Eyesore grain silo faces demolition

5:30am Friday 29th August 2008

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An eyesore grain silo building should be demolished to make way for a giant waste recovery plant, a report is to recommend.

Ewelme-based Grundon Waste Management has applied for permission to build a 127m-long steel-framed waste separation plant at the site next to Water Eaton park-and-ride, near Kidlington.

It would process about 150,000 tonnes of commercial, industrial and household waste every year, creating 72 jobs.

The report, by Oxfordshire County Council planning officers, will be put before the planning and regulation committee on Monday, recommending approval subject to conditions.

These include an agreement preventing lorries going into Oxford or Kidlington, unless they are making collections.

The facility would be visited by an estimated 180 lorries a day.

In the report, the council's head of sustainable development, Chris Cousins, said: "Provided suitable conditions are imposed to control noise, dust and odour, there should not be a problem for users of the park-and-ride or local residents."

But Cherwell District Council, Oxford Preservation Trust, Kidlington Parish Council and the Campaign to Protect Rural England said the scheme would damage the Green Belt.

Gosford and Water Eaton Parish Council has expressed concern about 24-hour lorry movements and the risk of effluent leaking into surrounding streams.

The parish council also warned the grain silo was a nesting site for swallows and housemartins.

Parish council secretary Carl Smith said: "It's a huge building and this is going to more or less fill the whole grain silo site.

"It is supposed to be all recycling, but there are concerns about clinical waste along with domestic waste coming in and creating smells.

"Our preference is for the site to be used for small rural businesses."

But Mr Cousins said there was a pressing need for a new recycling facility if Oxfordshire was to meet targets to reduce waste sent to landfill sites.

And with Oxford the main source of waste, it made sense to create it near the city, he said.

Mr Cousins added: "This part of the Green Belt is already constrained by built development - roads, railways, the park-and-ride and the grain silo.

"The harm to the visual amenity of the Green Belt is offset by the removal of the derelict grain silo buildings, which are seen from a distance."

Waste would be fed into machinery that separated metals, with Grundon estimating as much as 90 per cent of the waste dealt with could end up being recycled.

Shredding of residual waste would create refuse-derived fuel.