To receive questions relating to items of business on the agenda from members of the public or press who are present at the meeting.
Minutes:
1) Mr R Branagan asked that with regard to the amount of waste currently being taken to the site as part of the construction phase, what processes were in place for ensuring that the operator did not exceed the amounts of waste allowed by the permit that were currently being taken to the site.
In response the Assistant Director - Community Safety and Streetscene noted that the responsibility for monitoring compliance with the permit was that of the Environment Agency and referred the question to Jacqui Tootill, Area Environment Manager at the Environment Agency who was in attendance at the meeting.
Jacqui Tootill advised that material could currently be imported to the site under two authorisations, with one authorisation being an exemption that allowed inert waste to be brought to the site for the purposes of constructing the haul roads, the compound and other infrastructure, with the second authorisation was to bring in materials if it was suitable to create the required engineering works of the engineered bases on the waste cells. Jacqui Tootill advised that these authorisations were in place order to prepare the site to be fully operational with the amount of waste brought to the site being dependent on the size of the area being worked on. Jacqui Tootill advised there had been five inspections carried out by Environment Agency inspectors during 2021 and that no concerns had been raised regarding the amount or type of waste that was being taken to the site. It was noted that full records of the waste taken to the site were kept by the operator and that the Environment Agency had no concerns regarding compliance by the operator with regards to the waste currently being taken to the site.
As a supplementary question Mr R Branagan asked about the processes for the Environment Agency inspecting waste transfer records.
In response Jacqui Tootill advised that the Environment Agency did not hold these records and would only ask to see them if they had any concerns regarding the type or amount of waste being taken to the site, however as the Environment Agency did not have any concerns the Environment Agency would not be asking to inspect these records.
2) Mr S McKenna asked that as the Council would not use its powers to issue a discontinuation order, and that as the Council also allowed the operator to use the access road that crossed Council owned land, what would the Council do to stop the operation of the site.
In response the Assistant Director - Community Safety and Streetscene noted that both the Council and the Secretary of State had the power to revoke a planning permission if it had been found to have been granted wrongly. The Assistant Director noted that the Council had considered the use of Section 102 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 in term of the potential for making a discontinuance order on the site, however any discontinuance would be subject to compensation which had been estimated to be potentially in excess of £20million. The Assistant Director reaffirmed that the Council did not have the financial resources to pay at that level of cost as well as being unlikely to be able to justify the proportionality of spending such a large amount of local public money on a single planning issue without contravention of value for money requirements. The Assistant Director advised that the Secretary of State had confirmed that they would not use their powers to revoke the planning permission as the planning permission had been granted correctly.
The Assistant Director confirmed that the Council had received a wide range of advice regarding the operator’s right to use the access road over Council owned land and that from this advice it was clear that the Council was required to allow the contractor to use the road in order to access the site. The Assistant Director advised that further advice would be sought on this issue and confirmed that the Council’s position of wanting to stop the operation and use of the site for landfill had not changed.
As a supplementary question Mr McKenna asked whether the Council would acknowledge that the use of the access road over Council owned land was not legitimate.
In response the Assistant Director reaffirmed that based on current legal advice, that the Council had no legitimate power to stop the contractor using the road to access the site.
3) Mr M Staniland asked when the Council would make it clear that the operator had no right to use the access road and that the operator was not allowed to stop others using the road to access the adjacent public space.
In response the Assistant Director reaffirmed that the Council owned the land over which the access road passed, and that the legal advice received by the Council had made it clear that the Council did not have the ability to stop the operator of the site using the road as they had a legal right of access. The Assistant Director advised as the operator had a legal right of access that the issue of the ownership of the land over which the road passed was not relevant. The Assistant Director stated that while the operator had a right of access to use the road, that they had no right to stop other people using the road and that the Council had communicated this clearly to operator.
As a supplementary question Mr Staniland asked why the site operator was not using the original access road to access the site.
In response the Assistant Director advised that the operator had a right of access in using the access road that was currently being used and that the Council had no powers to compel the operator to use the alternative access road to the site.
4) Councillor Jones asked whether the Environment Agency had received information on the material taken from to the site from the MHH Contracting site in Sheffield after the fire at that site.
In response Jacqui Tootill stated that the Environment Agency had not as yet received a fire report for the site. Jacqui Tootill confirmed that the fire had been on an area of the site that had been used for the storage of scrap metal and that the material that had been brought to the Grange landfill site was inert material from a separate part of the MHH Contracting site that had not been involved in the fire.
As a supplementary question Councillor Jones asked why potentially contaminated material from the fire site was being taken to Grange landfill.
In response Jacqui Tootill advised that Environment Agency officers had inspected the MHH Contracting site and had confirmed that no evidence had been found of waste from the area of the fire going to the Grange landfill site. Jacqui Tootill stated that there were no concerns about the type of waste that had been taken from the wider MHH Contracting site to Grange landfill.