Representation by Daniel Bell
- Date submitted
- 4 June 2024
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I both live in the development across the road from the proposed CCS plant (and the completed and soon-to-be completed waste incinerators) and am a member of the Save Crossness Nature Reserve campaign. I will comment firstly in my capacity as a resident in very close proximity and secondly as a member of the campaign to save the reserve. I am strongly opposed to this plant as a resident. The danger from industrial accidents is clearly something to be worried about as is the addition to emissions on top of what will be a second waste incinerator due to be complete in to years. The logic of building this so close to a development of around 600 flats is not apparent. Moreover, its proposed location is within the Bexley Riverside Opportunity which has been earmarked for potentially 6000 new homes and 19000 new jobs. While adding to the latter it is clearly does not conform with the goals of the latter. The impact to Crossness Nature Reserve, which I have enjoyed visiting for 7 years now, will be absolutely devastating. Cory's claim of increasing the size of the reserve by using Normal Road Field is an appalling one given it is already part of the reserve (I dread to think what they will do to it). The entire reserve will changed forever by the visual impact which will be horrendous (as if two waste incinerators was not enough - the logic seems to be there wrongs make a right). I will leave it to other members of the group to comment on alternatives (as I understand it there are several viable options) and more technical environmental matters. Suffice to say the building of a CCS to complement a second waste incinerator in an area earmarked for residential development clearly does not correlate with government targets under the Waste Management Plan for England (65% by 2035) nor with the UK Biodiversity Action Plan. Biodiversity net gain has been notoriously difficult - and deeply suspect - to monitor and I do not see how it will be achieved when Cory have already concreted over an area of the reserve used for years by nesting, breeding skylarks and water voles. Moreover, the plant is only being deployed for 25 years and could quite easily become a white elephant like the Thames Water sewage incinerator only a few hundred metres away. I am against the CCS plant in principle and would strongly urge the planning authority and Secretary of State to reject its construction on the above grounds. However, failing this, Cory should be forced to find alternative viable sites on readily available industrial or brownfield sites.