Petition
Landfill Sites (PE541 and PE543)
Under agenda item 2, we have in front of us two petitions, which the committee agreed should be considered as part of our current inquiry on the national waste plan. Copies of petitions PE541 and PE543 are among the committee papers, along with a cover note that sets out the background, and further written submissions from both sets of petitioners. The petitions raise various points on landfill sites and call for a variety of improvements to procedures. The cover note says that the application that is referred to in PE541 was refused. In fact, to be 100 per cent accurate, it was withdrawn by the developers.
I welcome Dr James Buchanan and Paul Dumble from the Roslin, Bilston and Auchendinny Community Group, who submitted PE541. I also welcome Karen Whitefield MSP and Ann Coleman from the Greengairs Environmental Forum, who submitted PE543. Thank you for giving us your information in advance so that members were able to read it. We will go straight to questions.
What effects has the landfill site had on your community and what do you think we should do to try to minimise such effects if other landfill sites are allowed in the future?
I will go first and then I will let Ann Coleman speak on behalf of the community, as she lives there. The landfill site has had a detrimental effect on life in the community. There is no part of the village that people can stand in without seeing landfill or opencast operations at work. The committee should bear in mind the fact that opencast sites will often subsequently be used as landfill sites to fill in the voids.
Quality of life is affected. There are so many trucks and lorries taking waste to and from the site that roads are affected and there are complaints from communities about constant noxious odours. Simple things, such as children walking safely to school, become problems. Depending on which way the wind is blowing, people are unable to enjoy their back gardens because of odours from the landfill site. There are also genuine concerns about the health impact on the community. Ann Coleman might want to say something about that as she conducted a health survey in the village recently.
Ann Coleman (Greengairs Environmental Forum):
In February, we put together a community questionnaire and sent it out. We had a reasonable response, as these things go. I will use the words that people from the community used in their written responses to the questionnaires. One of the questions that we asked was about the disbenefits of living with opencast and landfill sites. These were a few of the comments:
"Because of the smells you can't open your windows in the summer to get fresh air";
"We pick up viruses";
"Being surrounded by opencast workings, dust smells, bird pollution in garden";
"Tips and smell from them";
"The landfill site, opencast sites … there is no restoration going on";
"Environment";
"The disbenefits are the smell coming from the tip and the noise from the machine at Boglea";
"Constant flow of heavy lorries";
"Terrible smell from the dump especially in summertime".
I have pages of individual responses to the questionnaire. We will end up with a big hole and Greengairs will disappear into it.
People have lost all hope for the future. We need more definite information so that we know what is ahead for us. What is the point of getting involved in any community development project, when the council is approving even more landfill? We already have the largest landfill site in Scotland—it is one of the largest in Europe—and three landfill sites have been completed recently. A further site was recently approved by the local authority and another is in the background. People who are up against that have no hope for the future.
As far as health is concerned, 97 per cent of the respondents to the questionnaire said that they feared for their health and for their children's health. We must make it clear that it will be 30 years before we know the impact on health of some of the pollutants from landfill, such as nitrogen dioxide. The young children who have been breathing in that gas might find that their respiratory systems have been damaged, but we will be 30 years down the line before we know whether that has happened, as there is no monitoring of the air quality in our area. Residents are given no specific information and no reassurance.
As we see it, nobody listens to us and nobody cares. We feel that the attitude is to dump all the rubbish there and forget that we exist. We are a small community without much voting power and we do not have financial resources with which to fight our case. The situation is demoralising.
I have known your community group for some time and it is very active. I take it that you have made representations to the council about planning applications and that you have complained about the smell. What action has the council taken?
It has done nothing.
Has the council taken any action on the smell?
The biggest success that the community has had was as a result of working directly with Shanks waste solutions. That work has had more impact than anything that the local authority has done.
For example, one complaint is about vehicles that travel along the main road without haps or covers. The local authority says that it will do something about the problem if we supply the vehicles' numbers. How can people see the number of a lorry that whizzes past while they are in the house? If the council is aware of the problem, why does someone not monitor the situation—at least occasionally? Why do council officials not go out on an ad hoc basis to check out the situation? There is no evidence that the local authority is doing anything.
Karen Gillon knows the carry-on that arose about working outside hours. The working hours for the landfill sites are from 7 o'clock in the morning until 7 o'clock at night. However, nobody is available in the local authority offices until half past 8 in the morning or after half past 4 in the afternoon. On one occasion, the community council videoed activity on the site outside working hours, but the local authority said that that was not good enough; the activity would have to be witnessed by two local authority officials before it could take any action. The recording took place at 11.30 at night, when work at the site was supposed to have finished at 7 o'clock. The work had gone on all night, but no one in the local authority would believe that that was the case; it just refused point blank to do anything. Karen Gillon knows about that—she got plenty in the ear when she visited the community.
That is the situation. The local authority pays no attention to the community. To be fair, it lacks the resources—as does the Scottish Environment Protection Agency—to be able actively to monitor and control the extent of the activities in our area. That is a big problem. We need to limit the size of operations to allow local authorities and other regulatory bodies to monitor efficiently.
Enforcement is a key issue for communities across the North Lanarkshire area and the council is undoubtedly stretched. I suggest that, if consent for a planning application is granted, in particular for a site of considerable size, as part of the conditions of that consent, money should be granted to the local authority and used to employ an enforcement officer, who would ensure that the terms of the planning consent were not breached.
It is important that the local authority be allowed to employ the enforcement officer. The enforcement officer should not work for the company or the operator on the site. The community has to be able to believe that the officer is there to do the job properly and is on the community's side. The same goes for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency—there has to be joined-up thinking and proper enforcement. Often the local authority and SEPA try very hard, but they are not able to be there round the clock.
My question is more or less the same as Karen Gillon's. Was the problem there even though tips were properly regulated, or were the tips not being properly regulated?
I am also interested in the effects of odour. This issue comes up time and again; it came up constantly at the Transport and the Environment Committee during the previous session of Parliament. There seems to be very little that people can do when they have an awful smell in their neighbourhood. Authorities never seem to recognise the problem or the effect that it has on people. Odour is a public health issue that has not been recognised. It is being ignored.
Odours from a landfill site will be caused by methane gas. Methane is an ozone-depleting agent. It has no smell itself but we have to consider everything else that goes along with it. What you smell is polluted air—that is the problem. Nitrogen dioxide has a very pungent odour; it is one of the components that goes along with methane.
To be fair, I have to say that Shanks has tried and tried to control the smells from the site. Our biggest problem—other communities might say the same thing—is that the site is far too close to the community. There is not enough space for any odour problems to dissipate. Our community is so close that we virtually live on the landfill site.
That is the key issue. Shanks has spent more than £1 million in Greengairs on recapping the part of the site that is closest to the village. It invested that money because it really did want to do something about the odour, which it acknowledged was causing serious difficulties for the community. However, even after that investment, the odour problem remains. The problem lies in the proximity of the village to the site. Only a very small strip of land lies between the site and the community and there will undoubtedly be further problems with odour.
Were the conditions that the council agreed to in the original planning application adequate for monitoring the site? Should we revisit that issue to try to get much better planning conditions for such sites? Your immediate problem must be solved, but an awful lot of other people will face the same problem.
We do not trust conditions. You can read them and accept them, but they have proved to be completely ineffective. The conditions are not applied. It would be all right if the conditions that were submitted with an application were tried and tested. However, the planning system is not accountable enough in respect of the contents of any planning application and/or the conditions that go with it. On the surface, the conditions might appear to address the various issues, but they are not put into practice. The way in which the public perceive the wording of conditions can also lead to problems.
Conditions are only as effective as their enforcement. Sufficient conditions might well be in place at Greengairs, but the local authority and SEPA encounter difficulties in enforcing them. In some cases, SEPA has taken the operators in the village to court. The powers exist; the issue that needs to be addressed is their enforcement.
The submission from the Roslin, Bilston and Auchendinny Community Group talks about the impact of landfill sites on the local community. Is there anything that the witnesses would like to add about the operation and management of the sites?
Dr James Buchanan (Roslin, Bilston and Auchendinny Community Group):
Along with a local member of Parliament, we went to see the chairman of SEPA. We made the point that we did not feel that SEPA was involved in the planning application, and we were told that SEPA becomes involved only when the planning application has been approved. We feel that that is totally wrong.
On Ann Coleman's point, I want to quote a letter that was written by our Roslin medical practice doctors. They wrote of the landfill site's
"expansion to 2000 tons/day, consisting of approx 550 tons of household waste, 200 tons of commercial waste, and 1100 tons of industrial waste"
within 400m to 500m of the village. They continued:
"We believe that such an expansion of a landfill site is contrary to the aspirations contained in the document "Reduction, Re-use, Recovery, and Disposal"—
members will know about that document—
"is detrimental to the amenity of the area, and potentially detrimental to the health of our patients. Last year"—
meaning 2001-02—
"flies plagued the community. Seagulls and other scavengers are already seen regularly at the current tip".
This week, the seagulls have come back in large numbers. The doctors continued:
"We are concerned that an expansion of the tip will increase the nuisance caused by these pests and will increase the potential for the spread of infectious diseases, and diseases caused by environmental pollutants (such as asbestos dust)".
Some 2,000 tonnes of asbestos a year goes into the Oatslie site, which is only 400m upwind of Roslin village.
The doctors also say:
"We are aware of research, which has shown an increase in congenital defects in babies born to mothers living close to landfill sites."
That is a reference to the Department of Health publication "Health Effects in relation to Landfill sites". The letter goes on:
"Whilst the causes have not been identified, the epidemiological evidence is concerning, and should lead to further research. In the absence of any other information we feel that such an expansion of waste disposal beside residential houses, and a primary school should not take place."
As the convener mentioned, the application was withdrawn.
The doctors conclude their letter by saying:
"We believe that recycling and disposal should be explored, before resorting to dumping, and that dumping on this scale close to residential housing should only occur when and if the community can be reassured of its safety."
The members of the community find themselves forced to be objectors instead of being involved in the planning application process. They feel disempowered and there is a feeling of helplessness among the people in the village who are faced with this kind of development. That affects morale.
I do not think that I have answered the question entirely, but that is what I wanted to say.
Have there been any assessments of the impact on health of flies, rodents, seagulls and other scavengers?
Not to my knowledge.
It is hard to find proof of cause and effect, as these things happen over such a long time. I do not think that there have been any definitive studies, apart from the DOH study on congenital defects in children, which is a Europe-wide study.
People who live in communities that are faced with the consequences of landfill operations tend to distrust everyone, as they do not feel that they have been involved in the process from the start. They do not believe that they were regarded as stakeholders when the application was first mooted; their views were not recognised at that point and they were unable to alter the conditions that were then granted for the planning application.
People are concerned about their health. The links may or may not be obvious; nevertheless, that adds to the feeling of distrust. We must change the culture that surrounds how planning applications, for example, are made, so that communities are regarded as stakeholders and have a bigger say in decisions that affect them. If that were the case, communities such as those that I represent would perhaps be much happier to sign up to recycling initiatives and to consider the issues holistically. When they end up as the dumping ground for most of central Scotland's waste, they wonder why they should take part in such schemes, as they have already taken more than their fair share of waste and face the prospect of having to take more than their share for the next 30 years—or longer, depending on how effective recycling is.
That is the prospect that the Greengairs community lives with. Anything that cannot be recycled will still come to the landfill site at Greengairs, but the speed at which the voids can be filled will slow down. Therefore, recycling is a bit of a double-edged sword for a community that lives with landfill, and the community will not necessarily want to sign up for recycling, no matter how admirable we all think it is.
I have some questions about the history of the case. When did landfill start at Greengairs and how long is it currently proposed that it be permitted? On the big development of the Shanks & McEwan site, does the current site bear any resemblance to what was initially proposed?
Shanks got the licence in 1988 for 20 years, but by 2008, only part of the site will have been filled. At present, the site is filling at the rate of 600,000 tonnes per annum, although the company has permission to take 1.3 million tonnes per annum. It is estimated that, if the present figure is reduced to allow for the effect of recycling, it will take another 35 to 50 years for the site to be filled. The matter has gone to ministers, but another planning application for a site has been approved and a further application is sitting on the sidelines. In addition, there are sites at Dalmacoulter, Hartlouphill and Riggend. It is terrifying to think about all the changes in ownership of the operators of those sites, which started prior to the introduction of the new regulations. It does not bear thinking about.
The area has a history of ad hoc dumping. In the 1950s, things were dumped in the disused drift mines. Now, the former opencast mining sites are being opened up as well. Add to that the potential 50-year period of contingent liability, following the completion of the landfill, before the site gets a completion certificate from SEPA, and we are talking about 100 years passing before the environment of the Greengairs community will get a clean bill of health.
You say that the former drift mines were used for landfill and are now being reopened as part of the opencast mining procedure. How is the material that is dug up disposed of? Does it go to the current landfill site?
We do not know—there are no records of that. Local people will tell you that tanker loads of liquid of some kind—nobody knows what—were emptied into the drift mines in the 1950s. The opencast operator has to have settlement ponds and so on in place. They have to work on the basis of protecting the environment from what could be present at the location. However, not as many regulations apply to them as apply to landfill sites.
My understanding is that many landfill sites that have operated without regulation or under previous regulations no longer require to be controlled by the current operator of the site. The disturbing of previously landfilled material is a substantial grey area.
Do the representatives of the Roslin, Bilston and Auchendinny Community Group wish to add anything on the long-term nature of developments and their impact on the community?
Paul Dumble (Roslin, Bilston and Auchendinny Community Group):
I wish to pick up on some of the points that have been made on integration with waste policy. A lack of integration was one of the reasons why Roslin, Bilston and Auchendinny Community Group's campaign was successful in encouraging the landfiller to withdraw its application. The community was seeking some kind of engagement with the waste operator, possibly involving the local authority's waste systems and the other collection systems in place at the time.
Many issues arose from that. The civic amenity site at Penicuik was closed down, and was replaced by another civic amenity site at Oatslie. That did not appear to the community to represent any increase in opportunities to recycle and recover waste. It seemed to be more of the same—as well as being inconvenient for the people of Penicuik, who now had to bring their waste up to Oatslie. The community was keen to engage with many issues around waste recovery, but since the campaign ended last November, neither the local authority nor the waste contractor has contacted the community group with a view to involving the community.
I will move on to the issue of waste odour. I am a professional waste manager, and I know that certain waste types have odours. There must be practices or methods of treatment that are available to the waste contractor so that they can ensure that odours and certain types of waste entering the landfill site are controlled. My gut instinct is that it has been decided that some of the available technologies are too expensive. The argument of cost is always used. The sum of £1 million has been mentioned. I have been involved in other odour abatement schemes in Cumbria—in particular, the Distington odour group. In that case, the contractors were required to spend in excess of £1 million to achieve the odour abatement regimes that were imposed on them.
I know that there are technologies out there to deal with odours. My day job involves bringing new technologies from the defence, science and technology base to businesses. In the waste sector, some very exciting technologies are coming through. The waste sector is currently engaged in high-labour, high-cost recovery schemes. I am aware of technologies coming through that will change that, enabling the industry to move forward. Indeed, I would like the opportunity to introduce some of the people in this room to some of those technologies. I have worked for the Defence Diversification Agency, and I have been authorised to pass on contact details relating to those technologies to people who are interested in learning more about them. As a waste manager, I am excited about that. Some of the technologies could be used to abate some of the problems that have been mentioned in this room.
A range of policy issues needs to be brought to bear. We were disappointed by SEPA. We talked about its failures on the regulatory side, but it is poor at supporting waste policy. Its role should be to integrate that policy, not with one waste contractor, but between all the waste contractors in Scotland, so that they develop integrated waste recovery, treatment and disposal systems across Scotland.
As we say towards the end of our submission, we feel that many of the development applications lack imagination. We see a poor industry relying on Government handouts to move forward. I would like to see an industry that is competent to invest off its own bat, without having to wait for hundreds of millions of pounds of investment from the Government.
I believe that opportunities exist. I also believe that the communities that need to be involved in the process have been ignored. They should be brought into the equation. In our paper we suggest ways for that to happen. We heard from the other group that, by involvement with the landfiller, they achieved local solutions. That illustrates the point that local communities should not be viewed as interfering nimbys, or whatever classification is given to them; local communities should be involved and treated like ordinary people, with respect. The perception that they are excluded from the system should be reversed, so that we can move forward.
I thank the petitioners for answering our questions this morning, and for giving us written evidence in advance. As a committee, we now need to agree the action that we will take on the petitions. Having listened to the questions and answers and looked at the evidence, I suggest several things.
We should highlight that we will take into account in our later evidence sessions the issues that have been raised today. We are now moving into the second of our inquiry sessions on the national waste plan. In particular, we will pick up on issues that have been raised about proximity, regulation, monitoring, community involvement and integration. We will also continue to examine the issue of noxious odours, which came up in relation to waste water treatment at our meeting on 10 September. We will ensure that we pick that up from the waste management side.
We also need to ensure that the Public Petitions Committee considers referring petitions PE541 and PE543 to the other committees in the Parliament that have an interest. In particular, I am thinking about planning issues—for example, planning applications, the involvement of stakeholders and long-term impact and changes issues—which are relevant to the Communities Committee. On the health side, the petitions could be referred to the Health Committee for its consideration of monitoring and the research and information that is available. Do members have any other suggestions?
Those are sensible suggestions. The issue that came out of the Greengairs presentation is that when applications are being considered, no account seems to be taken of the current environmental impact. I am not sure whether that falls between the two stools of us as the environment committee and the Communities Committee as the planning committee. However, in communities such as Greengairs, where it is clear that current landfill sites have an environmental impact, how do future applications, either opencast or landfill, take into account what is already happening on the ground? I do not think that they do. We need to find some way for that to happen.
That is the cumulative issue, which relates to the historic points that Alex Johnstone asked about. We should pick that up.
To reinforce that, we must ask the Communities Committee quite pointedly how it will review the enforcement of conditions that are laid down in planning applications. That issue crops up again and again. A council can lay down conditions, but it is not in a position to do anything about them. This committee must say in the strongest terms that we are faced with a problem that could have been smaller if there had been proper enforcement. Issues such as noxious odours can begin to be dealt with by new technology, but enforcement in the first place would give us an idea of what is going on.
One of the interesting points that came out of the discussion—having read the papers, I know that it will come up in some of the other evidence that we will take under our inquiry later today—is that the planning issues that have been raised in relation to landfill are not unique to landfill. Many of them are as relevant to other forms of waste management, which are likely to become more important. While there is an issue to do with remit—we will have to refer planning issues in relation to the petitions back to the Communities Committee—there needs to be a clear understanding that we will consider the impact of planning issues as part of our continuing inquiry into waste management.
There is a crossover. Clearly, we will be looking at that evidence over the next couple of weeks.
We have not picked up on the justice aspect—we may have to refer it to another committee—and the difficulty of getting prosecutions to court, the delays that occur and all that that involves. I know from my constituency how difficult it is for SEPA to get a prosecution together, get it to court and get the fines imposed. That can all happen five or 10 years after the offence, and in the intervening period, how many other offences are committed? As well as everything else, there is an issue about access to justice.
That is another point that we need to capture and come back to. We can incorporate some issues in our waste management report and we now also have some recommendations on referrals to other committees for their interest. On that basis, does the committee agree to close consideration of both petitions?
Members indicated agreement.
Excellent. I thank the petitioners for taking the time to come along and be grilled by us this morning.
We will have a brief suspension to let our current witnesses leave and our next set of witnesses arrive.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—