Latest news with #Rivenhall
BBC News
04-08-2025
- General
- BBC News
Rivenhall incinerator begins burning county's household waste
A new incinerator will start to burn household waste from Essex on facility at Rivenhall, near Witham, will eventually burn nearly 600,000 tonnes of rubbish every say that Indaver, which built the incinerator, has flouted planning permission because it has not also built recycling facilities as first planned – something which Essex County Council is now said it planned to build alternative recycling facilities at the site in the future when demand warrants them. Plans for the incinerator were granted in 2010, but work started only in July 2021 after a permit to operate was than 200 lorries will bring household waste to the site every day between Monday and Saturday to be burned instead of going to said it would eventually be able to generate 65MW of electricity – enough to power 130,000 homes – once it reaches full capacity by March 2026. Gareth Jones, of Indaver, said harmful emissions would be minimised using processes to capture acid gases, heavy metals and added that there would be no smell coming from the chimney "because the smells are caused by any organics, and they're all destroyed by the incinerator".Any potential smells might come from the waste as it was being delivered, Mr Jones said, adding that the rest of the facility "is under negative pressure", drawing air into the incinerator and not releasing odours into the also addressed residents' concerns about the impact of more than 400 lorry movements a day on the roads, especially on the A120, which has the site's only available entrance for lorries."All of that waste is already on the road going somewhere else, so we're not adding extra traffic to the road network," he told the BBC."Even with that total amount of trucks on the A120, that's only 2% of the volume of the traffic already on the A120, so it's not a significant increase." Enforcement case James Abbott, a Green Party member of Braintree District Council, said he felt "royally played" by Indaver for not building four recycling facilities next to the incinerator, as in the original County Council removed a planning clause in 2024, which allowed the incinerator to open without the recycling facilities, as long as they were added later."What we've seen over the many, many years since this was originally granted consent is endless goalposts moving," Mr Abbott said."This plant was supposed to have an 85,000-tonne anaerobic digestion [to process food waste] – they haven't built it."We were promised this 'integrated' – as it was called – waste site with all sorts of recycling elements included, and we need them locally." The county council confirmed it had opened an enforcement case after receiving a complaint about potential planning breaches, but said that did not necessarily mean any rules had been Jones said Indaver was "not concerned" by the investigation, adding that it was confident everything it had done was in line with planning and legislation."Just because you have planning permission to build something doesn't mean you're obliged to build it," he added that there was "more than enough capacity already" for anaerobic digestion, and that Indaver planned to build other types of recycling facilities at the site, including one which can recycle bulky waste such as sofas and armchairs which cannot be taken to tips anymore."We want to get on and build other things – we've got this huge site [but] we don't want to build things unless there's an actual need for them," Mr Jones said. Follow Essex news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
BBC News
28-07-2025
- General
- BBC News
Rivenhall incinerator to be investigated after complaint
Potential planning breaches at a new incinerator are to be firm Indaver has been accused of flouting its planning permission by not building a series of recycling facilities at the site in Rivenhall, near Witham in Essex.A company spokesperson said demand for waste processing was not high enough to warrant their councillor James Abbott claimed residents had been "played by the developers" and Essex County Council said it had opened an enforcement case after receiving a complaint. Plans for the incinerator were granted in 2010, but work only started in July 2021 after it received a permit to operate, due to commence on 4 was built with a 35m-tall (114ft) chimney and could take about 595,000 tonnes of black bin waste annually. The facility was supposed to integrate incineration with recycling, but Abbott said this was not possible if facilities for the latter were never built."They have built nothing at all, other than the incinerator," he said."They've come out with all the greenwashing slogans about sustainability but, as things stand, we're looking at just a waste incinerator without the benefits we were promised."The first truckload of waste was delivered to the site on 21 July. Concerns were raised by residents about smoke pouring out of the site in the following days, but Indaver said this was a "normal part" of heating up its new steam denied burning waste ahead of its permit coming into why the recycling facilities had not been built, the spokesperson said: "Building recycling facilities do not recycle more waste unless there is suitable waste available."We will add further waste treatment developments as the need is identified."They said a planning application had been submitted to build new bulky waste treatment, carbon capture and heat recovery plants, adding Indaver was committed to the conditions of its planning County Council said its inquiries into whether that permission had been breached continued. Follow Essex news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Sky News
01-06-2025
- Business
- Sky News
Essex set to be the home of Europe's largest low-carbon horticulture site
Forty hectares of greenhouses, heated by the burning of rubbish, are set to be built in Essex - making it the largest low-carbon horticulture site in Europe. These greenhouses will be the first of their kind and could provide around 6% of the tomatoes consumed in the UK. It should begin operating in 2027, when almost all the county's household rubbish will come to the Rivenhall site, where it will then be burnt in an incinerator. Gareth Jones works for waste company Indaver, which is building the facility. He said: "The boiler produces steam and some of that steam we'll divert to our new heat exchange, and that will produce the hot water that we'll be sending over to our greenhouses. "The rest of the steam goes to the turbine, so it produces electricity from the substation, and some of the electricity will go directly to the greenhouses." Currently, Essex's household waste goes to landfill where it gives off greenhouse gasses, particularly methane. Indaver claims that the CO2 emitted at the Rivenhall site is 20% less than if the rubbish had gone to landfill, and there are additional environmental benefits. According to Defra, almost half of the UK's fresh vegetables are imported. Tomatoes often come from Morocco, Spain and the Netherlands. But there is growing concern about the vast number of plastic polytunnels in the south of Spain. Almeria's 'Sea of Greenhouses' are even visible from space, and there are regular droughts in the area. Trucks then bring the produce all the way to the UK, releasing thousands of tonnes of CO2 en route. Rivenhall Greenhouse project director Ed Moorhouse says the UK's reliance on importing fruit and veg is not sustainable. "Water porosity in north Africa and in southern Spain is a key issue, extremes of temperature and the effects of climate change," he said. "What we're seeking to do is, if it was tomatoes, to reshore 6-8% of tomato imports by growing in Essex." But the National Farmers Union says further projects like Rivenhall could be hampered by the government's new biodiversity net gain strategy, which forces all developers to benefit nature through their builds. Martin Emmett, chair of the NFU's Horticulture and Potatoes Board, says the policy was "originally designed around housing estates, larger factories and commercial developments". Consequently, companies may have to buy extra land to offset biodiversity impacts, which would affect similar investments across the country. A Defra spokesperson said: "We are working closely with the sector to make Biodiversity Net Gain work more effectively, whilst investing £5 billion into farming, the largest ever budget for sustainable food production to bolster our food security."
BBC News
27-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
National Grid urged to spare oak tree during pylon works
National Grid has been asked to spare a 300-year-old oak tree threatened by plans to build pylons across oak, known as Henry by residents in Rivenhall, and several smaller trees lie on the planned 114-mile (183km) route between Norwich and councillor James Abbott said nature faced a "very significant threat" in the area of Braintree he National Grid said it was yet to make a final decision about how it would route pylons through Rivenhall. "We continue to make changes to the proposals following the feedback received and our own surveys," a spokesman added. Campaigners feared vast gantries would be installed around Henry while the 50m-high (164ft) pylons were built in Church asked National Grid to adjust the route so the historical tree could be spared the this year, National Grid revealed "minor adjustments and tweaks" would be made to the locations of about 30 sites following feedback. 'Crass solution' Abbott said people should also consider the impact of access roads needed to build the pylons."It's the access roads that pose a very significant threat to those trees and also the clearance swathes," he opposing the pylons plan were dealt a blow in April when a report found they were cheaper than burying cables underground or at said he thought it was a "crass solution" to harnessing more renewable Grid stressed it was listening to communities and more than 13,000 pieces of feedback it received over the wider plan. Follow Essex news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
