Up to 50 HGV journeys a day
Harvest Hill: Waste processing site wins appeal to expand
A large expansion of a waste processing facility near Harvest Hill is set to go ahead after the owners won an appeal against the Royal Borough.
The expansion would see the inert, household, commercial and industrial waste transfer station on Kimbers Lane able to process five times as much waste, from 5,000 tonnes up to 25,000.
The site is about 7,200sqm and the expansion will include a 546sqm, 12.7m high waste transfer building, with five HGV parking spaces and three car parking spaces for staff.
The main issue is the potential effect on traffic and highway safety due to additional HGV movements.
In a Development Management Panel meeting in June 2021, councillors voted to refuse the application, against officer recommendations, partly due to ‘significant concerns’ over this.
Applicant John Horwood Skips appealed the decision and it was overturned by the Planning Inspectorate – meaning work can now go ahead.
In the appeal report, inspector B J Sims wrote that it is ‘not disputed’ that the expansion will cause 30-50 movements by HGVs per day (about three to five per hour) – compared to the current six to eight daily movements.
But Harvest Hill Road ‘is a substantial two-lane highway which … is evidently capable of accommodating the additional HGV movements,’ the inspector found.
There is a complication that relates to the ‘new Desborough residential area.’
Harvest Hill Road is identified as the main vehicle access to that site – and is also ‘the only feasible option’ for HGV access to the Kimbers Lane waste site.
The residential development alone ‘is likely to generate traffic flows in the order of 11,000 vehicle movements per day.’
“Clearly, there is some potential for conflict [between both sets of traffic],” wrote B J Sims.
“However, that [residential] development will be of such a scale that highway improvements may be required to ensure that the local road network can accommodate the increased flows.
“By comparison, the number of HGVs associated with the appeal site would amount to a small percentage of the total traffic.”
As such, the inspector said the ‘evidence is clear that there is no substantial risk of adverse impacts due to the additional traffic.’
Moreover, the proposal offers ‘a benefit of substantial weight’ in the form of much greater waste handling capacity.
“It is beyond dispute that there is a shortfall in treatment capacity for inert, household, commercial and industrial waste in the borough,” the inspector said.
In terms of other environmental concerns, the inspector felt there would be no threat of odour or harm to human health, nor significant noise impacts, compared to the noise already on the road. The effect on ecology would be ‘neutral’.
There is, however, some visual harm from the large building that will rise above the height of the site bund and boundary vegetation.
It would be visible from the surrounding area ‘as a discordant feature’ and along with the HGV movements, would have ‘an adverse visual impact of moderate weight.’
The site is, however, ‘comparatively well-separated from residential property’ and as such would not cause any significant harm to general amenity, wrote the inspector.
To see documents relating to this application, enter 16/03056/FULL into the borough’s planning portal.