Creation of wash water treatment plant and water store, new hedgerows, hardcored service tracks, underground piping and tanks.

This item was considered at the committee meeting on 10 January 2012. (This meeting was adjourned by the Chairman of the Committee and suspended until 17 January 2012).

Creation of wash water treatment plant and water store, new hedgerows, hardcored service tracks, underground piping and tanks.

This item was considered at the adjourned committee meeting on 10 January 2012

Creation of wash water treatment plant and water store, new hedgerows, hardcored service tracks, underground piping and tanks.

Creation of wash water treatment plant and water store, new hedgerows, hardcored service tracks, underground piping and tanks.

Please refer to the late material circulated before the start of the meeting

Principal Planning Officer, Martin Hillier, referred to the late material and outlined some of the additional representations that had been received. He said that the parish council had raised no objections to the revised proposal and that the position of the Environment Agency remained unaffected. Furthermore, there was no objection from the Countryside Officer. With this in mind, he said that the proposal was acceptable in that it provided a long term and environmentally acceptable treatment facility and would be regulated by the legal agreement that had been introduced to secure the implementation of the scheme, including conditions relating to landscaping and hedging.

Public speaking

Speaking on behalf of a local objector, the speaker: - 

‘expressed serious concerns about the impact of the proposals in relation to increased noise and smell at the site affecting nearby properties. The speaker said that the applicant had given no consideration to local residents in that the proposed development would be an unnatural and unwelcome structure. Questioning the size and scale of the proposed treatment plant, the speaker likened the size of the lagoons to that of a football pitch and said that the development would be a permanent blot on the landscape. The speaker went on to suggest that the proposal could create unfriendly environmental problems, including increased seagull activity at the site. He also suggested that the applicant might have misled attendees at a local parish council meeting regarding the positive attributes of the treatment plant. Concerned that the development might result in the death of the community, the speaker said that local residents had opposed the application due to the negative impact on noise, smell and air pollution. They also objected to the further development of the site, the potential dangers it might create and to the negative visual impact on the surrounding countryside’.

Speaking on behalf of Westbury on Severn Parish Council, Parish Councillor Colin Evers, made the following statement: -

In August 2011, subject to satisfactory standard practice assessment, and the implementation of the following conditions, Westbury-on-Severn Parish Council informed the FoDDC that it had no objections to this planning application.  Those conditions were:

-        To ensuring that the public footpath remains unimpeded, and that once the treatment plant has been constructed, all hard surface tracks (used for construction or otherwise) shall be removed.

-        That the landscaping proposals shall be improved by the provision of more native trees and shrubs to provide better screening, particularly on the south and east of the site.

Revised plans were subsequently lodged by the applicant that appeared to partially fulfil the first of those requested conditions, i.e. in respect of the public footpath, and in December 2011 we replied to the FoDDC to the effect that the Parish Council had no objections to the revised plans provided the permanent  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5