Plans for a controversial and potentially hazardous waste incinerator in East Sussex have been blocked until the Government can consider local objections.
The East Sussex Waste Local Plan (WLP) sets out the strategy for future waste management and associated use of land in East Sussex and Brighton & Hove. The plan is supposed to encourage sustainable methods of waste treatment and support new facilities to enable opportunities for recycling, Composting and energy recovery from waste but this time included proposals for an incinerator at North Quay in Newhaven. East Sussex County Council and Brighton and Hove City accepted the East Sussex WLP at meetings last month but have since been subject to a holding direction from the Government Office of the South East (GOSE) after some 8000 objections flooded in from residents. Local Green Party MEP Caroline Lucas, who wrote to GOSE last week calling for the WLP to be subject of a new public inquiry said: ‘I am glad the WLP has been put on hold while local objections are fully considered.’ There are concerns that the WLP was not drawn up before a 25-year waste management contract worth £1billion was signed with Onyx and that the terms of this contract will now take precedent over the needs and wishes of local residents. Dr Lucas added: ‘The WLP should have been drawn up before, not after, a long-term contract to operate an incinerator was signed with Onyx ñ but since that contract is now signed, we must not miss this chance to make East Sussex and Brighton and Hove a beacon of best practice on recycling and waste reduction.’
Photo: Caroline Lucas