You would think green waste composting is fairly straightforward?
Some while ago, there was an application for Purton’s Parkgate Farm composting site to expand and take in more green waste from across the county. Green waste should of course be composted more or less locally to avoid excessive transport costs and global warming gases.
Not so. Hills Waste Solutions bulk up the waste that comes from all over the county at Lower Compton before shipping it to Purton.
Hills applied for an extension to the Lower Compton facility to support the application at Parkgate. Recognising that bulking green waste and shipping it across the county made no real sense, Wiltshire councillors refused the application to expand at Lower Compton. Hills Waste Solutions then appealed against the refusal of the Lower Compton application. The date of the inquiry has yet to be set, though it is anticipated it will not be before September this year.
Bizarrely, in parallel with this appeal, Hills had applied for a Certificate of Lawfulness for the existing use of the Lower Compton site for waste management operations. A certificate is being sought to confirm that all the activities that are already occurring are allowed under existing permissions; this includes the transfer of green waste to other off-site facilities (to Purton). Seems a bit of an oversight and rather poor to ask if your activity is even legal after all these years! Who are these people.
The current position is that Hills Waste Solutions recently withdrew the Certificate of Lawfulness application. Consequently, we now await the outcome of the planning appeal inquiry into the refusal of their application at Lower Compton to retain and extend the facility.
The appeal inquiry is taking place in early September. The situation at Parkgate Farm will then be reviewed in light of the Planning Inspector’s decision on the Lower Compton appeal.
