News — Snowie single out planning system as main barrier to reaching recycling targets

Monday 16 February 2004

Stirling-based waste management specialists, The Snowie Group, says that lack of cooperation, inconsistency and time delays within the planning system are the main cause of the slow progress being made towards achieving the Scottish Executive’s targets on recycling.

Figures recently published by Audit Scotland indicate that we have made little progress, if any, towards reaching the targets set down in last February’s National Waste Plan. Snowie is calling for better co-operation and co-ordination within the Scottish Executive and between the Executive and local authorities. Ben Ballantyne, Snowie senior manager and consultant chartered surveyor, explains:

"The National Waste Plan clearly states that it is the responsibility of the waste management industry and local authorities to provide the necessary infrastructure for treating and disposing of wastes. That’s all very well, but we can only do so with the necessary planning approvals – and that’s where the problem lies.

"Many in our industry find they have an almost impossible fight on their hands to gain planning consent for new modern waste management facilities. Time and time again proposals are thwarted by parties who seem determined to block the development of local facilities."

Mr Ballantyne was speaking in the wake of the Scottish Executive Reporter’s decision to dismiss an appeal by Snowie against Stirling Council’s refusal to grant planning permission for the construction and operation of a waste materials recycling centre at Lower Polmaise, Fallin near Stirling.

Mr Ballantyne said, "The decision is symptomatic of the difficulties facing those of us operating in Scotland’s waste management industry who are trying to help Scotland reach the Executive’s targets on recycling."

Significantly in the Polmaise case, the Reporter found that the development would be supportive of the broad thrust of national guidance and advice on waste management and treatment and would not have an adverse impact on surrounding property, the environment or amenity of the area.

The reason for dismissing the appeal, however, was his concern about the width of a private (Stirling Council owned) access road that leads to the Stirling Council Polmaise Landfill and Civic Amenity site. Surprisingly, the Executive recently approved Stirling Council’s proposal for a Waste Transfer Station on the adjoining Polmaise Landfill Site, which is reached by the same access road. This was made without any comment at all about the same access road that, in Snowie’s case, had been stated by the Executive’s Reporter as being the reason for dismissing their appeal.

And the decision highlights two other difficulties facing the waste management industry: the time it takes for planning applications to be processed – the Polmaise application was first lodged in 1999 – and the apparent inconsistency and inequity in the decisions made by the Executive in its implementation of the National Waste Plan.

And Mr Ballantyne concluded, "It is a matter of great regret that Snowie and Stirling Council could not have worked together to deliver this much-needed waste management facility to the people of Stirling and the surrounding area. With a degree of co-operation the issue of width of the access road could have been overcome and the common objective to help solve Stirling and Forth Valley’s waste management problems could have been achieved."

"The real losers from the Reporter’s findings are local industries, businesses and people, whose elected representatives must now find alternative facilities to deal with Forth Valley’s industrial and commercial waste. Snowie understand that plans currently being considered include transporting all the area’s municipal waste by road from Stirling to other existing disposal facilities around Scotland, including Dunbar, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Perth."