15 October 2021
Follow me @LindaDerrick1
Facebook Linda Derrick for Ridgeway East
The last meeting of Hughenden Parish Council was somewhat … well let’s call it dramatic; the meeting had to be abandoned. But I will come to that in a later blog.
I’m going to report first on the outcome of an application by Wycombe Recycling Ltd to Bucks Council. Wycombe Recycling is based in Binders Yards in Great Kingshill.
Wycombe Recycling applied to change its licensing conditions so the company could move 160 HGV lorries a day into and out of Binders Yards rather than being constrained to 80 total traffic movements a day as now.
Great Kingshill Residents’ Association, Widmer End Residents’ Association, Hughenden Parish Council and residents objected to the application.. The relevant Bucks Council Planning Committee considered the application in August but deferred a decision until 12 October to obtain more information from a traffic survey.
HPC decided not to put in a further submission to BC’s Planning Committee so I wrote as a parish councillor for Widmer End, trying to summarise the objections. My e-mail is at the end of this blog.
When the Planning Committee meet on Tuesday, it immediately decided there was no case for turning down the application on grounds of highway safety. What the Committee was concerned about was the environmental impact of HGVs in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
One councillor pointed out that the company would not have been given permission to start the business if it had applied under current policies. However, having been given permission, there seemed no policy to allow councillors to refuse the application to increase HGV movements. Nor would there be any grounds to refuse a future application to increase HGV movements even further.
One councillor asked if the Committee could give temporary approval say for 5 years. Another councillor asked if it was possible to approve the application but ensure that no further increases would be granted. However, the Committee was advised by officers that it could only look at the application before it.
In the end, the Committee voted to approve the application by 4 votes to 3 with 3 abstentions. (I hope I got the exact voting right; the webcast was not very clear at this point).
The Committee asked for their concerns about the lack of policies about such applications and their reluctance to approve the licence to be recorded.
This will of course be cold comfort for residents faced with yet more HGV traffic.
I can’t help feeling that if councillors really wanted to find statutory or policy backing to justify refusing the application they didn’t have to look very far; the submission by the Chiltern Conservation Board gave chapter and verse of the legislation and policies in place to safeguard Areas of Outstanding Beauty, including the Chilterns.
My e-mail to Bucks Council Planning Committee of 7 October summarising objections
“I think the Committee needs to start with the fact that Binders Yard is situated in a relatively small village in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and in the Green Belt. Binders Yard was intended to provide employment opportunities for local residents and many of the businesses, such as car repairs and servicing, serve the community well. However, Binders Yard was never intended to be the venue for large-scale industrial enterprises such as waste disposal. What started as a relatively small diversification in the use of farm buildings is now a full-blown industrial operation. There has been a complete change to the use of site in a gradual and piecemeal way.
Residents deeply resent this.
The Committee might like to consider again the submission by the Chiltern Conservation Board. The submission points out that legislation and national and local policies require the central focus of any planning determination to be the conservation and enhancement of the special qualities and scenic / natural beauty of the AONB.
It says that the proposed increase in HGV traffic at Binders Yard would harm and impact negatively on the relative tranquillity of the route networks through the AONB, with no real justification offered to explain the need.
The CCB cites in particular the Chilterns AONB Management Plan 2019-2024 which deals with the special qualities of the Chilterns noting that ‘the attractiveness of the Chilterns’ landscape is due to its natural, built and cultural environment. It is not a wilderness, but countryside adorned by villages, hamlets and scattered buildings’
The Chilterns AONB is nationally protected as one of the finest areas of countryside in the UK. Public bodies and statutory undertakers, such as Bucks Council, have a statutory duty of regard to the purpose of conserving and enhancing the natural beauty of the AONB (Section 85 of the Countryside and Rights of Wat Act).
I note that the Highways Authority asserts once again that there are no objections from the viewpoint of highway safety. But it is not just a matter of how many serious accidents there have been locally involving HGVs. An increase of HGVs will do harm to residents and the environment in many ways and residents, residents’ associations and Hughenden Parish Council have provided a long list of these harms:-
Noise and disturbance. It is not only the noise of the traffic but also the noise of the machinery, including rotating drums, which now can be heard longer during the day.
Traffic pollution. Particulate emissions from lorries, especially near schools, is a serious problem.
Traffic congestion. The roads are narrow, pavements sometimes non-existent and lorries use inappropriate routes or short cuts. It only takes one or two lorries to create a traffic jam in the roads around Binders Yard.
Safety. There may be few serious road accidents but lorries park on the pavements meaning pedestrians, including elderly people and school children, and pushchairs and wheelchairs have to go in the road. On bin days it is often impossible to avoid having to go in the road. Lorries also drive on the pavements due to the narrowness of the local roads. There is a black spot at Cockpit Pond Junction / Spurlands End Rd/ Copes Rd which sees near misses almost daily.
Dirt and rubbish. Skips are not covered or are overloaded or double loaded so rubbish falls off in transit leaving rubbish in the road. This makes driving more hazardous.
Damage to property. Residents have reported damage to cars/ vehicles where construction vehicles are going too fast and not giving way, particularly in the narrow roads.
Damage to the highway. Some of the side roads are seeing 30 plus HGVs every day. As a result, the tarmac needs replacing.
Damage to vehicles. Because the roads are narrow, HGVs are damaging parked cars and cars coming in the opposite direction.
HGVs may be a small proportion of total traffic in the locality, but they do a disproportionate amount of harm, particularly in this semi-rural setting.
It should also be noted that there is a general concern about an increase of lorries in the area. There are more waste disposal companies operating locally and there is no guarantee that the other sites licensed at Binders Yard won’t start up again. There is also the threat of increased lorries from HS2 construction and concerns in Hughenden Valley about congestion and lorry parking problems cause by lorries from a local company.
Approving the license for Wycombe Recycling could only contribute to this harm to residents and the environment and does not comply with Bucks Councils statutory duty to conserve and enhance “the special qualities and scenic / natural beauty of the AONB”.