No surprise, council has decided to issue the permit.
- Update, Message from Bradford Council, no surprise the permit has been issued.
"Earlier this year we received an application for a permit to burn waste wood at the above site and you submitted your thoughts to us about the relative merits of the application through a consultation exercise. The consultation responses ranged from the proximity of the plant to the CooP Academy primary school, concerns about the potential health impacts through to more general environmental issues. Each consultation response that we received was carefully considered and our overriding concern in relation to the application was the possible effect of emissions on sensitive receptors such as the adjacent school and the nearby residential accommodation.
The permit application had provided evidence that the wood manufacturing and waste wood combustion process are able to comply with the statutory guidance which guide us in our decision making process for such applications. However, in order to ensure that any possible environmental impact was identified and hence controlled, we required a full air quality assessment to be undertaken by an independent air quality consultant on behalf of the applicant. This is one of the reasons why it has taken a while to reach our decision on the application. The assessment concluded that, in relation to emissions from the waste wood combustion process, compliance with legal air quality standards would be achieved at all sensitive receptors (the school and adjacent residences) if the flue height of the unit was a minimum of 6 metres. The assessment added that a height of 8 metres would significantly reduce emission levels further ( a higher flue height gives better dispersion of pollutants, resulting in lower levels in surrounding areas).
The outcome of our deliberations is that it has been decided to issue an environmental permit to the company and in the permit we are to state that the flue shall be a minimum height of 9 metres to improve emission control even further. The conditions that are attached to the permit are designed to minimise emissions of pollutants to atmosphere. Conditions will include requirements for the company to contain the dust generated during the wood manufacturing process, to monitor visible emissions (including dust) on a daily basis and to keep records of their monitoring/maintenance procedures. We are also to condition a full emissions analysis by an independent consultant once the unit has been re-commissioned to ensure that it is operating to the standards specified by the manufacturer.
We will also undertake compliance monitoring on a frequency as recommended by DEFRA (who advise us on how frequent we do our checks) and we will also respond to any complaints that are made about the process and take appropriate action if the company fail to comply with the conditions of their environmental permit. We are also intending to undertake nitrogen oxide monitoring at the boundary of the school site for approximately 12 months as nitrogen oxide is one of the pollutants that results from this type of process and this will offer further reassurance that the unit is not exceeding legal limits at the school.
The unit is relatively small in capacity and incorporates design features that ensure a high standard of operation and hence minimise impact on the environment. There will be a period or re-commissioning of the unit after its relocation from its previous location, but this will be done when the school is closed in case any issues are identified during that necessary work.
Given the concerns expressed in your consultation response I will understand that you may feel disappointed with this outcome. The decision making progress has been thorough and detailed and we believe that we have taken significant steps to ensure that the proposed plant can operate without causing any problems to the local environment, and that our monitoring programme will rapidly identify any possible failure to keep within the process permit requirements."