Marsh Lane Watch
Major flytipping at Bognor Road end. Has been there a week or more. No wardens have noticed. So much for their presence in our area.
First meeting of liaison group to monitor performance of Walnut Tree Farm composting site in respect of odour emissions and responsiveness to complaints. Useful start. Business like approach from all parties, Langmead Farms, KPS and EA, County officer. Independently chaired by County Councillor Andrew Smith. Leaflets to be prepared and distributed to residents explaining procedure for registering complaints. Group will meet quarterly.
At Board meeting of PCT (now renamed NHS West Sussex) Fit For the Future programme abandoned as no longer relevant. So the services we fought to retain at St Richard's, emergency services, inpatient paediatrics and consultant led maternity will continue there. So how much has all that cost the taxpayer? What a scandal.
However, before we all celebrate, County's Health and Overview Scrutiny meeting of November 5, 2009 received the report that the overall quality and financial management at the hospital in the year 2008/2009 was rated by the Care Quality Commission as respectively weak and fair. In the previous year the corresponding ratings were good and fair. Has it all been worth fighting for? Anecdotal evidence from residents gives cause for concern. So that is where our next focus should be. We have saved you so how about raising the bar?
Meeting of Oving Parish Council Planning Committee, a public meeting, at which Langmead Farms presented their proposals for an anaerobic digester type power plant at Runcton next to the green waste composting site.
It will cost £5 million, cover its costs over five years, and have a life of
at least 20 years. It will provide power for Langmead Farms's operations, and
pump the rest, most of the power I would guess, into the national grid. Its CHP
unit will pipe surplus heat to local greenhouses in season.
The feedstock will be maize that Langmeads will grow by crop rotation with
lettuces in rented fields at Oving, and also peelings from fruit and trimmings
from lettuces from Langmead farms that would otherwise go to the next door
composting site. The objective is primarily commercial as a source of business
diversification as lettuce business comes under margin pressure.
There will be three sealed silo type units, probably stainless steel in
preference to concrete, up to 16 metres high. The model is to be found in
Germany but not much in the UK. There are still several matters to resolve but
the application has gone in anyway.
The footprint will be twice the size of the composting site. The potential issues for residents are noise, especially from the elevated augur at the start of the process that shreds the feedstock, but also from the twin methane gas fired engines that drive the process; and smell, especially from the lagoon of liquid digestate that is the waste from the process.
Visible intrusiveness will also be a major concern. I judge the north edge of
the site will come to within 100 yards of the nearest house in Merston, probably
mine. The tall silo towers in a flat plain, never mind whether painted in dull
green as is proposed, will blot the outlook from many houses in the village.
There is no provision in the plans for landscaping to screen the towers.
The site is located within the HDA and is claimed to be a new horticultural
development within the conditions of an HDA. I have doubts whether the
plant can be so defined. It is in fact a 24/7 running renewable energy
generating industrial plant. Only a part of the energy will be for horticultural
use, and only a very small part of its feedstock will be waste disposal of
horticultural produce, namely salad trimmings etc the removal of which from the
next door composting site is intended to reduce the risk of odour from the site.
Regulation will be by the EA whose record as far at the composting site is concerned gives no grounds for confidence. The organisation is over stretched in terms of its resources.
I have suggested to the chairman of North Mundham Parish Council that the size and potential impact of the development justifies holding a public meeting.
For readers who wish to study the application and make comments, it is on the County website (www.westsussex.gov.uk) and its number is WSCC/88/09/NM. Comments have to be submitted by December 16, 2009, though we make seek an extension, given the need for full consultation and consideration. It might even be necessary for a delegation of residents and councillors to visit a comparable plant elsewhere. That may require a trip to Germany.
......................................................................................................................................
Somewhat disappointing debate about Europe at my old school in Salisbury. Opponent quoting wildly inaccurate figures and facts won the day. Sometimes the devil has all the best tunes. Next time I will get in first about the myths rather than letting my opponent make the running.
Click here to return to the top of the page.
Marsh Lane Watch
Nothing to report this week.
Returned from two week visit to India organised by Traidcraft, an independent sales outlet for and sponsor of fair trade operations in developing countries.
There were 13 of us, the others mostly already involved in fair trade as sales persons selling at their churches, schools etc. We visited some cooperative societies in and around Delhi, Agra, Kochi and Kolcata. These are small businesses, some very small indeed, perhaps a single family, that produce goods for export, such as textiles, cheap jewellery, stone products, ginger for making into biscuits. The product sales price includes a 'social premium', that is used for the health, education and welfare of employees and their community.
Working conditions are, we would think, pretty primitive, but by local standards, not at all bad, clean, with washing facilities, equipment, mostly salaried, sometimes piecework, with pay usually but not always above the minimum wage of 100 rupees a day (£1.25) . The societies are assisted or sponsored by larger organisations that advise on design, purchase raw materials, set up savings funds for employees, and assist in marketing.
Stone carvers and polishers at a well established works near Agra. The conditions are dusty but extensive extractor fans are used to give reasonable air quality.
The tailoring group at a 20 year old business employing 35 ladies at a town about two hours from Kolcata. Many of the sewing machines are old fashioned treadle type but some electric ones have recently been purchased. On the ground floor a another group of ladies do the embroidery to produce beautiful cushion covers, shawls, and other clothes. These textiles are above local prices and are for export only. Power outs are common and a stand by generator is in regular use. Water is drawn from tube wells.
A visitor's impression of India, virtually everywhere you go, is of a teeming population.
A street scene in old Delhi.
But we had time for a little sightseeing.
Click here to return to the top of the page.