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Oct 2023

Last Updated: 26/10/2023

Environment

Campaign launched against asphalt plant proposal near Knaresborough

by Calvin Robinson Chief Reporter

| 26 Oct, 2023

Campaigners against the asphalt plant near Knaresborough. Picture: Gerard Binks.

Residents have launched a campaign against plans to build an asphalt plant next to Allerton Waste Recovery Park near Knaresborough.

The proposal has been re-advertised after the company making the application, Tynedale Roadstone Ltd, submitted an updated environmental statement to accompany the plans.

As well as the asphalt plant, the application includes plans for a site office, car parking, material storage bays, lighting, hard standing and the removal of trees.

More than 100 people crammed into the Marton Cum Grafton Village Hall this week to devise a plan to object to the proposal.

Communities Against Toxins has urged North Yorkshire Council to reject the plan amid claims that those living within a nine-kilometre radius of the plant would be affected by numerous potentially harmful pollutants.

Michael Emsley, organiser of the campaign group, said:

“There are a lot of concerned residents in the area, and we have decided to make our voices heard.

“Given all the detailed research already done, it is beyond belief that something of this nature and on this scale should be located in a rural area when there are industrial sites available at which the bulk of the risks we have highlighted would be minimised.

“The proposed asphalt plant is going to disperse an awful lot of toxic chemicals into the environment, airborne and waterborne, while some will also be dust particles, which are particularly nasty. It's an environmental disaster waiting to happen.”

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More than 600 residents have signed up with the group to lobby the council to refuse the plans.

Meanwhile Harrogate and Knaresborough MP, Andrew Jones, has also voiced his objection to the proposal.

Mr Jones said he had already objected to the plant earlier on in the application process, but felt his concerns had not been addressed.

He said:

“I worked with residents’ groups and parish councils campaigning against the incinerator being built. Part of our objections were the potential for ‘industrial creep’ in the area. This application is precisely that.

“I have already registered my objection when the application was at an earlier stage of the planning process. I have read the new documents the applicants have submitted and I do not believe the concerns I raised have been adequately addressed.”

Both Arkendale, Coneythorpe & Clareton Parish Council and Goldsborough & Flaxby Parish Council have also lodged objection to the plans.

Tynedale Roadstone is part of Durham-based MGL Group and currently operates two asphalt production plants, one in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and another at Barton, north of Catterick in North Yorkshire.

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Campaign launched against asphalt plant proposal near Knaresborough

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