International Women's Day 2010

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Bristol biofuel plant rejected in landmark planning decision | Bristol24-7

Bristol biofuel plant rejected in landmark planning decision Bristol24-7

I've not long returned from this meeting. Lib Dem Cllr Neil Harrison spoke particularly well in his public statement -as did Green Cllr Charlie Bolton who made a very forceful and concise contribution. Several speakers from the public made moving statements on ethics. Lib Dem Cllr Alex Woodman showed an excellent grasp of planning regulations and played a key role in formulating the reasons for rejecting the biofuel plan. Shame on Conservative Councillor (and Committee Chair) Barbara Lewis and Labour Councillor (and former Lord Mayor) Royston Griffey for voting in favour of the plan - presumeably they feel that the natural environment does not extend much beyond Bristol (!) and that sustainability is an issue that can be considered in narrow terms!

Preventing, detecting, researching and treating cancer

Copy of press release from Cancer Research UK: LOCAL CANDIDATE COMMITS TO BEAT CANCER

Glenn Vowles, Green Party Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Bristol East has joined hundreds of candidates across the country in signing up to Cancer Research UK's Cancer Commitment, aiming to make UK cancer outcomes among the best in Europe in the next ten years.

Mr Vowles said: "I am delighted to pledge my support for Cancer Research UK’s vital campaign. Cancer remains the public’s number one fear. With a concerted effort from the next Parliament, we can give hope to the millions of people affected by cancer and their friends and family. I’m campaigning for more investment in health problem prevention and for health and wellbeing to be the key indicator of progress in society. ”

More than one in three people in Bristol East will develop some form of cancer during their lifetime. In the last thirty years, the UK’s 10-year survival rates have doubled but cancer survival rates still lag behind the best performing countries in Europe such as Sweden, Norway and Finland. Cancer Research UK is calling on Parliamentary candidates to commit now that if they are elected, they will help make cancer outcomes for patients in the UK among the best in Europe in a decade.

The Cancer Commitment calls on MPs in the next Parliament to take action in five key areas:

Detecting cancer earlier
Providing world class treatment
Preventing more cancers
Tackling cancer inequalities
Protecting the UK’s research base

Jon Spiers, Head of Public Affairs and Campaigning at Cancer Research UK, said “To consign today’s cancer challenges to tomorrow’s history books, we must act now. Our thousands of scientists and our millions of supporters are hoping to see MPs in the next Parliament step up to the challenge.”

For information on Cancer Research UK’s Commit To Beat Cancer campaign, visit: http://www.committobeatcancer.org/

ENDS

For media inquiries, please contact the Cancer Research UK press office on 020 7061 8300.

Notes to Editors:

Cancer Research UK is the world's leading independent organisation dedicated to cancer research. We support research into all aspects of cancer through the work of more than 4,500 scientists, doctors and nurses.

Commit to Beat Cancer is Cancer Research UK’s new campaign to make the UK’s cancer outcomes among the best in Europe in the next 10 years. To reach this goal, the next Government needs to act on several fronts:

· Cancers must be diagnosed and treated earlier
· Patients must have timely access to world-class treatments
· More must be done to prevent cancer
· Cancer inequalities must be tackled
· Our position at the forefront of medical research must be protected

BBC Radio interview: biofuels for Bristol??

I've been on Radio Bristol this morning, interviewed about the biofuel power station planned for Avonmouth by company W4B. You can listen to the broadcast on BBC iPlayer by clicking here - I'm on right at the start, in the 6am news clip, then in an extended interview for 5 mins or so if you jump to approx an hour and ten minutes in (I think they used a clip from that interview on the 8am news, two hours into the program, too). Council Leader Barbara Janke and the BBCs Dave Harvey are also on the program from about 2hrs in.

Basically I've said that there are huge competing pressures for land use around the globe and that its immoral to take up land in poor countries that could be used to grow food,conserve wildlife and fight climate change, to fuel power stations in rich countries. Biofuels are not green as total carbon footprinting shows that they are more damaging as a fuel than coal and oil because of the land use changes (including mass deforestation) plus consequent emissions and the energy and chemicals used for intensive growing and processing.

There is no such thing as sustainable palm oil - and we have yet to properly define what a renewable fuel from such plants is. Plant types vary widely, from potatoes, to palm plants, to mahogany trees which no-one suggests are a renewable fuel source just because they take in carbon!! Renewability in practice is about proper and widely respected certification, inspection of plantations and processes and independent verification - this is not effectively provided by any agency at present and cant be put in place independently by a relatively small company like W4B (giant companies like Unilever are struggling with this issue, so smaller ones have little chance).

Biofuels in Bristol: decision day

Statement on 09/03235/F, the application for a biofuel power station at Avonmouth which I will be presenting in person at today's planning committee meeting:

The facts say you have to refuse permission for this power plant. Bristol City Council and the applicant have not supplied, early in the environmental decision making procedure, adequate, timely and effective environmental information and therefore provision for public participation has been inadequate. The council has not complied fully and properly with either the letter or the spirit of Environmental Impact Assessment regulations, in particular as modified by the various EU Directives which enact the Aarhus Convention (see note 1 below). The council’s Green Capital/Green City policies clearly aim for best practice in this area but in this case at least it has not been forthcoming.

The Aarhus Convention is a relatively new kind of environmental agreement and enacting it enables a decision making body to deal well with the interconnected, interrelated nature of environmental, economic and social issues, such as those posed by this planning application. The Convention: links environmental rights and human rights; acknowledges that we owe an obligation to future generations; establishes that sustainable development can be achieved only through the involvement of all stakeholders; links government accountability and environmental protection; focuses on interactions between the public and public authorities in a democratic context. Public authorities such as Bristol City Council are obliged, under the Convention, to actively disseminate environmental information in their possession – but this has not happened for this application.

The Area Planning Coordinator said this in an email to me on 16 Dec 09,

‘The applicant made a formal request to Bristol City Council as the
Local Planning Authority in February this year, to which Bristol
indicated in April that it did not consider the proposals as set out in
the request to be EIA development. Whilst the applicant has proceeded in
preparing their planning application on this basis, this position was
not however formalised until earlier this month (11 December 2009) when
a formal Screening Opinion was issued in accordance with the EIA
Regulations. I have therefore attached a copy of the formal Screening
Opinion of Bristol City Council as Local Planning Authority, for your
information.’

The council made no attempt to actively disseminate the fact that a formal request (note: formal request) had been made. It made no attempt to disseminate the fact that it was minded not to consider the proposals an EIA development. Yet the environmental decision process has very clearly begun and the applicant has had the benefit of early information from council planning officers! Opportunity for public opinion and participation, including non-council experts, early on in the decision process were thus lost. In fact, there was no opportunity for public participation in the screening process, the first stage in Environmental Impact Assessment, at all. The council gave its ‘formal’ opinion on December 11, identical to the opinion it gave the potential applicant in April 09, and only released the relevant letter to a selection of members of the public like myself on 16 December after we made a nuisance of ourselves through repeated phone calls and emails. So much for actively disseminating environmental information.

Almost a year passed by (ie Feb 09 to mid-Dec 09) with no opportunity for public participation. Keep in mind the fact that this committee was close to having this application on its agenda in January!! As a result, as you can see from the many contributions people have been and are seeking to make, there is a huge glut of observations and arguments – all presented over a very short period of time and all dealing with complex, interlinked, possibly unresolved issues. Properly abiding by environmental impact assessment procedures, as modified by the Aarhus Convention, taking on board the principle of early environmental information and public participation, is what the council in obliged to do, is what its Green capital policy says it should do, and it’s the best practice way to have proceeded.

Just some of the complex and interlinked issues (referred to above) are listed below:

*how to define what a renewable fuel from plants is (potatoes for human consumption are a renewable fuel source from plants if grown properly but another plant product like mahogany certainly would not be, or at least not on anything like the same basis);

*how to guarantee that any fuel supplied is renewable in practice (certification standards, inspection, independent verification…are absent for the fuels proposed by the applicant);

*what a total carbon footprint is and how the carbon accounting is best done (the carbon footprint figures supplied by the applicant are not a total carbon footprint as this would require all direct and all indirect carbon emissions to be accounted for – but there are no figures supplied for land use changes and methane emissions associated with the fuels proposed, a major omission, and in fact several processes);

*whether cumulative air pollution impacts on people’s health and on the health of nearby designated sites is sustainable and would allow the Environment Agency to permit any power station given planning permission to operate (Avonmouth is already heavily polluted – see below).

The council view that no Environmental Impact Statement needed to be prepared is incorrect as well as being established with zero public participation. Officers wrongly concluded that were no impacts of significance. Even within the council officers narrow system boundary this fails to account for the effects of the power-plant on the Severn Natura 2000 Marine site, which are in fact of significance. This area was selected against rigorous scientific criteria to protect the most threatened and important species and habitats in Europe, as described by widely respected organizations like the RSPB. No document relating to this application even recognizes any site with such a designation. Yet the site is of international significance (UN RAMSAR listed, up to 100,000 birds over-winter there, Slimbridge is just upstream). It is 450 yards from the power-plant site. It is protected with tough international limits for nutrient nitrogen deposition. Those limits are already exceeded in Avonmouth because of the traffic on the M5.

That means only insignificant levels of nutrient nitrogen can be permitted by the Environment Agency if they are to give W4B’s power station an Operating Permit. Insignificant is defined as less than 1% of the Environmental Quality Standard. W4B and their consultants have not provided ANY data relating to nutrient nitrogen emission impacts on ecosystems.

The Environment agency have written to me on this matter saying:

> “There are some areas of Natura sites within 10km of the proposed installation
> where the background deposition already exceeds the critical load. In this
> case it would be difficult but not impossible to justify emissions above 1% of
> the critical load. It is the responsibility of the applicant to provide such a
> justification. The figures in the planning application suggest that there may
> be such potential impacts but this is not certain at this stage."

Natural England, consulted by the council, has not raised the issue of nutrient nitrogen and the reserve (at least not until time of writing = 18:15 Monday 22 Feb ’10) ­ thus failing to fulfill their role to provide statutory protection for it. The Joint Nature Conservation Committee the statutory adviser to Government on UK and international nature conservation, should, I believe have been consulted by the council but this appears not to have been done. Please reject this application.

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Notes

1. Two Directives concerning the first and second "pillars" of the Aarhus Convention have been adopted by the EU; …. implemented in the national law of the EU Member States by 14 February and 25 June 2005 respectively:

Directive 2003/4/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 January 2003 on public access to environmental information and repealing Council Directive 90/313/EEC

Directive 2003/35/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 May 2003 providing for public participation in respect of the drawing up of certain plans and programmes relating to the environment and amending with regard to public participation and access to justice Council Directives 85/337/EEC and 96/61/EC

Provisions for public participation in environmental decision-making are furthermore to be found in a number of other environmental directives, such as Directive 2001/42/EC of 27 June 2001 on the assessment of certain plans and programmes on the environment.