Barton Biomass Plant

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I am grateful, Mr Robertson, that time has been allowed for this afternoon’s debate, and I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) are present. My right hon. Friend is here because his constituency neighbours mine and will be impacted by the proposed power station that is the subject of today’s debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East faces similar problems in her community.

I shall start by setting out a little of the background to the subject. Peel Holdings proposes building a biomass renewable energy plant at Barton in my constituency on the banks of the Manchester ship canal. The plant would primarily burn recycled wood—for example, wood that had been treated with paint or varnish—and some virgin timber. I understand that other plant-derived material will also be burned. According to the applicant, the plant will handle 200,000 tonnes of material per annum, have an operational life of 25 years and provide renewable energy for approximately 37,000 homes. A planning application to the local authority, Trafford metropolitan borough council, is expected to be made soon.

No one questions the wish to make more use of renewable energy sources, but since I was elected in May the proposed plant is without doubt the single biggest issue in my postbag. Hundreds of local people have contacted me about it, the majority being opposed. Local campaigners have established the Breathe Clean Air Group to oppose the building of the power station. A public meeting earlier this month in my constituency attracted hundreds of local residents, and the vast majority of them oppose what is planned.

The concerns being expressed by campaigners and local people fall into three groups. First, there is concern about emissions from the plant and whether the technology that is to be employed will be adequate to clean them satisfactorily, and there is concern about the impact of the emissions on public health. Secondly, there are concerns about the monitoring processes in relation to the emissions. Thirdly, people have a range of concerns about the effect of the plant on local amenities—on local housing, businesses and transport—and problems resulting from congestion. I appreciate that many of those are local planning matters.

I note that the area is already spectacularly unfavoured, as the site of a planned methane plant and a sewage works, and is located right next to an already busy motorway junction. I was interested to note that Peel Holdings has suggested that the materials bring brought to the plant for incineration and the waste being removed could be transported on the canal in due course. I hope that the company will provide more details when the proposal comes to the planning stage, which I expect to happen in the next few weeks.

I wish to refer today to the level and monitoring of the emissions, and I invite the Minister to respond to those concerns. I am pretty confident that Peel Holdings will seek to show that the plant will comply with minimum legal emissions standards. The consensus in the debate initiated in Westminster Hall yesterday by the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) seemed to be that Ministers believe that the Health Protection Agency has convincingly failed to establish any link between emissions from incinerators and public health. However, significant concerns remain among my constituents. I ask the Minister to expand on that analysis.

My constituents point to the latest European Union directive on air quality, incorporated into the UK’s air quality strategy, and to EU directives on waste that require member states to use the best available technology to achieve maximum emissions of no more than 1 to 5 mg per cubic metre, but they also say that the United Kingdom has allowed a limit of 10 to 15 mg per cubic metre. Campaigners tell me that each additional milligram worsens health outcomes and mortality rates. The worry is that although the Barton plant may fall within the UK limits—indeed, I expect that it will—it does not represent the best in technology and that the risk of adverse cardiac, respiratory and other health conditions could result.

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend explains the concerns of her constituents with her customary skill and brings to the Minister their real concerns on the impact on public health. Of course, these issues are a trouble not only to her constituents, but to many of mine, particularly those who live in the Sale area. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is vital that we have an accurate assessment of the risks involved, so that decisions are made in light of the full facts?

[Kate Green]

Steam vapours are of course no respecters of constituency boundaries. Indeed, the Breathe Clean Air Group has shared with me a footprint plan suggesting that the effect of the emissions would be felt across much of Greater Manchester, as far south as Manchester airport and well into the city centre.

There are significant anxieties about the health analysis that has been made. It is not sufficient for my constituents, who are very concerned about the proposal, or for others in the Manchester vicinity, simply to be told that the Health Protection Agency has reviewed the available evidence. I hope that the Minister will be able to help this afternoon by giving much fuller information on that aspect.

Will the Minister explain how the ongoing review processes on the latest evidence about the health impact of emissions will be maintained following the Health Protection Agency’s abolition, which was announced the other day? My understanding is that local public health directors will take a significant role, and I would be grateful for any information that the Minister provided about where they could obtain the most up-to-date evidence, research and advice necessary to inform future debates.

I turn to the arrangements for monitoring the emissions. I acknowledge that Peel Holdings has been very forthcoming in its responses to my questions. It has indicated that it will be putting in place sophisticated computer monitoring systems, and it says that the Environment Agency will have the power to make regular and unannounced checks. I hope that the Minister will confirm that the agency will continue to fulfil its inspection function, and that there will be no slackening of the inspection regime following the announcement the other day of a redefinition of its functions. That is important to my constituents, and I look forward to what the Minister has to say. I also wish to know how as much as possible of the data that are captured and monitored can be made transparent to the public, especially to my constituents, and how the Environment Agency will ensure that they cannot be suppressed if standards are not met.

Let me refer to the issue that was at the heart of yesterday’s debate on incinerators that was initiated by the hon. Member for Congleton. It was said that Government policy, both in relation to incineration and renewable energy sources, will be reconciled to empowering local communities to make decisions about their local areas.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

One concern that has been raised by my constituents about the proposed construction of a biomass plant nearby is that the concept of renewable energy as a good thing is being used to cover up, or to disguise, practices that are by no means environmentally friendly. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a danger in that? Only 30% of the fuel for the plant proposed in my area would come from recyclable elements, which might be polluting, and up to 70% will be from virgin wood, some of which may be sourced from South America, which does not sound very environmentally friendly. Does she not agree that, because of greenwash, there is a danger that things will be agreed that are by no means green?

[Kate Green]

I thank my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention. There is a sense that a number of proposals, many of them very different in their detail, are being branded with a collective greenwash, as she so eloquently describes it, which is, perhaps not intentionally, serving to brush aside debate. The Breathe Clean Air Group and Peel Holdings have supplied me with a considerable amount of scientific information, very little of which I can make sense of. I strongly suspect that that will be the case for many of my constituents who are closely attending to this debate. It would be helpful if we had the fullest possible public information in terms that are easy to access and understand, so that we can have a genuinely well informed debate about renewable energy sources and their green impact.

I am particularly interested in an issue that has been raised by the Breathe Clean Air Group about the European requirement to make use of the best available technology. Its view is that the best available technology may not be represented, even in the context of energy renewables, and I should very much like to understand more about that, as would many of my constituents and those of my hon. Friends.

I am keen to understand how the information and the wider context will be played out in relation to the role of local communities in making decisions about the issues that directly affect them. Yesterday, in responding to the debate initiated by the hon. Member for Congleton, the Minister said that where applications were made for such plants—he was talking at that time about waste incineration—the Government wanted to ensure proper, informed and vigorous debate in the community. I very much welcome that. In Trafford, such a debate is already taking place. None the less, it seems that there could be a tension between Ministers’ avowed commitment to localism and the assertions about health standards and emissions that were being made by the Minister yesterday. Perhaps the Minister will expand on how he expects the will of local people to be properly taken on board in planning decisions and in any potential planning appeal.

I ask such questions in advance of a planning application being submitted in relation to the Barton renewable energy plant, because local people are very concerned that the decision has been stitched up. What guarantees will the Minister give my constituents that that is not the case and that local concerns about the proposals will be given appropriate weight?