Agenda and minutes

Any information received after the agenda has been published, relevant to the applications on the agenda to be considered by the Committee will be published here.

There were no apologies for absence received.

There were no declarations from Members of the Committee to make representation as Ward Councillor on any item within the agenda.

The minutes of the meeting held on 27 October 2009 were approved as a true and accurate record.

            The Committee agreed to vary the speaking scheme for item 5.1, Construction of Energy from Waste Facility. A request had been submitted from an objector, Mr Olive, to allow eight minutes for objectors and in order to ensure a fair hearing, an equal amount of time was agreed for the supporters.

Councillor North advised the Committee that item 5.3, 62 Francis Gardens, had been withdrawn from the agenda.

Councillor Ash left the meeting for the following item.

The proposed Energy from Waste facility (EfW) would be contained within a single building with a footprint of approximately 96m by 37m. Its height, excluding the stack, would be approximately 35m.

The main elements of the facility would be:

·      Waste reception area,

·      Bunker hall,

·      Process hall,

·      Turbine generator hall,

·      A chimney stack (approx. 60m in height)

·      Metal and ash recycling area,

·      Bulky waste shredding area,

·      3 storey offices including staff welfare and mess facilities, offices for manager and admin staff and the control room, and

·      A workshop

The EfW building would be a steel framed construction and metal clad. Translucent panels on the front and side elevations would allow natural illumination into the process hall and would enable the ‘internal workings’ to be visible to the outside especially when illuminated at night.

The plant would have a maximum throughput of 65,000 tonnes of waste per annum and the capacity to generate approximately 34,000 MWh/yr of electricity, of which 28,000 MWh/yr would be available for export to the national grid with the remainder being used within the plant itself. The plant would have the ability to produce approximately 127,000 MWh/yr of heat with 102, 000 MWh/yr available for export. 

The EfW would be accessed from the main entrance on Fourth Drove and egress would be on to Storeys Bar Road/Fengate. New weighbridges and associated offices would be provided at the entrance and exit to the site. There would be a one way traffic system for vehicles associated with the EfW and the IMRF proposed on the adjacent site.

The EfW process would operate continuously, 24 hours a day for 7 days a week with the exception of shutdown periods for essential maintenance.

Waste would be delivered to the facility between 6.00 and 20.00 Monday to Saturday inclusive and 8.00 and 16.00 on Sundays and Bank Holidays. However, the facility itself would operate 24hours/day.

Approximately 30 staff would be employed at the site. This would include 16 shift operators, an Operations Team Leader, a Plant Manager, a Maintenance Manager, a Systems and Quality Manager, 4 Maintenance fitters, a Process Engineering Apprentice, 2 admin staff, a site manager, a plant cleaner and a vehicle and plant driver operative. 

The EfW would accept residual waste collected by the Council and also some residual waste from Cambridgeshire and other adjoining local authorities. All waste would be non hazardous (mixed municipal waste or waste with similar characteristics), hazardous waste would not be accepted.

Part of the waste stream would come from the household waste recycling facility at Dogsthorpe and some of this waste would be oversized. A dedicated waste crushing facility would be located in the north eastern section of the main building and would deal with this. Over sized waste would be delivered by ‘roll on roll off’ skip lorries and would deposit the over sized waste into a dedicated bay. The operative would sort through the waste for non combustible and recyclable materials. Then a grab  ...  view the full minutes text for item 51.

The building had an ‘L’ shaped footprint and the proposal sought to square off the footprint by infilling the existing open area to the North West corner. The overall increase in the floor area would equate to approximately 52sq.m, with a proposed width of 6.7m and a depth of 7.8m.

The extension was to have a flat roof that would match the height of an existing flat roof of the building. The proposed brick north elevation would replace an existing single skin brick wall that formed a part of the northern boundary of the site. The western elevation of the proposed extension was to project 1.3m closer to flank boundary with number 110 Ledbury Road such that the separation distance was to be 2.6m to the common fenced boundary. This would provide a simple pedestrian access from the extension towards the rear outside play area. The western elevation was to contain two adjacent 0.9m wide full length windows with narrow top openings. The northern elevation of the extension was to include two similarly designed windows but would be 1.1m clear of ground level. The elevations were to be rendered.

The extension was to improve the general accommodation standards for the nursery, for example the areas for quiet and the one to two’s activity areas.

The applicant had confirmed that the additional floor space would also help in accommodating children with disabilities for which the existing configuration of the rooms could not readily accommodate.

The nursery accommodated a fluctuation of between 20-25 children although there was no restriction imposed on the number of children when planning permission was originally granted for the use in 2002. At the time the nursery catered for 6 children between 3 months – 2 years, 8 children each within the ages of 2 – 3 years and 3 – 5 years respectively i.e. 22 children. The nursery benefited from a parking provision for a total of 11 cars, 8 spaces of which were located within the parking area to the front of the Jack Hunt School.

The Planning Officer addressed the Committee and highlighted the main issues surrounding the proposal, namely the impact on the amenities of the adjacent property and the car parking provisions due to the proposed increase in staff. 

Members’ attention was drawn to additional information contained within the update report. The Committee was advised that additional comments had been received from the Highways Development Control Team stating that they were satisfied with the proposed car parking provisions.

Mr Tim Laws, Childcare Market Facilitation Manager for Peterborough City Council, addressed the Committee on behalf of the Deputy Manager of the nursery and responded to questions from Members. In summary the issues highlighted to the Committee included:

·        The benefits that the extension would bring to the nursery

·        The footprint would cover part of the existing outdoor play space. This would mean that ultimately, noise outside would be reduced

·        The increase in the number of children at the nursery would not necessarily mean an  ...  view the full minutes text for item 52.

The Committee was advised that the application had been withdrawn by the applicant.

Members agreed that a letter should be sent to all Councillors highlighting the importance of attending the committee meetings in order to support any referrals they made as Ward Councillors.