12 YEARS OF HARD WORK FOR THE FREEMANTLE WARD

Dear Resident

I have been your local councillor for the past 12 years and on 22nd May I am standing for re-election.

I have always worked hard to represent everyone in the area and to get things done and make a difference. For me this is the best part of being a councillor. It’s a job I love and which I put my all into and I hope after May to continue to represent you and the area I grew up in.

We have great community spirit in the area and some really active Resident Associations, Neighbourhood Watches and Community Groups. I have enjoyed supporting them over the years and I am confident that in the years to come we will bring about a lot of positive improvements for the area.

After May I want to see through the improvements to the Civil Service Sports Ground. Let’s finally get it opened up for local residents and schools.

I am also keen to work with residents’ groups in drawing up local neighbourhood plans to protect the area from inappropriate developments and ensure that future developments are in keeping with the area and have proper parking.

Thirdly, I want to help ensure that residential areas are shielded from the impacts of the docks; this means better communication from the port, more trees to screen the docks and improving the local air quality. It also means fighting inappropriate developments like the Biomass Power Station.

I look forward to meeting you during the election campaign and if ever I can be of any help please let me know.

Best wishes,

Cllr Jeremy Moulton

Southampton City Council Refuses to be Biomass Power Station Customer

At yesterday’s full Council meeting the Council debated two issues that relate to the proposed Helius Biomass Power Station.

Firstly the Council approved the Hampshire Waste and Minerals Plan. This is an important planning document which forms part of the Council's planning framework. Back in 2011 the draft plan was amended so that it ruled out very large developments in the Western Docks, such as the Helius Power Station. This change has been retained in the final plan and so this will be a powerful tool in fighting any application from Helius should one be submitted.

Secondly Councillors unanimously supported a motion committing the Council to never becoming a customer of Helius in the future. It has become clear in recent months that Helius would need to be able to sell heat generated by the power station. If it is unable to do this Helius is unlikely to get approval for their scheme. Whilst this does not mean Helius could not find a commercial purchaser of heat, it does rule out a key potential partner. The signal from the council is very clear - that Helius' scheme is not welcome.

Call for Southampton City Council Never to Become a Customer of Helius

On Wednesday Southampton City Council will debate a motion about the proposed Helius Biomass Power Station.

If passed Southampton City Council will commit to never become a customer of Helius Energy to never buy heat and power from the company. It is becoming increasingly clear that any large scale biomass power station in the Western Docks would need to provide combined heat and power (CHP) and be linked in with a buyer of the heat that it generates. 

By making it clear that the council will never become a customer of Helius or another company operating a similar scheme in the docks, the council will put another hurdle in the way of this inappropriate development.

The text of the motion is shown below:

(e)  Councillor Moulton to move

“This Council notes that Helius Energy may need to find significant local demand for the heat energy produced by its proposed biomass power station, if it is to take advantage of potential government funding or subsidies. In light of the Council’s previously stated opposition to the proposed power station, this Council agrees that in so far as is legal it will never become a customer of Helius Energy's heat output or of any companies that might in the future build or operate its scheme or one like it on a similar scale, on the same site or elsewhere in the Western Docks. On the same basis, Council makes it clear that should a large wood burning biomass power station be approved and eventually built in the Western Docks the City Council will at no stage ever directly or indirectly purchase any heat power generated by it.

Council resolves that it will write to Helius Energy to advise them accordingly, with the letter preferably signed by all 4 Group Leaders.”

Planning Application for Sulphur Plant in the Docks

There has been Daily Echo coverage of a planning application for a Sulphur Pellet Plant in the West Docks and I know residents will be very concerned about possible noise, smells and traffic.

I am hoping that there will be a public meeting very soon and that the company applying for the planning permission will attend to answer questions about the proposed plant.

I can also confirm that the application will be heard by the council's Planning and Rights of Way Panel. This is a public meeting where residents can speak and raise their concerns in person. It is likely to be on 28th May and I have persuaded that council to extend the deadline for resident comments to 10th May. 

The planning reference is 13/00123/FUL and the full details can be found HERE on the City Council's website.

Residents were not informed about the application by the council, as because this is an application in the docks, they are not legally required to do so. I think this is quite wrong. The planning reports talk about the impact of the plant, citing individual addresses, and yet those properties were not contacted! I am asking that in future the council contact residents when there are docks applications that might impact local people. 

We have the threat of the Helius Biomass power station and now this new application and so residents are rightly concerned and should in my view be properly kept informed. In this case it was only because of an eagle eyed local resident who saw it on the council's website, that the application came to light.

My Written Submission to Helius

I have just made my written submission to Helius. The deadline for responses to Helius about their proposed power station is the 3rd August. All resident comments have to be in before or on 3rd August and need to be sumbitted to enquiries@southamptonbiomasspower.com.

Below is the submission sent by myself and Cllr Parnell:

Dear Sir

We are writing as local councillors for the Freemantle Ward to put on record to you our formal objection to your revised plans for a Power Station proposed for the Western Docks. We have also made representations to the City Council at the Planning and Rights of Way meeting held on 24^th July.

Consultation
We believe that your pre application consultation has been inadequate and flawed from start to finish. Your initial announcement was first made to the media rather than to the City Council and its elected representatives, appearing in the Southern Daily Echo on 6^th March 2012.

You failed to act upon the recommendations of the City Council’s Planning and Rights of Way panel, which in their meeting on 17^th July made several requests. They asked that you extend the area in which you hold consultation meetings to Shirley and Old Redbridge, You failed to do this. You also failed to produce proper information on fire safety should your scheme be built. This is again despite being asked to do this at the Planning and Rights of Way meeting and despite there actually being a huge fire at the time of the meeting at a scrap metal storage site literally next to where you propose building a wood burning power station. The fire was so significant it was visible for miles and nearby neighbourhoods were thick with smoke. The blaze took Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service a day to put out. In light of this and also in light of the fact that there was a fire at a biomass power station recently in Tilbury, to then not provide full information on fire safety is totally unacceptable. This is a significant public concern which you have chosen not to address.

Your consultation has centred on trying to encourage residents to choose between one of three designs. This is clearly an attempt to present your scheme as a fait accompli rather than directing the public debate on to the issue of whether power station on this site is welcome or not. We have attended all of the public meetings held in Southampton and we have had this complaint made to us by residents repeatedly. Indeed Paul Brighton of Helius, at the planning meeting on 24^th July, tried to make the point that one design appeared to date to be the most favoured of the three. This is a serious distortion of the true state of public opinion.

Finally we feel that the photographs of the proposed development that you have supplied do not properly reflect how the development might look if built. You have moved the buildings and site location slightly compared with your previous scheme that you consulted on in 2011. However you have not changed the locations from where you have taken photographs. This is most starkly illustrated by the photograph showing the bottom of Foundry Lane. In last year’s consultation this looked down on the huge boiler house and caused enormous upset amongst local people. You have moved the boiler house now to near the end of Regents Park Road but continue to use a photograph of the bottom of Foundry Lane rather than providing a similar view from the bottom of Regents Park Road. We feel that this is a deliberate attempt not show how large the site would look from this location.

We therefore feel that your consultation has not been open or honest and it appears to us that you have tried to pay lip service to public consultation rather than really try to engage with local people and stakeholders.

Location
The proposed site is directly opposite a residential area. Roads in Freemantle are a mere 250m from the site. Due to the site’s close proximity to housing the proposed power plant will undoubtedly have a serious detrimental impact on the lives of local residents. Anecdotally we have been advised that your plans are already beginning to blight the area with residents struggling to sell their properties or finding that their properties are being significantly devalued.

Cllr Moulton is a governor of the local school, Freemantle Academy. Hence we know first hand from many parents in the area how they are worried about the impact of the power station on their community. The worry is that families will not want to bring up children in an area over shadowed by an enormous power station and will start to move away or not move into the area. This will have a profound knock on effect on the school.

The draft Hampshire Minerals and Waste Plan specifically says that the site you have chosen for your proposed scheme is not suitable for very large developments, namely category 4 and 6 developments. Your scheme therefore directly breaches one of the council’s core planning policy documents. We would like to endorse the objection made by the City Council’s Planning and Rights of Way panel which objected to your scheme at its meeting on 24^th July citing this as a key reason for objecting.

 

Size
The proposed scale of the plant is far too large and out of context with its surrounding structures. Indeed it will be the biggest building on the city skyline, dwarfing the terraced housing opposite. Its sheer size and mass is out of character with the area. It will dominate the view of those coming into the city by road or rail from the west, the residential areas across Southampton water bordering the New Forest and the 1.4m cruise ship passengers travelling up and down Southampton water. The new police building in Southern Road, that opened last year, was meant to be a landmark gateway building. However all people will see when approaching from the west will be the power station.

Some residents have suggested to us that if the power station was much smaller, perhaps more on the scale of the District Energy Scheme in the city centre then proposals for the site would be more acceptable. However, other concerns would need to be addressed. Observations have been made that perhaps the only reason you opted for such a large scale site of 100MW capacity was not because you planned to operate at this capacity, but felt that a more favourable result would entail if you bypassed the local planning process in order to submit to the Planning Inspectorate. Hence it is important that local views are not disenfranchised to effect an unfair advantage to the applicant.

We would like to endorse the objections cited by the City Council’s Planning and Rights of Way panel which objected to your scheme at its meeting on 24^th July citing the size and scale of the proposed development as unacceptable.

Economic Impact
Neighbouring the development is the premier shopping development of West Quay with the new £150m luxury shopping development of Watermark Westquay due to open in 2013. On the waterfront is the proposed £450m development of Royal Pier by Morgan Sindell. The economic revival of Southampton will be placed in jeopardy, as developers will struggle to find tenants to occupy these premier sites with a huge eyesore dominating the surrounding skyline. Southampton is one of the most deprived urban areas in the South East and is fundamental that inward investment is secured to enable job creation in the area. There are thousands of new jobs now in jeopardy.

Design
The proposed designs of the scheme are dreadful. They are functional and lack any architectural merit. They are completely out of keeping with the Victorian terraced houses and docker cottages bordering the site or the nearby attractive 1934 Solent flour mill that greets workers and visitors entering Dock Gate 10 to the port along West Bay Road.

Pollution
A major concern of residents is the adverse impact on air quality. The area already has very low air quality with all the nearby industry and traffic. The power station will further reduce the air quality. The aim should be to improve air quality. The suggestion that it might be within particular standards, if true, does not change the fact that the air quality will be worse and this will have a heath impact on local residents. One only has to walk around the area to see the build up of soot on cars and window ledges. The city centre location is densely packed being home to thousands of people and with the local Freemantle primary school being close by. One can imagine people with asthma and other health problems will be adversely affected. To the North East of the area is Southampton Common, a site of Special Scientific Interest with a fragile habitat with the largest population of the internationally rare great crested newt. You have made reference to the possible need for mitigation measures on the Common in your Technical Document. However I cannot find any details of what these are. Would you please provide further details regarding this?

Noise

The power station will operate 24 hours a day and local residents will be subject to continuous noise pollution. It is not necessarily the operating noise of the facility itself but the conveyors carrying the fuel source onto the site and loading into the burners. There is already considerable noise pollution and over many years we have had complaints from neighbours who are affected by it.

Traffic
If a power station is to be built in the docks, then all the materials should be shipped through the docks and not brought by road. When one considers that a single lorry movement equates to 30 tonnes of load then when the proposal is for 800,000 tonne capacity, then the road impact could be enormous. The Millbrook roundabout and Millbrook Road West are already very congested. The link road into the city is recognised as one of the key roads in the country yet it remains the responsibility of the Council to maintain something that it can ill-afford. The new City Depot has recently been built off Dock Gate 4 this has added further traffic pressure to the area. This route is the main entry point into the city for tens of thousands of daily shoppers to West Quay and IKEA, commuters and visiting football fans. Your plans include no measures to mitigate the impact of traffic on the community. There are no suggestions to have a separate docks road off the M271. Measures like this would help should you bring materials by lorry.

Fuel Source
We have considerable doubts that wood bio mass on this scale is sustainable. The amount of fuel proposed is enormous in comparison to the UK output of wood. Indeed from research we understand that there is no spare capacity to meet the plant’s proposed requirements. Inevitably the vast quantity of wood will be sourced from abroad. Hence the so called green credentials of this technology are dubious to say the least. The impact on carbon emissions of transporting it from around the world will be considerable. A more locally sustainable, smaller, power station using waste wood and local coppicing would surely be more environmentally friendly. What guarantees can you provide that all your wood will come from an accredited source, indefinitely? What steps have you taken to secure viable quantities of fuel?

Heat and CO2
No firm provision has been made to recycle the heat produced from the burning of the fuel. Nor has thought been given to the release of the CO2. Hence these by-products of the combustion are being wasted. Combined heat and power plants are now common place in large glass house nurseries around the UK such as Thanet in Kent and Isle of Wight, where the green credentials of burning fuel are well known and documented with heat used to warm the glasshouses and CO2 provided to the plants.

Community Benefit
Once the construction phase has ceased, which no doubt be undertaken by specialist workers from outside the city there will only be 40 jobs created by operating the plant. Given the specialist nature of your operation it is unlikely that most of the people employed will actually live in Southampton. Hence there will be limited economic benefit to the city outside of the income earned by ABP for leasing the site and cheap power source provided. For such a major multi-million pound development, you have not offered any planning monies to benefit the local community, facilities or infrastructure improvements to the key arterial M271/Millbrook Road route into the city. This is incredibly surprising and demonstrates a complete disregard for your corporate social responsibility.

Whilst this is by no means an exhaustive list of arguments to oppose this application, we do consider that the concerns we have raised are real and warrant that this application be rejected.

Yours faithfully

Jeremy Moulton
Brian Parnell
Councillors for Freemantle Ward

We Need The Financial Backing Of The Council to Stop Helius

It is very clear to me from the public meetings that I have attended over the last month that Helius are fully committed to pushing ahead with their plans for an unwanted, giant power station next to homes in Freemantle and Millbrook. City Councillors have been vocal in their opposition to this scheme but sadly we do not have the power locally to stop it, as Southampton City Council will not be the decision maker.

Councillors have backed the idea of a referendum on the issue, to be held on November 15^th. I am quite sure that this public vote will voice an overwhelming ‘No’ to Helius’ scheme. Residents have already gathered a 3,500 name petition and after the vote Helius will be in no doubt about what people think.

The referendum is due to be held at the same time as election day for the new Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire and so it was hoped that the costs for the vote would be tiny. Rather alarmingly we are now being told that it could cost the taxpayer £45,000 and I have expressed my concerns that this is lot of money. That said if it helps stop this dreadful monstrosity wrecking the local community that I was elected to represent then it has my full support.

In the end though, if Helius do push ahead with a formal application for their power station, the decision will be taken based on matters of planning law and public policy. I am certain that Helius will have expensive experts arguing their case and will be pumping money into ensuring that they get their scheme approved. Local residents have done an amazing job in taking the fight to Helius, harnessing local opposition and making some really powerful arguments about why this power station is ‘too big, too close and not green.’ However as Councillors, if we want to stop Helius, we need to ensure that we give residents more than just warm words of encouragement and back them properly and put the skills and resources of the City Council, a half a billion pound a year organisation, full square behind them.

At the last Full Council meeting I proposed that the Council set aside provisions in its budget to hire a top planning barrister to argue the case of local people and to ensure the residents have the resources to take on Helius on a level playing field. This is precisely what councils around the country do when they are serious about winning in situation like this. I was very disappointed that I didn’t secure these funds at the meeting. It was a real missed opportunity, especially as Paul Brighton, Helius Energy’s Planning Director, was sat in the public gallery listening to the Council debate. It would have ensured that residents were supported with the funds they need and it would have sent a very strong message to Helius that they have a huge fight on their hands in Southampton. I am going to keep pushing for the support of the Council Administration on this issue. Speaking to other Councillors after the meeting I was reassured that they understood how important this issue is and how this decision will be critical in deciding whether or not we can stop Helius’ scheme.

Residents March Against Helius Power Station

There was a great turn out this evening for the No Southamption Biomass demonstration against the Helius Power Station proposed for the Western Docks.

Residents met at Lakelands Park and marched down Testwood Road to the Terriorial Army Centre in Millbrook Road, where Helius were holding their final consultation meeting.

It was a big success with lots of media present. Hopefully tonight Helius will be clear that residents remain deeply opposed to this power station on their doorsteps and will continue the fight to stop them.

Conservative Action All Year Round

Our Work This Year Alone...


April 2012
Freemantle Spring Clean underway. Attending local residents' association meetings promoting our new No Cold Calling Zones. Meeting with the police to discuss the problem of street drinking.


March 2012
Secretary of State for Education officially opens Freemantle Academy's new Junior School building. Funding secured for improvements to the Civil Service Sports Ground. Residents updated on Helius' latest Biomass plans. New planning rules for Houses in Multiple Occupation come into force.


February 2012
Civil Service Sports Ground saved from development. Council Tax frozen once again. New Play Park for Albany Road announced. Conservative action with a campaign to tackle Dog Mess on our streets.


January 2012
Banister School rebuild given the green light. Residents updated about Southern Water upgrade to Waste Water Treatment works in the docks.

Southampton Conservatives Will Fight Latest Helius Scheme

Yesterday Helius Energy announced a new scheme to build a massive biomass power station in the Western Docks, close to houses in Regents Park and Freemantle.


Southampton Conservatives have vowed to fight this new scheme, which will be hugely damaging for the local community. Council Leader Royston Smith yesterday stated, "we have had no consultation at all about this new proposal which has come completely out of the blue and we will move heaven and earth to stop this dreadful scheme."


Conservative Councillor for Freemantle, Michael Ball and Steven Galton, Conservative Candidate for Millbrook and leading No Southampton Biomass campaigner have also lined up to fight the proposal.


Steve's comments can be found HERE on the BBC News website.

Letter from No Southampton Biomass to Helius

Below is the text of a letter sent today to Helius Energy concerning their plans to develop a biomass power station in the Western Docks.

Dear Helius,

As the representatives of the public you are supposed to be consulting with, we are yet again politely requesting that you demonstrate some recognition of the fact that what is purely 'business' to you is actually impacting the lives of Southampton residents in a very negative way – we are the very same people that you continually say you want to work with and provide something which will be of great benefit to us all.

We still feel you are choosing to ignore the inadequacy of your application to date and we will summarise our reasons once again for your consideration:

· The original public consultation had to be extended after questions of its adequacy and timings were raised by residents and Southampton City Council who felt your efforts fell short of what they should have been.
· The consultation was then extended to include additional public exhibitions, but as previously detailed to you, as a community we felt that the public exhibitions fell short on a number of grounds. These failings prevented the community from fully understanding your project proposal and therefore gave rise to our calls of inadequacy as you failed to meet your statutory obligations with regards to the public consultation.
· Instead of submitting your application to the IPC after the completion of the public consultation, you chose to add an additional phase of consultations based on revisions to the scale and siting of the project. To us, that meant the project was changing so drastically that it could no longer be regarded as an extension but should form a completely new application for avoidance of confusion on what exactly this project is.
· You originally stated a summer consultation for this additional phase; we requested you delayed this until Sept/Oct time to prevent any issues with the (School) summer holiday period. You refused this request and stated that was why it was planned as a 10 week consultation period.
· No direct contact was made with any of the parties that had registered an interest in this project to alert them to the new timetable. You advertised only through press releases and your own website.
· Then, four weeks later, during the very week when the planned consultation was supposed to start, you announced – via a Press Release – that you were delaying until Autumn for the benefit of the residents.
· Again there was no direct contact with any of the registered interested parties. To state your reasons as being for the benefit of the residents is laughable and, to cite the cliché, effectively added insult to injury. Your press release claiming your actions were for the benefit of the residents could be assessed as the most ill-advised piece of copy writing to date!
· By refusing to listen to and work with the community you affected peoples holiday plans and caused great distress and inconvenience.
· We waited throughout September for details of the Autumn consultation. Nothing was announced.

We now discover via an update to the IPC website that the expected application date has moved to April/May 2012. This indicates that there have been discussions between Helius and the IPC, yet nothing has appeared on the official site or the main Helius site.
The community feel that your previous actions to date have led to a complete mistrust and a feeling that you purposely plan things to go "under the radar" and co-incide with the worst possible times for the residents! We are also aware that there are legislation changes that could affect your business plans/investment chances and as such we are now asking for answers to the following questions:

1. Do you now have a definite time plan for the additional public consultation period that will enable you to submit an application in April/May 2012?
2. If you do not have the answer to the above could we have a definite statement of "not before this date" so that people can go about planning their lives without the fear and threat of missing something important from you?
3. In light of the unknowns, the obvious delays to your plans and the fact the consultation to date has been so inadequate, we ask once again whether you could abandon this proposal and come back when you have a project that is acceptable both to you as a business proposition and to us as a community?

In doing the above your company could create a project proposal in a timescale that fitted entirely with your company’s plans and with no pressure from a waiting community. This fully complete application could then be promoted by yourselves using the feedback received by the public and statutory bodies on the current inadequate application, to ensure that the new, changed project had the level of community involvement needed to adequately consult with us in explaining and presenting your new plans. The whole point of the IPC process was to provide speedy applications and decisions yet Helius seem to want to slow down the application at every point - In our opinion this in itself leads to mis-understanding and confusion with the public, as people ask why a developer would want to do the very thing the IPC was set up to prevent happening to developers?

As a community we would also benefit from having a well thought out project, one that is also fully organised and would then concisely and coherently be presented to us for our engagement and feedback. This would allow any new project to be judged purely on its merits, unlike the current project that is dogged by the ongoing mis-information conveyed by your poorly expressed plans and mis-management of the consultation process to date.

The advantages of your doing what we suggest is that your actions would immediately cease to have any negative affects on our community - in fact your company could benefit from being shown to have actually listened and worked with a community, allowing future plans to be accepted under a more welcoming banner than the response your company currently receives within our community due to the problems (outlined above) over your previous interactions with us.

Yours Sincerely,

Steven Galton

On Behalf of the No Southampton Biomass Group

Update on Helius Consultation

Last month I wrote to Helius Energy seeking more information on their planned consultation in the Autumn. Whilst I wasn't able to get much more detail, their reply did provide some new information.

The consultation will last a minimum of 10 weeks. Helius plan to give at least 4 weeks notice of exhibition venues, dates and timings. It is planned that these exhibitions will be staggered over a 4 week period to maximum the opportunities for people to attend. I will post an update if further information comes to light.

Helius Energy Delay Consultation to 'Autumn'

Helius have delayed their new consultation on their plans for a biomass power station until the 'Autumn'. The consultation was due to start in July. Further information can be found HERE.

Helius To Extend Consultation on Power Station

Helius Energy have announced that they intend to amend their Biomass scheme. They are now intending undertake further public consultation in the Summer.

I reported to residents in a recent newsletter that the city Council's Planning Panel would be meeting to discuss their scheme on Tuesday 24th May.

In light of Helius's statement the council has decided to defer the item from the Council’s Planning Panel. When a new date is determined I will update residents. It is my intention when the matter does finally come before the panel, for comment, to speak against the scheme.

Freemantle Councillors Formally Object to Biomass Plant

Below is the Freemantle Councillors' submission to Helius as a formal response to their consultation on their planned biomass plant in the Western Docks.

Dear Sir

We are writing as local councillors for the Freemantle Ward to put on record our formal objection to your plans for a Power Station proposed for the Western Docks.

Over recent weeks we have been inundated with correspondence from constituents objecting to the scheme and we have attended a number of packed local public meetings where residents were unanimously against the plans.

Location

The proposed site is directly opposite a residential area. Roads like Lakelands Drive and Foundry Lane are just 125m from the site. Due to the site’s close proximity to housing the proposed power plant will undoubtedly have a serious detrimental impact on the lives of local residents. Anecdotally we have been advised that your plans are already beginning to blight the area with residents struggling to sell their properties or finding that their properties are being significantly devalued.

Cllr Moulton is a governor of the local school, Freemantle Academy. Hence we know first hand from many parents in the area how they are worried about the impact of the power station on their community. The worry is that families will not want to bring up children in an area over shadowed by an enormous power station and will start to move away or not move into the area. This will have a profound knock on effect on the school.

A number of residents have asked whether other sites in the Docks have been examined; bearing in mind that the docks are an expansive area with the majority of the area sited much further away from housing. We are not aware that any alternative sites have been considered.

Size

The proposed scale of the plant is far too large and out of context with its surrounding structures. Indeed it will be the biggest building on the city skyline, dwarfing the terraced housing opposite. The chimney at 100m tall is three times the height of cranes in the docks. Its sheer size and mass is out of character with the area. It will dominate the view of those coming into the city by road or rail from the west, the residential areas across Southampton water bordering the New Forest and the 1.4m cruise ship passengers travelling up and down Southampton water. The new police building in Southern Road, that opened this year, was meant to be a landmark gateway building. However all people will see when approaching from the west will be the power station.

Some residents have suggested to us that if the power station was of a much smaller, perhaps more on the scale of the District Energy Scheme in the city centre then proposals for the site would be more acceptable. However, other concerns would need to be addressed. Observations have been made that perhaps the only reason you opted for such a large scale site of 100MW capacity was not because they planned to operate at this capacity, but felt that a more favourable result would entail if they bypassed the local planning process in order to submit to the IPC. Hence it is important that local views are not disenfranchised to effect an unfair advantage to the applicant.

Economic Impact

Neighbouring the development is the premier shopping development of West Quay with the new £150m luxury shopping development of Watermark Westquay due to open in 2013. On the waterfront is the proposed £450m development of Royal Pier by Morgan Sindell. The economic revival of Southampton will be placed in jeopardy, as developers will struggle to find tenants to occupy these premier sites with a huge eyesore dominating the surrounding skyline. Southampton is one of the most deprived urban areas in the South East and is fundamental that inward investment is secured to enable job creation in the area. There are thousands of new jobs now in jeopardy.

Design

The proposed design of the scheme is dreadful. It is functional and lacks any architectural merit. It is completely out of keeping with the Victorian terraced houses and docker cottages bordering the site or the nearby attractive 1934 Solent flour mill that greets workers and visitors entering Dock Gate 10 to the port along West Bay Road. It has been suggested that this might not be the final design. However, what guarantees are there that you will present a more appealing design and proceed to build this and not revert to the cheaper functional form already presented. Indeed can the design be changed if you get IPC approval with your current submission? What guarantees are there that you would not sell your planning approval to another company that might then proceed to develop something very different in appearance?

Pollution

A major concern of residents is the adverse impact on air quality. The area already has very low air quality with all the nearby industry and traffic. The power station will further reduce the air quality. The aim should be to improve air quality. The suggestion that it might be within particular standards, if true, does not change the fact that the air quality will be worse and this will have a heath impact on local residents. One only has to walk around the area to see the build up of soot on cars and window ledges. The city centre location is densely packed being home to thousands of people and with the local Freemantle primary school being close by. One can imagine people with asthma and other health problems will be adversely affected. To the North East of the area are the central parks of Southampton Common, a site of Special Scientific Interest with a fragile habitat with the largest population of the internationally rare great crested newt.

Noise

The power station will operate 24 hours a day and local residents will be subject to continuous noise pollution. It is not necessarily the operating noise of the facility itself but the conveyors carrying the fuel source onto the site and loading into the burners. To site it further away from houses would help alleviate its impact. This is then an argument for looking for an alternative site and/or downscaling the power station so that it doesn’t impact on the community. There is already considerable noise pollution and over many years we have had complaints from neighbours who are affected by it.

Traffic

If a power station is to be built in the docks, then all the materials should be shipped through the docks and not brought by road. When one considers that a single lorry movement equates to 30 tonnes of load then when the proposal is for 800,000 tonne capacity, then the road impact could be enormous if limits were not put in place. There are no such guarantees in the current submissions we have seen. The Millbrook roundabout and Millbrook Road West are already very congested. The link road into the city is recognised as one of the key roads in the country yet it remains the responsibility of the Council to maintain something that it can ill-afford. The new City Depot being built off Dock Gate 4 will add further traffic pressure to the area. This route is the main entry point into the city for tens of thousands of daily shoppers to West Quay and IKEA, commuters and visiting football fans. Your plans include no measures to mitigate the impact of traffic on the community. There are no suggestions to have a separate docks road off the M271. Measures like this would help should you bring materials by lorry.

Consultation

The feeling in the community is that your consultation has been flawed. Your staff have been unable to provide good quality answers to residents’ questions at drop in sessions. Very people recall receiving leaflets from you and the design of the leaflets did not attract the eye. Indeed we understand that many fliers were distributed via the free weekly Southampton Advertiser and hence any literature will have been mistaken for the usual marketing leaflets and binned. It was only when pictures of the proposed design came to light in the online consultation document that residents began to become aware of the proposal and appreciate the enormous impact it would have on the community. Letters from you have been restricted to residents associations, councillors, MPs and the like and limited effort has been made to directly engage the residents who live near by.

You have suggested in a recent press release that following the public response to your scheme that you would look again at the size of the scheme. However no detail has been forthcoming. If you intend to make material changes then you should restart the consultation. If the changes are not material then clearly they won’t address the concerns that residents have. From discussions with Southampton City Council planners they have grave concerns about the lack of detail in your submission. Despite numerous requests for more detailed specifications to expand on "not significant" they have yet to receive adequate responses. This lack of open and honest engagement is deeply concerning.

Fuel Source

We have considerable doubts that wood bio mass on this scale is sustainable. The amount of fuel proposed is enormous in comparison to the UK output of wood. Indeed from research we understand that there is no spare capacity to meet the plant’s proposed requirements. Inevitably the vast quantity of wood will be sourced from abroad. Hence the so called green credentials of this technology are dubious to say the least. The impact on carbon emissions of transporting it from around the world will be considerable. A more locally sustainable, smaller, power station using waste wood and local coppicing would surely be more environmentally friendly. What guarantees can you provide that all your wood will come from an accredited source, indefinitely? What steps have you taken to secure viable quantities of fuel?

Will food be the only fuel source or might other material be burned? What guarantees can you make in this regard? What will be the impact of burning non-virgin wood which has been treated with chemicals (paint and varnish)? Has an assessment been made of burning these complex chemical compounds?

Heat and CO2

No provision has been made to recycle the heat produced from the burning of the fuel. Nor has thought been given to the release of the CO2. Hence these by-products of the combustion are being wasted. Combined heat and power plants are now common place in large glass house nurseries around the UK such as Thanet in Kent and Isle of Wight, where the green credentials of burning fuel are well known and documented with heat used to warm the glasshouses and CO2 provided to the plants.

Whilst this is by no means an exhaustive list of arguments to oppose this application, we do consider that the concerns we have raised are real and warrant that this application be rejected. The first area that must be considered is the adequacy of consultation. We consider that this first stage has not been satisfied and you should be required to return the drawing board.

Community Benefit

Once the construction phase has ceased, which no doubt be undertaken by specialist workers from outside the city there will only be 40 jobs created by operating the plant. Hence there will be limited economic benefit to the city outside of the income earned by ABP for leasing the site and cheap power source provided. For such a major multi-million pound development, you have not offered any planning monies to benefit the local community, facilities or infrastructure improvements to the key arterial M271/Millbrook Road route into the city. This is incredibly surprising and demonstrates a complete disregard for your corporate social responsibility.

Yours faithfully

Jeremy Moulton
Brian Parnell
Michael Ball
Councillors for Freemantle Ward

HELP STOP THE POWER STATION!

Following the public meeting at Holy Trinity Church on Wednesday evening, we thought it would be helpful, as your local Councillors, to write and set out how we understand the decision on the Helius power station will be taken, and most importantly WHAT WE ALL CAN DO TO STOP IT. Since the meeting we have spoken with the Infrastructure Planning Commission, the Department for Energy and Climate Change and the City Council to confirm some of these key facts.

Who makes the decision and how does the process work?

The current situation is that the decision is taken by the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC), a body set up by the last government to make big decisions of the this nature.

The City Council is not the decision maker but will submit its comments to the IPC along with local residents and councillors. It is likely that if Helius do decide to push ahead with their scheme that the final decision will not be made for another year or more.

There are a number of different stages and points where people can object to the application:

• Pre Application Stage – this is the stage we are in now and anyone can comment to Helius on their proposals. It also makes sense to send your comments to Southampton City Council and IPC.

• Application Stage – Helius makes a formal application to the IPC.

• Acceptance Stage – The IPC has 28 days to decide to accept the application or not. One factor that may mean that the application is not accepted is if the public consultation has been inadequate.

• Pre Examination Stage – we can all comment on the scheme. First you must register by filling in a form. This then allows you to make a comment. This stage normally takes 3 months. Anyone who registers will be invited to a preliminary IPC meeting.

• Examination Stage – anyone who registered in the Pre Examination Stage is invited to submit their detailed comments in writing and they may also get the chance to speak at IPC meetings in Southampton. This stage can take up to 6 months.

• Decision Stage – a decision is made and reasons given – this could take up to 3 months

• Post Decision Stage – there are 6 weeks to appeal. Appeals take the form of a Judicial Review.

The Localism Bill

Many people are rightly upset that the last government placed the decision with an unelected, unaccountable body, taking it out of the democratic process.

The new Coalition government is changing the process and is in the process of passing a new law called the Localism Bill. If this law is enacted before the decision on the Helius scheme, then the decision will be referred to Chris Huhne, the Secretary of State, for his decision.

When can we object?

There are 2 immediate deadlines when people must get their comments in by.

1. The closing date for objection to Helius at the current Pre Application Stage is 21st April. Please make sure that you get your comments to Helius by then and we also suggest that you copy your correspondence to the City Council and the IPC for good measure.

2. The closing date for comments to the City council so that they can be taken into account by the council’s planning panel is 28th April. If you get your comments in by then they will be put before the panel on their meeting on 24th May and this will help the panel with its response to Helius, at this first Pre Application Stage.

What are the contact details we need?

IPC Contact Details

Tel: 0303 4445000

Email: Portofsouthampton@infrastructure.gsi.gov.uk

Post: IPC, Temple Quay House, Temple Quay, Bristol, BS1 6PN

Web: www.independent.gov.uk/infrastructure

Helius Contact Details

Post: Helius Energy plc, 242 Marylebone Road, London NW1 6JL

Web: www.southamptonbiomasspower.com

City Council Contact Details

Steve Harrison, Planning Officer Team Leader

Tel: 023 8091 7568.

Email: stephen.harrison@southampton.gov.uk

Post: Southampton City Council Civic Centre Southampton SO14 7LS

As your local Councillors we are doing everything we can to fight this monstrous scheme. Please contact us if you need our help or have any questions for us. We will support the community every step of the way.

BY WORKING TOGETHER WE CAN STOP THIS!

Council Leader Says 'No Thanks!'

The Daily Echo front page today carries the story that Conservative Council Leader, Royston Smith has vowed to oppose the proposed Power Station in the Western Docks. This is a tremendous boost for the campaign to stop the Helius application.

No to Power Station!

As your local ward councillors, Brian Parnell, Michael Ball, and I will do all we can to fight the proposed Helius power station in the Western Docks.

The Conservatives on the city council will be objecting to Helius, the city council’s planning department and the Infrastructure Planning Commission (the decision makers).

We will be raising residents’ concerns of about:

- The size and mass of the proposed building and its impact on the community
- Noise levels
- Air quality
- Pollution
- The fuel source
- Traffic consequences during both construction and operation

We will also do everything we can to raise awareness in the local community.

If would like to speak with us about this issue or any other matter please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Meetings Regarding Proposed Power Station

The Infrastructure Planning Commission is holding two further consultation meeting regarding the application by Helius for a bio mass power station in the Western Docks.

Please get in touch if you want to raise anything with Brian, Michael or me on this matter.

Your Views on Power Station

Energy firm Helius is now consulting on its proposals for a wood chip powered biomass power station in the Western Docks, ahead of submitting a formal planning application.

The deadline for responses has been extended to 21st April and details can be found at www.southamptonbiomasspower.com

There is another chance to view the plans on 21st and 22nd March between 2pm and 7.30pm at Thompson Memorial Hall, Millbrook Baptist Church, Testwood Road.