PLANS for a major waste transfer station handling 15,000 tones of material a year at Warrington have caused a storm of protest.
Councillors representing residents of the Bewsey and Whitecross and Orford areas have lodged objections, along with the Orford Neighbourhood Project.
The site is off the A49 Winwick Road and forms part of the site of a proposed medical waste facility, controversially granted on appeal in 2002, but which was never built because the land is
owned by the borough council who would not allow it to go ahead.
Planning consent for that scheme has now expired and the new application is a totally separate proposal.
The scheme is to be considered by Warrington’s development control committee on November 5.
It proposes an enclosed transfer building, offices, storage bays for recycled wastes and outside storage of skips, wagons, etc. An existing building would be used for sorting dry non-recyclable and recyclable materials.
The facility would have a throughput of 15,000 tonnes of locally collected green and garden wastes, metals, bricks and hardcore. Access would be from Winwick Road.
Planning officers are recommending the scheme be approved. They say the site is derelict and contaminated and the development will enable it to be returned to a positive use, which will improve its physical condition.
Predicted traffic movements – 54 on weekdays and 30 on Saturdays – would have only a negligible impact on the A49, they say.
But councillors – and residents – from Bewsey and Whitecross are worried about traffic and highways problems while those from Orford protest that traffic on the A49 is already passed saturation point.
The Orford Neighbourhood Project’s objection is also on traffic grounds.
