A STORM has broken over a new planning application to extend tipping at a Warrington landfill site.
Warrington North MP Helen Jones has joined residents in the Culcheth, Croft and Risley areas in denouncing the application by waste disposal giants Biffa to extend the life of the Risley Tip by 18 months until April 2012, with a further 12 months to complete restoration of the site.
A condition of the original planning permission, back in 1992, was that landfill would cease in 2008.
Biffa, despite local opposition, secured extensions this agreement and are now seeking a further extension.
Ms Jones said: “Local people were extremely angry when, in 2007, Biffa secured an extension to their operations at the site. I expressed my concern at that time that Biffa would seek further extensions in the future and this is exactly what is happening.
“The borough council failed to monitor and regulate operations at the site in order to ensure the end of waste disposal operations by October 2008. They seem to have failed to do so again. The council should have ensured that the site was landscaped and closed in accordance with the original planning consent. “They most certainly should hold Biffa to account and ensure that the site is landscaped and closed in 2011 in line with the terms of the extension agreed in 2007.
“Local people are rightly starting to question this process. Biffa give dates to close the site and as they approach, extensions are requested. The council seem unwilling to hold them to the agreements made and agree the extensions. People have a right to know how long this cycle will go on for – another two years, another five years – another 10 years?
“The tactic of securing extension after extension is simply not acceptable. Biffa should honour the agreement they have and if they are not prepared to do so the council should not consent to further extensions.”
Storm over tip extension plan
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Gary Skentelbery
Experienced journalist for more than 40 years. Managing Director of magazine publishing group with three in-house titles and on-line daily newspaper for Warrington. Experienced writer, photographer, PR consultant and media expert having written for local, regional and national newspapers. Specialties: PR, media, social networking, photographer, networking, advertising, sales, media crisis management. Chair of Warrington Healthwatch Director Warrington Chamber of Commerce Patron Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Trustee Warrington Disability Partnership. Former Chairman of Warrington Town FC.
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This has been to public enquiry and BIFFA lost but still it continues. At the last application BIFFA promised that they would not seek any futher extensions so they have obviously lied through their teeth.
One does have to wonder what the council employees are doing to manage this project. But I suppose if the site is completed, the council staff will be out of a job-so vested interest -sack the lot of them
Both Warrington council and Biffa should be held to account for the present state of the tip,it should be closed at the end of the present agreement with no extension of timeAny landscapping still to be completed after the closure should be carried out by a private contractor and the subsequent cost of the work should be met by Biffa. Enough is enough ,its time to call a halt to this farce.