Eternit Planning Meeting

As you might have heard via BBC local news the council has given the green light to the Eternit proposals.

I attended the meeting and it seemed to me that such a result was a forgone conclusion. There were a couple councillors who asked questions about the remediation work but both were in favour of the projects.

Jason Addy the spokesperson for the residents (DRRA) had the usual five minutes to represent the residents position. He concentrated on requesting that the matter be deferred and that an environmental impact assessment should be carried out prior to the proposal coming before the committee again. This, he maintained, would be a win win situation for all parties.

He suggested that the planning expertise, UK wide, in relation to asbestos remediation work and its consequences were not very developed and that current practice relating to assessing types of asbestos concentrations on sites was inadequate.

One conservative councillor who was not on the planning committee and spoke in favour of two of the proposals praised council officers for their diligent work concerning the matter. He generally could not fault the detailed plans that had been drawn up to ensure the projects safety and felt that residents had had access to the detailed planning involved in the proposal. He suggested that the capping option favoured by the DRRA was not viable. I understood this to mean that it would be too costly.

The councillor went over the 5 minute time limit and several residents complained about this but were informed that councillors were allocated more time than the general public.

I think it was useful for everyone that the councillor was provided with this time and was enabled to finish what he wanted to say. Unfortunately this contrasted with the way Jason Addy was dealt with in that he was unable to finish his presentation. This seemed to me to fly in the face of natural justice.

A minor point perhaps particularly as it seems unlikely that whatever he had said in his conclusions would have made any difference to the outcome of the meeting. Also perhaps it was a situation that was unavoidable given the council's protocol. But it did not add to residents feelings that their views had been properly considered. I suspect they came away from this meeting very disillusioned with local democracy.

I don't know whether the proposals that have been accepted by the council are the most viable and safest way, given the circumstances, of dealing with the site - perhaps they are. What I do feel though is that in situations were health and safety is an important factor, particularly in dealing with the emotive issue of abestos material, that an environmental impact assessment on each of the three proposals should have been carried out - for the sake of everybody.

I understand that the DRRA are considering to appeal against the decision.