Promise over power plant’s 56,000 vehicles
Communities threatened with 56,000 “vehicle movements” to build a biomass power station heard assurances from developers that trucks will be ordered to stick to main roads, the A47 and A17.
Representatives from more than a dozen parish councils and protest group BATI (Bridge Against The Incinerator) attended the 13th meeting in Sutton Bridge to learn about a plan to build a £300-£350million power plant on a 64-acre site at Wingland.
If South Holland District Council gives planning consent next month, EnergyPark Sutton Bridge will take 30 months to build the 48MW power station – with mostly lorries among the contractors’ 56,000 vehicles – and when it’s operational there will be 118 lorries going to and from the site every day.
EnergyPark project director Helen Rome said: “They categorically will not go through the villages.”
BATI vice-chairman Kevin Wheeler lives in Chalk Lane, close to the site with his wife Stephanie in what was meant to be their dream retirement home in the peace of the countryside.
They believe their lives will become a nightmare with so many trucks thundering by and Mr Wheeler warned of huge tailbacks with extra lorries using Cross Keys Bridge.
He said: “If the bridge opens, and it can do so five or six times a day, it can gridlock back to King’s Lynn and to Wisbech.”
Sutton Bridge Parish Council is worried about the plant’s effect on air quality.
Coun Gary Croxford asked: “What guarantees are we going to have there will be absolutely no effect upon the health of this community?”
EnergyPark managing director Chris Williams said there will be no odour from the 80-metre high chimney stacks and air-cleaning technology is so advanced that the air going out of the chimneys will be cleaner than air going in.
BATI chairman Craig Jackson said EnergyPark should install systems to offer discounted electricity to local residents if the plant gets the go-ahead.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Spalding
Thursday 23 May 2013
Today
Light showers
Temperature: 5 C to 10 C
Wind Speed: 25 mph
Wind direction: North
Tomorrow
Light showers
Temperature: 6 C to 10 C
Wind Speed: 32 mph
Wind direction: North east
