Simonswood incinerator: medical waste facility to be built on the border of West Lancashire and Kirkby as residents warn, 'You're signing our death warrants'

The high temperature treatment facility will be built on the Lancashire/Merseyside border at the Simonswood Industrial Park, off Stopgate Lane in Simonswood.

Lancashire County Council’s development control committee approved the proposal after a two-hour debate during which campaigners opposed to the plant were accused of attempting to whip locals into a “frenzy” with misleading “propaganda”.

More than 1,400 people lodged objections to the scheme, the prospect of which spawned a 3,500-strong community group, Stop the Simonswood Incinerator.

Under the plans – brought forward by Warrington-based Culzean W2E Limited – infectious waste including dressings, laboratory specimens, diagnostic kits and protective clothing will be “thermally destructed” in an 850-degree-celsius process known as pyrolysis.

The resultant gases are themselves then combusted and remaining exhaust gases passed through a specialist “abatement” plant to filter a range of materials from them before they are released into the atmosphere in line with limits on emissions.

The company told the committee that its operation would account for just a fraction of the thermal treatment permitted on the site under local planning policy – and would be meeting a local need for such a facility.

However, the cross-party group heard a litany of objections to the proposal from locals, as well as senior officers from – and members of – other councils.

Local opponent Stephen Jones said that the “life-threatening risks associated with medical waste incinerators” had been disregarded by county council planners, who had recommended that councillors approve the blueprint. However, he warned them that they would have “blood on [their] hands” if they did so.

Mr. Jones referred to a medical waste incinerator which opened at the Royal Oldham Hospital in 1994, telling the committee that since that time, official statistics showed that lung cancer rates in Oldham had jumped by 12 percent, while across the North West, there had been a one percent drop over the same period.

He added: “Alarmingly, the three wards closest to this incinerator, largely accounted for the 12 percent increase. These wards are all within a three-mile radius and reside within the prevailing wind direction of the incinerator.

“I ask this committee, what could possibly cause this huge divergence with the rest of the North West since 1994? The only rational explanation is the incinerator and its proximity to people.”

Mr. Jones said that extrapolations from official data suggested that county councillors would be signing “the death warrant[s] of five people each year, every year” in the Kirkby area of Merseyside alone if they permitted the plans.

But Peter Eaton, a speaker in support of the application, said that it was the “natural response” of residents in the vicinity to oppose the plan – because of the alarming material with which they had been presented. He also posited an alternative explanation for the spike in lung cancer in Oldham.

“The latest document…by the protest group infers that the Oldham medical waste incinerator is the cause of cancer in wards such as Medlock Vale [and] Alexandra…drawing comparisons to the areas of Saddleworth South and North.

“What they fail to [include] in the information is that…Medlock Vale and Alexandra are areas with the highest proportion of the population [who] are smokers in the Oldham area, compared to both Saddleworth wards [which have] the lowest.

“Even children in primary schools know that smoking causes lung cancer,” he said, adding that campaigners had also misleadingly claimed that the World Health Organisation was opposed to all medical waste incineration, when it was only uncovered facilities.

However, Tommy Rowe, the Shevington ward member on Knowsley Council, which covers nearby Kirkby, said that figures suggested that “West Lancashire – and Simonswood in particular – is the dumping ground for Lancashire overall”.

Cllr Rowe was amongst the speakers who told the committee that there was already inadequate control of other waste activities on the Simonswood industrial estate.

West Lancashire MP Rosie Cooper was revealed to have contacted the county council on 17 occasions about the plans, setting out the concerns of residents, with her counterpart for Knowsley – Sir George Howarth – also objecting on the grounds of the site’s proximity to residential properties and a school. West Lancashire Borough Council and Knowsley Council both opposed the proposal and objections and concerns were also lodged by the parish councils for Melling, Rainford, Simonswood and Bickerstaff.

Other public objections to the plans included fears that the rate of hospital admission for respiratory diseases – higher in Knowsley than anywhere else in the county – would be made even worse by the incinerator and that the ash created in the pyrolysis process would need careful storage and transportation to protect health.

It was also claimed that the facility could contaminate crops grown in the surrounding fields, with local resident Paula Carlysle telling the committee that as many as 200 farm-based jobs could be lost, in contrast to the 12 that are set to be created by the new plant.

However, Nick Kennedy, a director of Culzean W2E Limited, slammed what he called the “patent nonsense” behind a suggestion that the incineration of medical waste was a “major contribution to dioxin emissions in the UK…given that it represents approximately 0.15 percent of the annual dioxin emissions for the last decade”.

A permit for the operation of the site will be required in addition to the planning approval granted by County Hall. According to papers presented to the committee, West Lancashire Borough Council would be the determining authority for that process.

County councillors were told that, under national planning policy, they should concern themselves only with the acceptability of the proposal on planning grounds and should assume that the regimes to control emissions will “operate effectively”.

The committee had deferred its decision on the facility when it first considered the matter back in September, pending receipt of a full independent review of the applicant’s air quality and human health assessment. An initial review had identified issues which members heard had now largely been addressed, save for a “small number” of outstanding ones which can be dealt with at the permitting stage in the process and “do not represent a material concern in relation to air quality matters at the planning stage”.

Dr. David Wood, from Oaktree Environmental Limited, acting as the agent for the application, said that the Simonswood facility would meet even “the most stringent global criteria” regarding emissions of particulate matter known as PM2.5 – and that at UK level, it’s contribution to local air quality would be deemed “insignificant”.

Mr. Kennedy added: “[Under its own policy], Lancashire County Council allocated the Simonswood industrial estate as the only suitable waste management site for thermal treatment in West Lancashire.

“By selecting his location, all we’ve done is follow the guidance of the council.”

But a senior officer at Knowsley Council accused Lancashire County Council planning officials of relying on an out-of-date policy to conclude that the proposal should be passed Dale Milburn, Knowsley borough’s executive director for regeneration and redevelopment, said that County Hall was effectively splitting its policy in two.

“Officers cannot simply pick bits of the policy they like and disregard others. A policy is either up-to-date or it isn’t,” he said.

The Joint Lancashire Minerals and Waste Local Plan was intended to cover the period between 2001 and 2021. But the county council’s principal planning officer, Jonathan Haine, had earlier told the meeting that case law had established that a policy “is not out of date simply because it is [part of] a time-expired plan”.

He added that “nothing has changed” at the site to now render it unsuitable for the purpose which it had previously been allocated.

Committee member Steve Holgate described it as “a joke” that there was no option for the energy generated from the thermal processes to be undertaken at the site to be sent to the national grid.

However, Andrew Mullaney, County Hall’s head of planning and environment, said that local planning policy meant that the company had the option to use that captured energy on site or export it to another user. He added that his team had seen a commercially confidential agreement that satisfied the authority that the energy would be used in a way that was “compliant with the policy”.

County Cllr Barrie Yates, another committee member, said that he understood the concerns of residents about the proposal – but added that it was not a matter to be judged “by our hearts”.

“Everywhere I turn, I cannot find a reason under planning law to refuse this application,” he said.

The committee voted by four votes to three in favour of approving the facility, with two abstentions.

The main thermal treatment plant will be housed in a new building to be created following demolition of an existing property on the site, which will be 11 metres in height. A 26 metre-high stack for the venting of emissions will also be built.