Jim Percival: Secretary of The Ecclesfield Conservation and Local History Group.

PUBLIC CONCERN

Conservation Group members and others in the village of Ecclesfield became concerned when the Sheffield Star published two articles mentioning Ecclesfield (and only Ecclesfield) as a possible location for wastewater processing from Marsh Lane and other drilling sites.

[ See the copy herewith of page 2 of the 30^th November 2017 article ]

FAILURE OF THE ENVIRONMENT AGENCY PERMIT TO REASSURE US

Members were concerned that granting of the Marsh Lane proposal would initiate what could be a very large increase of more than usually toxic wastewater sent to Ecclesfield for processing. Hoping that it would tell us the maximum volume of wastewater that was allowed to be processed on the site, I therefore obtained a copy of one of the permits for the suggested contractor. However, this did not contain a limiting volume, merely permission to exceed 10 or 50 tonnes per day of hazardous or none hazardous waste respectively.

[ See the copy of page 5 of application EPR/MP3631SM/V006 ]

INFORMATION NEEDED

However, I had read the appellant's estimate of 254 cubic metres of water to be used, and therefore wondered whether this was a commitment, and if so whether this could be translated into the volume of toxic and/or non-toxic wastewater generated at the site. I therefore downloaded all 463 of the application documents on the Inquiry web site, and conducted text searches on the resulting files. However, I failed to find anything further limiting the volume of wastewater.

EXCESS TRAFFIC

Not finding a restriction in either the Environmental Agency permit, or the proposal documents was worrying because there is clearly a limit to the number of tankers which Ecclesfield can handle without generating significant traffic hazards, and pollution. Starnhill Close itself for instance, is accessed from “The Common”, which is a busy road through a residential area.

[ See my photograph of queuing traffic on “The Common” (taken at 18:00 on Tue) ]

Any returning tankers would often have to que before they could enter The Common, and while doing so, could block emergency vehicles coming out of our North Sheffield Police Station.

Any tankers would also have to contend with Police vehicles dashing out, and cutting in front of them when answering emergency calls!

[ As shown in my second photograph ]

CONCLUSION

Although the Conservation group decided to object to this appeal, it may be possible to address some or all of the concerns above by further information or planning conditions. I therefore give my email address below, in case anyone wishes to get in touch. Meanwhile, I will try to obtain copies of any further permits for the Starnhill Road site, (although I suspect that they will be more worrying than helpful). The processing of toxic waste at Starnhill Close is especially sensitive because any tankers will have to turn at, and que in front of, our large and popular Morrisons supermarket. My hope is therefore to see something in the inspector’s report which will address the above.

Further information is available at conservation.ecclesfieldgroups.com/. I can be contacted on conservation.ecclesfield@ecclesfieldgroups.com