The decision on the proposed waste processing ‘Energy Centre’ at Keypoint has been delayed again. The Planning Committee meeting to consider the application, scheduled for 16 May, has been cancelled.
No reasons have been given for the delay. Stratton Parish Councillor Barrie Jennings heard that members of Swindon Planning Committee simply got an e-mail message saying the meeting was cancelled. According to Barrie the decision is now almost certain to be put back to after the election. “Apart from anything else,” he says, “councillors are going to be tied up with the election campaigns of their various parties.”
The Keypoint proposal is becoming something of a saga. Developers Rolton Kilbride originally approached the Council about their plans in March of last year. Their proposed ‘gasification’ plant would process 150,000 tonnes of domestic waste a year. The plant would heat the waste and burn the gases that come off to generate electricity. But the proposal – which objectors describe as a ‘waste incinerator’ – has met strong opposition from local residents. They formed the SKIP – Stop Keypoint Incinerator Project – campaign last summer and organised a petition against the proposal which got over 3,000 signatures.
SKIP chair Robert Ayres is not surprised by this latest delay, pointing out that the developers have failed to address some of the objections the group has raised, or to explain inconsistencies in their proposal. “There’s a piece of law, the 2011 Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations, which doesn’t allow the Council to give the go ahead until all the environmental impacts are properly investigated,” he says.
The SKIP campaigners see this further delay as a good sign. “I know the uncertainty is frustrating,” says campaigner and Stratton resident Elfed Young-Powell, “but you have to realise the longer this goes on the more opportunities we have to point out problems with the proposal.”
