Ford villagers angry over mammoth incinerator plans

Waste management firms Grundon and Viridor have submitted plans for a mammoth energy recovery and waste sorting facility in Ford village, near Littlehampton.

If approved by West Sussex County Council, the Ford Road plant would deal with 275,000 tonnes of waste per year, burning enough to power about 68,000 homes.

But Ford Parish Council chairman Councillor Trevor Ford said the building is “massively oversized” for the area – taller than Chichester Cathedral and, even without the chimney, still taller than Arundel Cathedral.

He questioned why Grundon had submitted the plans when the company had already been given permission in 2015 to build a facility in Ford.

“This one is enormous, it’s 280 feet high,” said Cllr Ford. “The building itself without the chimney is 51 metres high, taller than Arundel Cathedral. It’s just massively oversized for the area.

The facility will be taller than Chichester Cathedral if it is approved by West Sussex county councillors

“The size and scale of the building will have an unacceptable impact on the landscape.”

Cllr Ford feared the facility could produce toxic emissions by burning waste.

A planning report submitted by the waste firms said its pollution targets are set at levels “well below” those which can cause “significant” adverse health effects.

But Cllr Ford pointed to World Health Organisation guidance stating there is no “healthy” level of pollutants such as PM2.5.

He called on county councillors to reject the plans, noting Government planning inspectors already approved plans in February to build a waste incinerator in Horsham.

“How many do we need?” asked Cllr Ford. “If you’re burning waste, you’re not recycling. It’s much better to recycle.

“In January the Government proposed its Environment Bill, which will make producers of materials responsible for their end life.

“There must be some better way to process this waste.”

But a spokesman for Grundon and Viridor said Ford was an “ideal site” for its facility.

“The scale of the development is in line with the needs of the region, such as the lack of landfill and treatment capacity for non-recyclable waste locally,” he said.

“We’ve used architects to carefully design a state of the art facility that respects the environment in which it is located.”

The spokesman said the facility’s emissions will be “safe and very carefully monitored to ensure they pose no threat to human health”.

“The facility will use a continuous, automatic monitoring system, which operates 24 hours a day, all year round. The monitoring results will be sent be sent to the Environment Agency,” he said.

“As a society we produce many millions of tonnes of material we can’t recycle.

“This is particularly the case across the South and South East of England.

“The proposed development at Ford will also include a waste sorting and transfer facility to ensure material that should be recycled isn’t sent for recovery

“Where we can’t recycle waste material, it’s much more sustainable and economic to use energy recovery as a form of waste management.”