Protect rural Hampshire: Stop the Barton Stacey Incinerator

Like tens of thousands of others, my family lives within a few miles of Barton Stacey. Our children go to local schools, and we rely on visitors to the area for our livelihoods.

Of course, everyone thinks they live somewhere special. But for those of who have not yet walked in the countryside or visited our vibrant towns and cities, North West Hampshire has a wonderful charm. The area combines the rural, unspoilt character of river valley meadows with ancient woodland that provides a rich habitat for a range of animals, plants and trees.

The Barton Stacey Incinerator might create 50 new full-time jobs but the impact on our countryside and the cloying effect on the infrastructure our families rely on means that it should not be granted planning permission.

The background

A application to build a huge plant in Barton Stacey that burns waste and converts some of it to energy has been made. The plant would need to be approved by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

If approved construction could could commence in 2022 and would run until 2025. The plant would be set to be one of the largest incinerators in the country, processing up to 500,000 tonnes of waste - equivalent to the weight of 75,000 elephants - per year. The facility will operate 24 hours per day, seven days per week.

Only about 5% of this waste would come from local houses and businesses in the Test Valley. The rest would be driven to the plant in at least 9,600 lorries a year. If the largest lorries are used a lorry will enter or exit the site 52 times a day; if smaller lorries are used the number of arrivals and departures could be double that - at least once every ten minutes. This will be put strain on the road infrastructure across the main arterial routes such as the A303, the A34 and the M3, and will bung up local roads.

As well as the impact on the road infrastructure we all rely on, the plant would have an unacceptable visual and environmental impact.

Visual impact - The proposed building is 55 meters high and about 275 meters long. The stack will be about 100 metres high; about as tall as Big Ben. The main body of the plant or the chimneys will be visible from parts of Winchester, and up to 15 kilometres away. If you followed some routes it would take four hours to walk from the site to a point where the chimneys would not be visible.

Environmental impact - The River Dever is only 800 metres away and the River Test is less than a mile from the plant. There are three nationally designated sites exist within two kilometres of the site: the River Test Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), one of the most species rich lowland rivers in England, the Easton Aston Common SSSI and the Bransbury Common SSSI. Light pollution will increase, and measures to ensure that any pollution from the site are unclear. (Wheelabrator Technologies Inc., the would be operator, agreed to pay $7.5 million in the US to settle a 2011 lawsuit alleging that it broke environmental law by improperly disposing of contaminated sludge and waste water.)

The corrosive impact of the proposed Barton Stacey Incinerator far outweigh any benefits. When we do build in rural areas, let's make sure that Slimbyism (building Something Logical in My Backyard) wins out - the Incinerator proposals are neither logical or sensible. Greg Clark should not provide the ‘Development Consent Order' that would allow the plant to go ahead.