Dear all

It has been a while since we have had a public meeting but thank you for continuing to follow the campaign. To date there is still no application from Acorn for the proposed site.  However, the Steering Group have been looking at developments elsewhere and we are keeping abreast of research and information relating to the issues around anaerobic digesters.

Those of you local to the area may have recently received a leaflet from Acorn Bioenergy promoting the use of anaerobic digestion as an alternative energy source and their proposed development of the Spring Grove Farm site into one of the UK’s largest AD plants.

Please read this and decide if you think they are being entirely honest in their assertions.

Photomontages

The photomontages provide a single viewpoint that would provide convenient cover given by distance and landscaping.  A more representative view should be one from the A1307 immediately opposite the main entrance to the proposed site.

Local Feedback

Acorn held a public meeting back in September 2022, before many locals were aware of the impact this development would have on Haverhill and Withersfield. Subsequently, Acorn have not engaged with residents on a scale that we feel is appropriate to the development proposed.

Traffic

The Thurlow Estate is not mentioned in the leaflet, but they are the landowners and beneficiaries of revenues from this development.  In their leaflet Acorn make reference to a new access point via Silver Street – but it is not at all clear where exactly this will be. 

To say that gas tankers will only head west is easy to claim but is deliberately misleading.  All gas tankers leaving the site will head west as they are taking methane to the national grid injection point at Milton Keynes.  Unless there is a significant change to the road layout, which Acorn have alluded to in the past, to safely exit the site HGVs will have to turn left, eastwards towards Haverhill, and then circle the Spirit of Enterprise roundabout in order to then head west.  The potential for dangerous and highly inconvenient traffic build up is obvious, as is the hazard of any HGV, not necessarily gas, having to turn right into the site. 

They are correct in that agricultural movements would have occurred anyway, but they all would have been highly local to the crops and silage generated, not transported miles along public roads. The preferred crop for other anaerobic digestion facilities is maize, this crop is extremely bulky and would therefore most likely lead to an increase in farm movements.

Odours

We all know about the odours that will be generated.  Residents close to operation sites elsewhere have consistently complained of bad odours and Acorn themselves had admitted at other sites that ‘occasional’ bad odours are part of the price to be paid for an alternative energy supply.  Paid by whom?  Well, local residents obviously.  Should we really rely on Acorn saying that modelling has shown that bad odours will have no impact on local receptors (that’s people to you and us).

Visual Impact

Screening, Acorn claim to plant ‘new woodland’, but this will take 10-20 years to grow to a height in excess of 17m, roughly equal to the height of the storage towers.  Green towers of this height will not ‘blend’ into the natural landscape of the countryside, they will be completely obvious to the most casual observers.

Scoping documents already submitted by Acorn demonstrate that the majority of the site will be concreted over.  To say ‘only part’ will be hard surfaced is deliberately vague and misleading. 

Benefits to the local community (none!)

Acorn claim the operational site will create 15 jobs but then go on to say only 4-5 will be on-site and therefore employed locally.  Where do the other 10 or 11 work, Acorn’s head offices?

Acorn refuse to recognise the negative impact this development will have on local employment.  With a development such as this on the doorstep it would be easy to imagine many small businesses moving from The Epicentre, the pre-school business closing and possibly The Flying Shuttle as well. That could potentially cause the loss of dozens of jobs and the closure of perfectly viable business close to one of the UK’s largest AD sites.

Local trades might enjoy a short term rise in business but it’s unsustainable and unreliable.

To try to claim this development will benefit biodiversity is probably the biggest attempt to greenwash.  The site will be industrial and mostly concreted over.  This will de-stabilise the local environment and displace existing wildlife and it does not even begin to address the potential for contamination of the Stour Brook and flood park. 

To assert that the local environment will be improved by providing digestate as an alternative to fertiliser is another greenwashing claim based solely on the fact that local farmers, mainly The Thurlow Estate, will be able to use digestate from the AD site rather than use synthetic fertiliser.  Of course, that’s good, but it has nothing to do with OUR environment, which will be damaged, and far more to do with The Thurlow Estate sourcing cheaper soil treatment.  Digestates from this plant, would it appear only benefit one party, the Thurlow Estate, and even then cannot full replace the need for artificial fertiliser as the level of nutrient in digestate can be unpredictable.  How does this prevent pollution?  There is no proof of this.  It should also be remembered that this site is a recognised flood plain – and we know that there was substantial flooding across the site earlier in the year.

Educational trips?  Any parents want to send their kids to an industrial site where there’s risk to health and even explosion?

Apparently, pubs will benefit.  Not the White Horse or the Flying Shuttle that’s for sure, so which ones. 

There is NO benefit to the local community!  Any minor benefit to our local community will be lost to the huge amount of damage this development will do to the health and safety, quality of life and property prices (it’s been demonstrated that house prices fall by 5-10% if within 1 mile of an AD plant).  Any point in the Acorn leaflet that professes a benefit to local residents is either spurious or disingenuous in some way. 

Please be assured that as a campaign group we are continuing to work hard to challenge this proposal.  We have based the views expressed above on facts, feedback and research from the impact of anaerobic digestion sites already in operation.

We will be inviting you to a public meeting in the next few weeks and look forward to hearing your views.

Thank you

Muck Off Acorn campaign Steering Group

To see a full copy of Acorn’s leaflet see our Facebook page