A public consultation on an application for an environmental permit to dispose of inert materials under a pitch to be used by rugby league club Elmbridge Eagles in Surrey has just ended.
Carried out by the Agency, the consultation comes after it has faced criticism from the applicants for alleged delays in assessing the proposals.
New Era Recycling of Croydon, South London, is the company heading up the project, which could see more than 24,000 tonnes of inert waste such as hardcore, soils and stones put under the pitch to aid drainage and improve the playing surface and parking facilities. The permit application notes that “the selected contractor, New Era Recycling Ltd, is an established local waste management business”.
Elmbridge Eagles play in the Rugby League Conference Premier
The proposals for the site were submitted in July 2017, outlining plans for the pitch at Elmbridge Eagles ground in Claygate, Surrey. The application is based around “the redevelopment of the rugby pitch for an improved playing surface”, according to the waste recovery plan submitted for the permit. The permit application was submitted by Christopher Hall of consultancy Envee for New Era Recycling and the rugby club.
A total of 24,557 tonnes of inert waste would be used, based on the calculations of using an average of 1.6 tonnes per cubic metre for the approximate 15,348 cubic metre site, according to the permit application.
Waterlogging
The proposals claim that the Elmbridge Eagles, who play in the Rugby League Conference Premier, need to carry out the works in order to meet with league requirements.
“The current pitches are subject to waterlogging and this can interfere with the playing calendar. If games are called off, the club suffers and lose points or are even disqualified from the season’s final table,” the proposal stated.
It added: “Also, the playing surface has to be maintained as it is in regular use and has to be as stable as possible to allow the rugby league matches to be played. Part of the redevelopment includes re-profiling of the pitches with improved drainage to increase the quality of the playing surface.”
According to the proposals, the plans “are still likely to go ahead all be them at significant cost”. The likely cost of completing the project using secondary aggregate and certified soils is put at £98,228, using an average of £4 per tonne.
The proposed method sees New Era paying the club for permission to deposit the construction materials, which would mean about £2 per tonne in revenue, totalling approximately £20,000 of income for Elmbridge Eagles.
The whole site is approximately 2.43 hectares
The application plan for the drainage work at the site involving the construction waste received permission from Elmbridge borough council in October 2016 and the project is now awaiting the environmental permit.
Lost
New Era has also expressed concerns about the way the Environment Agency has handled its applications for the site. In the current document it is claimed that the initial proposal for an environmental permit had been “submitted and received” by the Environment Agency in early November 2016, before it was allegedly “lost without a trace”.
Later that month, New Era claimed it was re-submitted before a response was received in January 2017 asking for more information.
Once this was provided, a response, says the current application, was received on February 21 2017, “stating that the Agency believed that the proposal was not a waste recovery operation.”
New Era claims to have submitted three requests for further meetings which were not responded to.
“It is believed that if representatives from the Agency were to attend site, they would have a clear understanding of the proposals and be in no doubt that the project is a waste recovery operation,” the firm stated.
The introduction to the proposals concluded in saying: “The Agency admitted their utter incompetence but has not helped in making up for the delays that have entailed.”
Sensitive
Commenting on the consultation last month, the Agency said that it can take into account relevant environmental regulatory requirements and technical standards, information on local population and sensitive sites and comments on whether the right process is being used for the activity.
Paul Foster, director of New Era Recycling, has been approached for a comment.
Christopher Hall, director of Envee said to letsrecycle.com: “The application process has clearly not been the smoothest. We were hoping to have this submitted in June but have been forced into delays by applications being lost and various other things. We have been both responsive and co-operative with the Environment Agency and hopefully this can now go through to the next stage without any problems.”
It is thought the Environment Agency will respond to the application in 13 weeks.
The proposals can be found here.
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Source: letsrecycle.com Waste Managment
