11/00713/F - Borough Council of King's Lynn & West Norfolk

For reasons referred to above and additionally later on in this report, the EfW plant would not
be a sustainable piece of development. The basis for those concerns also indicates that
there is a real risk that the EfW plant will have a significant effect beyond its immediate
locality (in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and in Lincolnshire).
The underlying facts can be summarised as follows:
� The sustainability of the Power and Recycling Centre as a viable economic
proposition over its projected 25-year lifespan is predicated on the import of 98,000
tonnes of commercial and industrial waste per annum from locations beyond the
proximity of King’s Lynn and outside the county boundary. (As above, the PFI
contract will require Norfolk County Council to guarantee the supply of a total of
170,000 tonnes of municipal waste per annum.) ;
� Projections prepared by the Council’s Waste and Recycling Manager and Finance
and Resources Manager indicate that the availability of such waste, within the county
and from outside, is decreasing as more waste is recycled and recyclable;
� Planning permission was granted in 2009 for Peterborough Renewable Energy Ltd’s
Materials Recycling and Biomass Energy Generation Facility, which will process
est.650,000 tonnes of commercial waste per annum. Condition 28 of the grant of
planning permission provides that 80% of the waste to be processed must be from
within the administrative boundaries of Peterborough City Council and
Cambridgeshire County Council or within 32 kilometres of the Facility. The Facility is
only 46.2 kilometres from King’s Lynn.
� Moreover, it is clear from the emerging Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Minerals
and Waste Core Strategy, at policy CS14, that Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
have capacity to process all the waste produced in Cambridgeshire and
Peterborough until 2026.
� Likewise, Lincolnshire’s Preferred Minerals and Waste Strategy forecasts are that
Lincolnshire requires no additional facilities for the treatment of municipal solid waste
and commercial and industrial waste to 2026.
The National Policy Statement for Renewable Energy Infrastructure (EN-3) is also (quoting
from paragraph 1.2.3 of that document) “likely to be a material consideration in decision
making on relevant applications that fall under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (as
amended)”.
In the context of “Biomass/Waste Impacts – Waste Management”, para.2.5.70 of EN-3
provides that the relevant decision maker “should be satisfied, with reference to the relevant
waste strategies and plans, that the proposed waste combustion generating station is in
accordance with the waste hierarchy and of an appropriate type and scale so as not to
prejudice the achievement of local or national waste management targets in England[.]”
The waste hierarchy is described in Annex C to PPS10 and is best illustrated using the
diagram below, taken directly from the document:
11/01064/CM Development Control Board
25 July 2011
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