contract, because, as the Agency says in a letter 22 October:
QUOTE:

"It has become clear that the UK waste industry can't reliably produce this material to a standard that can be used to fuel cement kilns. Cemex has taken a commercial decision to obtain this material from overseas. This is a matter for them, and the AGENCY is CONTENT for this material to be imported under the Transfrontier Shipment of Waste controls. The waste is shipped for "energy recovery" and agreed to on the basis that the waste has been produced to a specification and has a positive calorific value."

(The Agency is referring to RDF trials at Cemex South Ferriby and Barrington, where emissions of metals have soared, lumps of metal appeared in the clinker, stops/starts increased, "fuel" feeding mechanisms have broken down, etc as the locals have been experimented on during these "trials")

QUOTE:

"You are unhappy, it seems, that we are not incorporating the TRANSPORT IMPACTS of this operation into our assessment relating to the cement plant in Rugby. You are well aware that this cannot be done within our regulatory regime, and we have discussed this many times already."

But it is not only me, but also the 60,000 RUGBY RESIDENTS who are justifiably MORE than "UNHAPPY" with the 24/7 convoys of hundreds of juggernauts shaking our town, roads, houses to virtual collapse, and polluting our air, as caused by the Environment Agency.

LACK OF JOINED UP THINKING AND FAILURE TO CARRY OUT ANY ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT
Could it possibly be that the Agency ponders "Environmental impact assessment - what is that?
No we see no point in looking at the overall Environmental Impact. It does not suit our overall aim for Rugby. We like to keep all the environmental impacts as separate as possible, and that way we can keep on adding bits, bits bits, with no sum total! We are subjecting Rugby to the boiling the frog treatment! We have got away with it for years because there has been no intelligent opposition. Even is the 90,000 residents of the whole Rugby Borough came and protested we would take no notice of them. We are the Agency, and we are unaccountable, and free to use and abuse the Rugby environment as Rugby Cement sees fit."

THE AGENCY WANTS MORE PEOPLE TO DEBATE as, fresh from working with Cemex and Rugby Council, behind the backs of the Rugby residents, elected councillors, and the whole Rugby Cement Community Forum, it has now featured on Radio Rugby asking for more people to come forward to join the cement factory debate. The Agency is disappointed that more people do not appreciate the "environmental improvements" that have been made by the Agency's turning Rugby into a waste dump? The Agency's survey of April 2006 showed 70% of the people interviewed are concerned about the cement plant and its impacts on our town, loss of amenity, damage to air quality and health etc. Do we hear a round of applause for the Agency in Rugby? I think not!


The Agency letter quoted above neatly sums up the position as the Rugby residents are failed yet again by the authorities, which continue to use and abuse Rugby, its residents, its environment, its roads, its air, its health, its amenities, and its democratic rights, in its bat-and ball game with Warwickshire County Council. But Rugby residents have had enough of being kicked about by these unaccountable bullying quangos. WCC keep on giving planning permissions, and the Agency keeps on giving operating permissions, all with no proper open debate, public access to information, and no environmental impact assessment.

RUGBY RESIDENTS PICK UP THE BALL AND RUN!
The Rugby Advertiser on 18 October did a brilliant article concerning the DRAMA, ANGER , and REBELLION at the Rugby Cement Community Forum, as the Rugby residents fight back in a show of PEOPLE POWER! The ball is rolling - thank you Rugby Advertiser - so we pick up the ball and run. We have scored a "try" for Rugby! Come on - the scrum has begun!

CEMEX WANT CLEAN SHEET

AS WET TORY COUNCILOR KICKED OUT OF BED


"DRAMA, ANGER AND REBELLION" as democracy compromised at the Rugby Cement Community Forum (front page Rugby Advertiser 18 October) which saw County and Borough Councillor Timms sacked, after a vote of no confidence in her as Chair, in the heated forum meeting. As the ring leader of the Conservative Cabinet's unilateral secret decision to cut off the funding for the secretariat of the Forum, leaving Rugby residents high and dry, and at the mercy of Rugby Cement, she was dismissed in a rousing display of "people power!"

As the Editor pointed out:

"This whole episode is not a great advertisement for the Tory-led Council. They need to show more transparency and start taking the public more seriously. RUGBY CEMENT is a BIG ISSUE in Rugby, and not one which should be taken lightly. People power won
the day, as it always should. I think the powers-that-be should heed the warning and start having a change of attitude."

As Rugby Tories face accusations of "selling the public's health to save money", leading long-standing Councillor Ish Mistry commented "The public does not know what the Town Hall's administration is up to!" While Neil Sandison, also long-serving, declared "What the Tory cabinet has done is morally and ethically wrong!"

Cemex claim this turn of events, and change in direction, heralds a new Ground Zero. They are now responsible for the Forum's secretariat and provision of a publicly accessible and neutral meeting place under the auspices of "The Polluter must Pay!" Cemex are consulting the Environment Council as to how the Forum should "move forward and work together". £15,000 funding, is provided to do this, but £7,500 of it is provided by the Rugby Council Tax Payers from the existing Health Protection Budget to choose new forum members who are, apparently, to have "a less confrontational approach"?

AS Cemex have just won the right to burn London TRASH, and to become a DUMPING GROUND, it is not ONLY the saga at the Forum that will leave a BITTER TASTE in the mouth of the Rugby public!

RUGBY TOWN HANDED OVER TO CEMEX

ADVERT
JOIN THE CEMEX CO-INCINERATOR CLUB! WET BEHIND THE EARS AND UNINFORMED MEMBERS NEEDED FOR EXCLUSIVE NEW CLUB

£7.500 from PROTECTIVE HEALTH BUDGET of Rugby Council tax payers funds is being made available to help Cemex and the Environment Agency to select "green" compliant and malleable members for CEMEX'S exciting new venture. We have had the Cemex diversion into horticulture, with Carlos the plant director for Rugby in Bloom, and now they are cultivating mushrooms.

COUNCIL LEADERS SHOW INITIATIVE?
The Council lead Rugby Cement Community Forum is to be abolished as "Community", and "long-standing councillor", members are to be excluded from the Forum. Conservative penny-wise pound-foolish Councillors, advised by officers who have an axe to grind, try to save a few quid by this novel idea of handing over the whole Town of Rugby, - its inhabitants, its environment, its roads, its air - to CEMEX!

Applications for membership of the Cemex Co-incinerator Club are invited from all walks of life, but priority and preference will be given to those who can clearly demonstrate certain attributes : It is absolutely essential that applicants display no prior knowledge of, and no experience of:

* the IPPC Permitting process
* EU and UK Environmental Law
* Public Participation Directive
* Environmental Impact Assessments
* Health Impact Assessments
* cement plants and co-incinerators
* emissions from stacks and low level sources
* health effects of cement plant emissions and carcinogens
* stack testing compliance
* air quality and source apportionment
* history of the unlawful planning decisions at WCC
* history of RBC EHO's continual dereliction of duty
* history of HMIP and the Environment Agency
* history of Rugby Cement Chair's position on Board of Agency
* the Agency's "guidance" such as Substitute Fuels Protocol
* unlawful actions by Agency (Rugby Cement/ RBC?) at IPC in September 1999
* the names of all those involved in this unlawful cement plant's construction
* the names of those involved in its unlawful operation and IPC/IPPC Permits.
* the Agency's Public Register and how information is withheld

Preference will be given to those with sawdust between their ears, and illiteracy, although not a prerequisite, will be an added advantage.


Join the Cemex Co-incinerator Club today and enjoy the many financial benefits that this can bring, with thousands of pounds available for Community projects for those who comply with their rules of their game. Apply today to become a Cemex mushroom - be kept in the dark and have bucket loads of fertiliser (CKD?) tipped over your head at regular intervals!

RUGBY AIR THICKENS AS AIR TURNS BLUE.

The bus stop on Lawford road..

RUGBY TORIES BAN COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT TO SAVE - ONE POUND!

DUST NOT PERMITTED ON TORIES
The Environment Agency sees no dust! and see no cement plant. Unconfirmed reports say Rugby CONSERVATIVES, overheard in Conference, say: "There are no dusts on us! Cement plant dust is not permitted to fall on Conservative voters. We have a different way of life, and breathe different air from ordinary Rugby residents. We are clean." Conservative/ Agency envoys have special top-secret plan, to randomly locate three one metres disks to measure "falling dust" in Rugby. Cement Boundary site monitoring requested for seven years is not permitted as the Agency sees no cement works! Tories see no dust. Bets now being taken on outcome of "random dust survey."

AUTHORITIES CHASING OWN TALES?
The Environment Agency refuses to answer any questions about where similar Frisbee dust gauges have ever been used before. The officer said he had no information about any definition of "nuisance dust"; no data about where the frisbees have been used before; no idea to what effect these have ever been put; Faber Maunsell, the Agency's contractor, would ONLY be allowed to answer ANY questions once they had finished the monitoring in a few months time; RBC said they have no idea, but that "nuisance dust" is merely a matter for "officers' professional judgement", and in unenforceable under any existing Law, and has no definition whatsoever. So what are they trying to catch? FALLING STARS?

RUGBY RESIDENTS RIPPED OFF YET AGAIN!
FABER MAUNSELL, the "unlucky" consultants, who seemed to have learned nothing from the three year fiasco of their/our own £500,000 air quality saga, said that they can answer no questions. "We are contracted to RBC who are our clients." SO THE AGENCY IS NOW NOT THE CLIENT AFTER ALL THE CHARADE!


Faber are not allowed to speak, or to give out any information about the monitors. Rugby residents must "Pay up and shut up!" as the Agency and the Council collude to deliberately waste even more of our cash, and to prevent any PUBLIC CONSULTATION and to prevent any worthwhile information from being given out Meanwhile the Agency pretends that they are funding the latest farce. You be the judge - look at the above photos: Is Rugby dirtier than elsewhere?

RUGBY CEMENT COMMUNITY FORUM UPDATE:
HEATHER TIMMS: (of WCC - a main perpetrator in this "game") SHE SAYS COUNCIL TAX PAYERS AND ALL PARISH COUNCILS HAVE NO RIGHT TO ASK WHERE THEIR MONEY IS SPENT!! Following on from the "Silence of the lambs" we now present WCC CLLR TIMMS' own response telling Rugby people to keep on paying, and to STOP asking where their council taxes are being wasted.

From:
To: "Cllr Chris Holman" "Patricia Wyatt" Cc:
Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 9:26 PM
Subject: Re: Sustainable Environment Panel 27.09.07 Item 10. RCCF.

Dear Pat and Chris
As explained at the meeting, it is for Council to decide how to use rate payers money. And this applies whether it is A POUND or TEN THOUSAND..
It is apparent that officer time used in supporting RCCF runs counter to the principle of the "polluter pays" which I feel none of us would disagree with. Therefore the BREAKDOWN of AMOUNTS etc becomes TOTALLY IMMATERIAL and indeed requires further officer cost for no perceived benefit.

The decision is to facilitate the transfer of the Forum to be fully community owned based on this principle. (????) The expenditure agreed is a maximum figure agreed to facilitate this transfer and is not an annual grant. (NB : This refers to £7,500 from existing Protective Health Budget to appoint new uninformed members for the NEW Cemex controlled forum.)

The questions for the scutiny officers I am not able to respond to and may be areas Chris that you wish to investigate?
With best regards
Heather Timms

IN REPLY TO QUESTIONS FROM RUGBY PARISH COUNCILS' REPRESENTATIVE:
From: Patricia Wyatt Sent: 28 September 2007 20:32
To: Cllr Chris Holman; Cllr Tina Avis; Cllr Ish Mistry; Cllr Neil
Sandison; Cllr Noreen New; Simon Warren
Cc: Cllr Carolyn Robbins; Diane Pask; Lilian Pallikaropoulos
Subject: Sustainable Environment Panel 27.09.07 Item 10. RCCF.

"Dear Councillor Holman, - Chairman of Rugby Borough Council's Sustainable Environment Panel.

LACK OF INFORMATION IN THE REPORT. ITEM 10.

Having attended the Sustainable Environment Panel meeting last evening, the decision taken by members of the ABOVE MENTIONED panel was based and taken on, THE PROPITIOUS reason spoken of by Councillor Robbins, ie "Affecting this Council's, namely Rugby Borough Council's expenditure".

1. Can you explain a breakdown of that supposed Rugby Borough Council's expenditure?
2. Is Rugby Borough Council prepared to make a grant of £7,500 per annum?
3. How much is the cost to HIRE,
a. The Council Chamber,
b. Committee Room 1.
c. Committee Room 2.
for an evening meeting scheduled for two 2 hours?

4. How much money was set aside in the 2007/2008 budget to hold RCCF meetings including refreshments per annum?
5. How much of 2007/2008 budget will this decision have under spent? I wish to record my personal appreciation of the five knowledgeable respresentatives to whom this email is addressed, and their contributions made to the meeting. What happens in the future remains to be seen. Party Politics showed abundantly clear just how undemocratically, decisions are made.

Finally, I point out how inappropriate/inaccurate the last four items on the Agenda Management Sheet (Agenda No. 10 (set on green paper)) are as printed. May I recommend this matter to the scrutiny officers.

1. There are Financial implications - that is what it is all about!!
2. There is a risk of maladministration.
3. There certainly are environmental risks and implications.
4. There could be legal implications from the report... ref. SR letter and other.
5. At 2.1, what is meant by RRCF? (twice is same paragraph overleaf)
Mrs. Patricia Wyatt.

LUNATICS NOW IN CHARGE OF ASYLUM? RBC EHO TALKING HEAD SEAN LAWSON (5.10.07): Email to RCCF members:
"A decision for the Council to hand over the responsibility to Cemex has now been made and approved through the Council's democratic process." (oh???) For "operational reasons" the meeting of 1st October was changed to 16th October - without telling any of those involved. "Your emails were not ignored", but we like to play our cards close to our chest.

"The Council determined to withdraw its secretarial function from the RCCF. Rather than just to cease its support we have decided to hold a final meeting on 16 OCTOBER 5.30 pm TOWN HALL. Any future meetings and arrangements can be discussed then. I look forward to a lively debate and discussion at that time.

I DO NOT EXPECT THAT THIS RESPONSE WILL SATISFY ANY OR ALL OF THE RUGBY RESIDENTS CONCERNS."


BUT TOUGH! RBC CONSERVATIVES AND MEALY MOUTHED EMPLOYEES HAVE ABANDONED ALL AND EVERY DUTY TO THE ELECTORATE, ENVIRONMENT, AIR QUALITY, HEALTH, AND TO THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS. COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT WILL NOT BE TOLERATED IN RUGBY!!
RUGBY RESIDENTS ARE NOW: ON THEIR OWN!