800 objections against Ivybridge incinerator! South West Devon Labour's Luke Pollard on the campaign

By Luke Pollard, on Friday, April 23, 2010

South West Devon Labour candidate Luke Pollard got in touch with news of the incinerator debacle in Ivybridge, and it seems the Conservatives hate the environment, and don’t represent their electorate (eh, Cllr Croad?), not good in the approach to an election. Take it away Luke…

As the deadline for people sending their objections to the Devon County Council against Viridor’s incinerator closed I wondered how many people our campaign would have persuaded to send objections. What would I have been happy with – 200, 300, 500 objections? The figure astounded me and really gave me a boost – all the effort of my campaign team, volunteers and the CAVIL group was worthwhile as more than 800 objections had been formally lodged with the council against Viridor’s plans.

Encouraging 800 people to submit an objection to Viridor’s plans is a real achievement, but we should not rest on our laurels. We need to keep pressure on the planning committee to reject Viridor’s planning application and at the same time put pressure on the three Conservative-run councils to stop their own incinerator search that is looking at New England Quarry as a possible site.

Let’s be very clear about this, if the three Tory Councils matched their words with actions then we could sink plans for an incinerator overnight. Considering New England Quarry as a possible site for an incinerator is de facto Tory Party policy because they could sink the waste partnership if they wanted to. They choose not to and because of that the site is still in contention for an incinerator no one wants based on old technology no one would use now.

My Tory opponent Gary Streeter says he opposes the incinerator, but he still cannot say why it took him from early 2008 to late 2009 to start campaigning against the incinerator despite having received briefings on the project from Viridor. People should look carefully at this and ask themselves have the Tories doing everything they can to stop the incinerator. Even a brief glance at the facts will show that they haven’t – and I would encourage voters to remember this when they cast their ballot on Thursday, May 6. And let’s not forget that the reason Viridor and the Tories are looking at New England Quarry as a possible site for an incinerator is because the then Liberal Democrat-run Devon County Council identified it as such in their Waste Strategy in 2005.

After the general election the cross-party Campaign Against Viridor’s Incinerator and Landfill (CAVIL) will reconvene with a special planning session about how we formalize the group and focus our efforts on Devon County Council’s planning committee and the three Tory Councils running the incinerator search.

Rubbish may not feature highly on the national political debate but voters in Plymouth should be asking their local Tories why despite years of supposed reforms and effort Plymouth is still stuck in the bottom 5 per cent of councils for recycling in the entire country and is intent on burning its rubbish ignoring better, more efficient and environmentally friendly technologies. Voters in Ivybridge may ask despite being in the top 5 per cent of recyclers why they are having an incinerator and landfill for Plymouth’s waste proposed on their doorstep too.

When I first started the campaign against Viridor’s incinerator there were two of us delivering leaflets in the Woodlands area of Ivybridge. To see that 800 people have sent in objections is a really warming and testament to the very real community spirit in our area. Sending in an objection is just the first step though, now we need to keep pressure on because an incinerator at New England Quarry really is only a few committee decisions away – and we’ve got to stop that all costs.