Attended the Derby Rd Residents meeting last night. The DRRA is now an official group but have changed their title to Widnes North Residents Association (WNRA) to broaden their catchment area. They elected a committee during the evening which is to be chaired by Peter Brewin.
There were about 40 people there - quite a few of them I hadn't seen before. Phil Drakely the Conservative councillor for Farnworth was present and he was eager to let residents know, as far as he was able, the up to date situation in terms of the council's position.
He stated that as the proposals had been passed by the council's planning committee and the work was to start in 12 days time that there was unfortunately little the group could do about the matter. This was unless the appeal that Friends of the Earth (FoE) are involved with actually went ahead. He thought it would be appropriate for the group to meet with the developers and the council to discuss the remediation process.
Peter Brewin and some other members of the newly formed committee were not too happy about this. They considered that not very much could be achieved at such meetings. It would be a case of the "wool being pulled over their eyes". A vote followed and it was agreed that residents would meet with council officials and the developers to discuss the remediation process. The consensus was that there would be no harm in having such a meeting to clarify issues.
There was a great deal of heated discussion about the fact that any movement of asbestos would carry risks and that although the developers and council would be following stringent health and safety procedures there was always the chance of dangerous particles escaping to the atmosphere. Linked to this was the matter that no environmental impact assessments had been produced by the developers.
Had a quick chat with Peter after the meeting and got the impression that an appeal would be mounted by FoE and that the planned work on the site wouldn't be commencing in 12 days.
We shall see. I remain uneasy about developers plans. As far as I'm aware the sort of specific plans proposed for the work are relatively new and there are few examples of such remedial work.
Check earlier blogs for further discussion about the issues involved.
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