Update
Subsequent to the fiasco described below, the Inspector has recently granted the application. This was then immediately countered by the Wiltshire Waste Alliance with a judicial review requested of the inspector’s appeal decision. This is now being contested by Hills Waste so the case will now go before the Courts.
….and so it goes on…
A long time ago…. Hills Waste Solutions made an application to increase its composting facility at Purton. This application depended on another Hills site (at Lower Compton) being able to act as a batching facility, since the waste would be coming from all over. At a similar time, Hills was making an expansion application for Lower Compton itself. Interestingly, Wiltshire Council then refused the Lower Compton application. Consequently, the application to expand Purton could not proceed.
Hills lodged an appeal in December 2015 which was to be heard under the public inquiry process. In parallel with this appeal, Hills also applied for a Certificate of Lawfulness for the existing use of the Lower Compton site for waste management. A certificate was sought to confirm that all the activities happening at Lower Compton were already authorised; this included the transfer of green waste to other facilities such as at Purton. Apparently, there was some doubt as to whether or not Hills had been lawful in, amongst other things, sending green waste to Purton anyway. A decision on this Lawfulness application was due to be made in February 2016.
Wiltshire Council decided on the advice of its Legal team that the Lawfulness application would be dealt with by the Council’s Strategic Planning Committee and re-scheduled the application to April 2016. This was later re-scheduled, yet again, to May, with the determination of the Purton application being deferred until June.
Then Hills withdrew the Certificate of Lawfulness application, thus reverting to the original appeal inquiry into the refusal of their application at Lower Compton (to retain and extend the waste management activities). The appeal inquiry was due to take place in early September 2016.
The Planning Inquiry into this appeal was then adjourned by the Inspector in order to receive further information with a revised date of the hearing set in February 2017. The Inspector’s Decision is due to be issued on or before 11 May 2017. After this, and depending on the outcome, the application will be determined whether or not to expand the composting facility at Purton.
Let’s hope all parties learn from this. All this fiddling around has certainly wasted a lot of public money.
