LETTER: Barrage of HGV lorries using site

It appears to me, gross negligence on the part of Chichester District Council has left the formerly peaceful community of Plaistow and its surrounding villages with an industrial biogas plant on their doorstep, which the owners Crouchland Biogas have expanded out of all recognition without planning permission.

WSCC now recommends that the part retrospective planning application for the site’s expansion is approved.

The rationale claimed by WSCC is that the original biogas consent did not control the type of waste or the number of traffic movements and as such it is better to approve a larger scheme controlled by condition and with mitigation measures, than to proceed with the original apparently unrestricted consent.

All logical stuff you think, until you consider that the relevant consents granted by Chichester DC are for just one combined heat and power engine (CHP). So no matter how much gas Crouchland Biogas has the capacity to produce, the present consents give it only one means of using that gas and that is by running it through the single approved CHP engine.

WSCC’s recommendation is for a massive industrial plant with a capacity of at least three times this. And what’s more it would approve in one fell swoop the applicant’s ability to liquify gas, which is something never envisaged in the original application and thereby generate yet more HGV traffic, as the gas is transported by tanker to Portsmouth.