A Harrogate district Green Party councillor has voiced concerns about plans to build an asphalt plant alongside the Allerton Waste Recovery Centre near Knaresborough.
Tynedale Roadstone wants to produce the roadbuilding material at a new plant next to the recovery centre, which was approved a decade ago by North Yorkshire County Council.
The £1.4bn recovery centre uses an incinerator to generate energy from waste but has been dubbed a blot on the landscape by locals.
Such was the strength of opposition to the incinerator that two MPs and protestors handed in a petition with 10,000 signatures at Downing Street.
The bid to build a second plant alongside it has fuelled fears about industrialisation of the area.
Planning documents state Tynedale claims the asphalt plant is needed on “vacant brownfield land” at Allerton Park, partly for environmental reasons.
The papers state:
“The extent of Tynedale Roadstone’s contracts in Yorkshire is such that a new asphalt facility is required to meet demand and ensure locally resourced product is within easy reach of key contract locations.
“The demand is established and continually fuelled by maintenance works requirements; an additional independent asphalt plant is needed to service it.
“Government and company policies on sustainability, carbon footprints, energy efficiency, transport networks, trafficking and haulage distances are some of the many drivers behind establishing another asphalt plant.”
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The planning documents state the site has been identified as the best location to serve demand, as the nearest asphalt plants to the site are in Pateley Bridge and at Stourton, in Leeds.
The Allerton site is close to the A1(M) and A59 junction. Existing plastics from the waste recovery plant could be reused at the asphalt plant.
Cllr Arnold Warneken
Green Party councillor Arnold Warneken, whose Ouseburn division includes villages closest to the proposed plant, said the firm’s description of the site as brownfield was “absolute rubbish” and that increasing the number of heavy goods vehicles entering and leaving the site would be a cause of concern.
He said:
“There will be very little support for this locally. It is a very rural location which has had a blister of a building put on it. The site has a waste plant next to it, but beyond that you’ve got prime agricultural land in a rural setting.
“The original purpose of the site for recycling and incineration has to be retained. Whilst it is good practice to put two industries that are complemented together, you have got to look at the impact of the vehicles that are coming onto that site.
“To get to the A1 the HGVs will have to use the A168 which has already got heavy traffic on it from the waste plant and a quarry, so it would add to an existing problem.”
“It’s an industrialised function which needs to be alongside true brownfield sites.”
