erf planning.indd - Hampshire County Council

The way forwardThe commissioning of the three ERFs is only the end of the fi rst chapter of the wastemanagement agenda in Hampshire. Thoughts and energies are now increasinglydirected to moving from a waste focused framework to that of resource management andhow the future development of Hampshire can address the challenge of climate change.A good start has been made through a comprehensive review with the public andstakeholders of how all discards – and the overlapping issue of minerals – shouldbe regarded as material resources and managed accordingly. The County Councilpublished a document entitled More from Less in 2005, setting out the communityaspirations for material resources. This in turn has set the agenda, informing a newspatial planning strategy - the Hampshire Minerals and Waste Core Strategy - adoptedin July 2007 by the County and city councils and recently created New Forest NationalPark Authority. Arising from this will be a need for more, different infrastructure of whichEnergy from Waste (EfW) will be a key element. What technology will be deployedremains to be seen, but whatever it is, the lessons learnt in Hampshire in the last 15years will need to be applied.For a sustainable future, we need to promote energy recovery as a renewable energyoption which benefi ts the community rather than a waste treatment solution seenas a “bad neighbour”. To be credible in achieving this, we need to maximise energyeffi ciency through schemes such as district heating so that energy from waste standsup as a renewable energy option in its own right. This does open up issues on heatingdistribution infrastructures, but brings the debate on the future of the sustainable urbanenvironment into the heart of the community.The debate is now underway in Hampshire and it is likely that before long districtheating using waste as a heat source will be a reality. In future, rather than consideringERFs as stand alone facilities, we need to integrate it within new developments of majorenergy users. This means a different approach to spatial planning with much closerworking with local stakeholders.Obtaining planning permission for energy recovery facilities