SID fun and fund raising

So far we have managed to cover our expenses from the donations we received at the public meeting on the 14^th October 2009,  and out of the pockets of the committee members.
We are now reaching the critical stage of the campaign and need to raise funds to cover:

• Providing transport for local residents to attend the crucial decision making Council planning meeting
• Provision of a fighting fund to cover the cost of specialist representation

To achieve this we are organising a series of social events which will appeal to everybody – young and old! The primary objective of these events is to ensure everybody has a good time and, with your support, to raise some money too.
So two dates for your diaries:

Friday 26^th March – Curry & Quiz Night at the Bengal Dynasty £8.50 inc poppadums, pickles and a choice of curry.  Please click here  to print off form for tickets.

Friday 23^rd April – 70’s/80’s Disco Night at Northwich Victoria Stadium, dig out your 70’s/80’s gear (optional - but prizes for the best turned out!) and have some ‘retro’ fun. Tickets are £10 per person including a hot supper and dessert and are available now. Please click here to print off form for tickets and help spread the word
For details and tickets on either of these events  sid.cw9@gmail.com  or call Debs May on 01565 733706

Seasons Greetings from the Santa SIDs protest "choir"

How to object to RRS

It is very easy to object, especially by email, and this page provides all the information required. Every member of your household is entitled to object, including children, and each one counts as an individual objection. Your written objection may be made public.

To object by email
1. Write to jon.sutcliffe@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk
2. The subject of the email should be
     09/02430/WAS - 1 New Cheshire Business Park, Wincham
3.Include the following at the start of your email content

     Applicant Name : Resource Recovery Solutions
     Application Reference Number : 09/02430/WAS

4. The content of the email needs to make it clear that you wish to object and should include the word object. For example it might simply say : "I am writing to object to the above application because ..."
5. Include as many or as few reasons for objection as you wish. It can be just one sentence.
6. It is vital to add your name and address to the email.
7. Ask them to confirm receipt of your objection as we know of one going astray and being lodged against a totally different planning application despite it stating the site address and the applicants name! To help us monitor for "lost" objections please forward a copy to sid.cw9@gmail.com

To object by letter
Letters must include the same information as above and be sent to:
Jon Sutcliffe, Area Planning Manager (Strategic Projects and Highways Development), 2nd Floor, The Forum, Chester, CH1 2HS

Some common reasons for objecting are :

• The proposal is not needed as facilities are currently being developed capable of meeting the capacity of forecasted waste in Cheshire. We don't wish to import more waste into Cheshire.
  
• An oversupply of thermal treatment capacity will act as a disincentive to recycling and other forms of genuinely sustainable waste management. If other places can recycle 70% so can we.
  
• Thermal treatment plants generate particulate matter, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), heavy metals, dioxins, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, mercury, carbon dioxide and furans to be distributed in the communities surrounding, and downwind of them. A totally unnecessary health risk. Some of these pollutants are  accumulative which could cause lasting harm to both arable and dairy farming in the area. This plant will only monitor dioxins 4 times a year!
  
• All the HGVs will be using the A559 (Stretton to Lostock). This is totally unacceptable as it is the sixth most dangerous road in Cheshire and marked by the council as a hazardous high collision red route. 146 HGV movements a day will blight all villages en route.
  
• The proposed site is less than 45m from some homes, within 400m of numerous homes, and  850m from a primary school. The location of the plant will literally split the village in two. To walk/bicycle from upper to lower Wincham along Wincham Lane would feel too risky due to HGV's.
  
• The  noise and light pollution from the plant and its traffic is totally unacceptable given the proximity of housing. There will be light pollution every night.  A reversing klaxon will be heard in the village approximately every 7 minutes. RRS do not believe this to be a problem!  
• The visual impact of a 60m chimney would negatively affect the surrounding areas.  

Contact councillors at Cheshire West and Chester

Write to our councillors explaining your concerns and asking them for their support.

Click here to find your three local councillors

Click here for details of the 11 councillors on the Strategic Planning Committee This is the committee who will make the decision on the planning application in Feb/Mar 2010.

If you wish to raise awareness of the impact RRS would have on all of us who work or live in Wincham and the surrounding communities below are the email addresses for all the councillors in CWAC. Ideal if you only have time to send one email.

Please share in the comments box points you make to our councillors and also let us know who you get positive or negative feedback from.

brian.anderson@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, gareth.anderson@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, kimberley.anderson@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, brian.bailey@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, bob.barton@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, derek.bateman@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, don.beckett@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, kate.birtwistle@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, terry.birtwistle@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, keith.board@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, pam.booher@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, malcolm.byram@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, lynn.clare@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, brian.clarke@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, angela.claydon@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, linda.cooper@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, bob.crompton@cheshire.gov.uk, brian.crowe@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, razia.daniels@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, andrew.dawson@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, hugo.deynem@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, paul.donovan@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, brenda.dowding@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, max.drury@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, john.ebo@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, les.ford@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, malcolm.gaskill@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, john.grimshaw@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, pamela.hall@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, arthur.harada@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, myles.hogg@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, jill.houlbrook@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, mark.ingram@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, eleanor.johnson@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, mike.jones@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, reggie.jones@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, kay.loch@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, pat.lott@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, richard.lowe@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, justin.madders@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, herbert.manley@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, jan.mashlan@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, simon.mcdonald@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, alan.mckie@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, hilarie.mcnae@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, scott.mealor@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, pat.merrick@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, george.miller@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, keith.musgrave@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, andrew.needham@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, marie.nelson@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, ralph.oultram@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, stuart.parker@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, charlie.parkinson@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, tom.parry@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, lynn.riley@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, neil.ritchie@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, barbara.roberts@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, tony.sherlock@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, richard.short@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, graham.smith@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, mark.stocks@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, andrew.storrar@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, alex.tate@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, robert.thompson@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, adrian.walmsley@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, helen.weltman@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, mark.williams@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, keith.wilson@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, ann.wright@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk, norman.wright@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk

SID and George at the pub

Our local MP, George Osborne, met up with SID at the Black Greyhound. We gave him feedback from the public meeting and shared photos with him of the evening, which thanks to you all, was amazing. He offered his total support, will do whatever he can to help and is now an honoury SID!
Other help we need at the moment is finding a highways consultant. Can anyone point us in the direction of one?

SID would like Cheshire to strive for the 70% recycling rate achieved by two other councils

See  Rochford and South Oxfordshire 

Not sure how motivated RRS would be as a partner helping Cheshire go from our current 47% to 70%. It is also very hard to make sense of this quote "RRS’s solution sits alongside the Council’s continued efforts to encourage people to reduce, reuse and recycle waste." They only pull out 5%  of the 200,000 tonnes pa to recycle. If some councils can recycle 70% now imagine how high that figure could be before the 25 year contract with RRS expires. We are not allowed to see details of the £850 million contract so hard to compare costs per tonne to recycle v burning, or to see if we would pay less to RRS if our household waste dropped to 100,000 tonnes per year. Would they scale down the plant, or would they import rubbish from outside to burn here?

Come to SIDs big night tonight

Public Meeting jointly organised with Wincham Parish Council.
Concerned about the RRS Waste Plant proposal? Hear the arguments against it. Help to oppose it.
7.30pm tonight at Northwich Victoria Stadium
Guest speaker Cllr Arnold Woolley Director of Zero Waste Alliance and member of Global Alternatives to Incineration Alliance.

Come and have your say. Please don't leave it to someone else, we need to publicly show our strength of feeling!

Map of area most likely affected by pollution fallout. HGV routes also marked

All the areas above are at risk of pollution from the RRS plant.  Obviously places to the north and east will experience a greater share due to the prevailing winds.
Seven days a week massive HGVs will be bringing ALL household waste from west, east and south Cheshire. Arriving from the Waste Transfer Stations at Ellesmere Port, Macclesfield and Crewe. Additionally the refuse trucks for Middlewich, Northwich and Winsford will go direct to Wincham, most of them via Lostock.
All of these additional movements along the A559 is totally unacceptable as it is already marked as a high risk collision route, the 6th most dangerous road in Cheshire.

A date for your diary! Public Meeting 7.30pm Wed 14th Oct

SID needs all of you to come along to share ideas, learn, and plan our way forward together. 
Venue Northwich Victoria F.C.Victoria Stadium,Wincham Avenue, Northwich CW9 6GB

Some serious SIDs

Help SID needs this week

A Public Meeting is being organised by Wincham Parish Council to formulate a defence strategy for our communities. To advertise this we need additional volunteers who live in Pickmere, Great Budworth, Marston, Antrobus and Stretton to deliver leaflets/posters/petitions.
We are also looking for a planning consultant and a highways expert.
Email SID.CW9@gmail.com or phone Linda on 07773 913009
Please read the links on this site and spread the word to your friends, families and neighbours.

A look at the companies and process involved.

Say NO to yet another incinerator in Cheshire!

Runcorn - planning approved - capacity 850,000 tonnes pa
Ince Marsh - planning approved - capacity 600,000 tonnes pa
Cheshires household waste is only 200,000 tonnes pa and still falling
SO WHY BURN AT WINCHAM?

Gasification, RRS, Energos - a look behind the smoke and mirrors of a £850 million contract

This is an incinerator in disguise. Gasification is classed as incineration in the European Union's Waste Incineration Directive.  Gasification incinerators, like mass burn incinerators, generate highly toxic gaseous, liquid and solid releases, including acid gases, dioxins and furans, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, particulates, cadmium, mercury, lead and hydrogen sulphide.

No technology can make anything actually disappear, although the volume of waste appears to be greatly reduced by burning. Mass can neither be created nor destroyed, only changed. The gas, smoke, liquid and solid wastes that leave a plant have the same mass as the solid materials entering the plant. In this case the 200,000 tonnes entering will approximately come out as 10,000 tonnes of recyclables, 10,000 tonnes of toxic fly ash, 36,000 tonnes of bottom ash, and 144,000 tonnes, apart from some liquid waste, will come out of the chimney to be  dispersed around us.

RRS sustainable? The major partner behind RRS is United Utilities, the water company, who have been fined 3 times this year so far by the Environment Agency for pollution, one time being the maximum fine possible, £20,000. Each year United Utilities feature in the list of Britain's biggest polluters. They have absolutely no track record in burning waste so if they can't keep water clean after years of practice how can we put the safety of the air we breathe in their hands?

How "proven" is Energos? Energos went bankrupt in 2003 after building 5 plants in Norway and 1 in Germany.  Do we really want to invest £850 million of tax payers money given this record for not being financially sustainable? A UK company called Ener-G bought Energos. The history of Ener-G involves being the parent company to Contract Heat and Power who operated the Byker Incinerator responsible for one of the most serious dioxin contamination events in the UK.  Eggs, poultry and other produce from council allotments were officially deemed not safe to eat. The only Energos plant  in UK is on the Isle of Wight.  It finally started processing waste last November after many delays. Numerous requests for emission details of this plant have been denied, though it's capacity is only 30,000 tonnes a year so not comparable to the Wincham plan.

Low emission figures?  Figures are often presented in relation to a Norwegian plant. If you add together the total capacity of ALL the Energos plants in Norway it comes to 182,000 tonnes pa. Significantly less than the 200,000 tonnes they propose to burn at just the one in Wincham. They have absolutely no experience of burning on this massive scale. The average capacity of a plant in Norway is 36,000 tonnes pa so the amount of toxic emissions is inevitably only a fraction of the toxic fallout expected from Wincham. Additionally in Norway the government minimises pollution using strong regulations, thorough monitoring and tough enforcement unlike here where serial polluters like United Utilities are allowed to continue to operate.

Who to believe? It is extremely difficult to find truly independent Environmental consultants who are not linked financially to the big business of waste. They seem to do work for both incinerator companies and local governments who look to experts to help them access planning applications.  Even DEFRA use consultants with strong links to the waste industry.

Dr van Steenis, a retired GP who has been researching industrial pollution for over 10 years, states that with the proposed chimney height of 180 feet the fallout could cover an area of up to 12 miles. That could include the towns of Warrington, Knutsford, Wilmslow, Altrincham, and Macclesfield and all the villages in between there and Northwich. His research has shown a direct relation between the number of children using inhalers in a school and its proximity to a source of pollution, plus increases in heart attack and cancer rates. He also casts doubt on the ability of the Environment Agency to police the polluters especially as they only regulate for particulates above a certain size.

Prof Paul Connett, a chemist and world renowned toxicologist is also alarmed by the unregulated nano particles emitted by gasification plants. Particularly dioxins as they accumulate in fat. This also means that animals grazing within the fallout zone concentrate the dioxin load they eat into the fat products we eat from them. So just one litre of cow's milk gives the same dose of dioxin as breathing air next to the cows for a whole eight months!

Sustainable/renewable? Then why do the Green Party, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace etc vehemently oppose this approach!

Articulated lorries will be thundering 7 days a week along the A559, despite it being marked a hazardous high collision route. This will affect those of us who live in Stretton, Antrobus, Great Budworth, Marston and Lostock. All of these HGVs will turn onto Wincham Lane, entering the plant site just 300m from the Black Greyhound. This will destroy any sense of village life and combined with health fears will impact house prices.

A serial polluter responsible for handling toxic waste in a field it has absolutely no experience in.  Using technology of a company who went bankrupt but now owned by a company linked to arguably the worst incident of dioxin contamination in this country ... can these people be trusted with the health of our communities?

Please urge your local Councillors and MPs to oppose this and keep informed about how to object when RRS apply for planning permission in mid October. If you wish to help our action group either join "Wincham Post" on Facebook, phone Linda on 07773 913009 or email SID.CW9@gmail.com

SID says Welcome

SID is a group of concerned citizens saying no to a proposed gasification plant in our community.
More soon on how you can help SID.