Wrexham Energy Centre

Enquiry received via email

Wrexham Energy Centre

05 June 2013
Nicola Dickson

Enquiry

I am writing to you today on behalf of most residents of our village as we have been informed that the ultimate decision for building a power station and errecting pylons here is yours. Many people will have already written to you. We live in Bangor on Dee which is an unspoilt rural village in North Wales.
The reason I am writing to you is to object to a current proposal by a company, who have called themselves Wrexham Power, (though they have nothing to do with Wrexham and are based in central Birmingham, hours away from here). They propose to build a gas fired power station on the edge of Wrexham industrial estate plus several huge and ugly 47 metre high pylons across the beautiful unspoilt countryside surrounding our village. It appears that this project is purely for financial gain. Hence my aguments are thus:
1.Whilst the UK needs more power, there is no genuine need for a scheme of this enormity in our area. Wales already produces more power than it needs.
2.There are many better locations in the UK such as many recently closed nuclear, coal and oil plants which have pylons in place already.
3.There is no proposal for a sub-station, so claims that this will benefit the industrial estate saying it will supply power directly onto it, are flawed.
4.There are better options for the Industrial Estate that could genuinely achieve the benefits with no requirement to spoil our environment such as a much smaller sustainable low carbon energy efficient plant.
5. Claims of this being a large supply of jobs is dubious. Many of the highly skilled workers needed for a plant this size will be brought in from elsewhere.
6. Pollution, such as constant crackling noise and magnetic fields will effect the whole area plus villages as far as Farndon and Holt. It will produce up to 1.8 million tonnes per year of CO2 which will need to be stored undergroud or shipped out to Sea.
7. Bangor on Dee is full of children as are all the affected villages who will be subject to huge amounts of pollution plus there will be a massive impact on an area rich in biodiversity with wildlife habitats for swans, ducks, owls, newts, badgers, otters, bats to name a few. We have many visitors such as walkers, fishermen, birdwatchers, holiday makers etc which will lessen with these proposed pylons.
8.There is a definite risk tourism as the once beautiful views will go replaced by industrial landscapes. There is an award winning leisure park where holiday makers come to get away from industrial landscapes and urban views. The area is designated in the World Heritage Site Tourism project. This would be ruined.
And finally THE WELLBEING OF LOCAL PEOPLE is a fundamental policy in the Welsh Assembly Government's 'One Wales policy'.

Advice given

Thank you for your e-mail dated 24 May 2013 in regard to the above project. Your e-mail is useful for us to monitor emerging issues in response to a pre-application proposal. As you may be aware, however, The Planning Inspectorate can accept this letter for information purposes only at this stage.
The proposed Wrexham Energy Centre is currently at the pre-application stage and is expected to be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate in late 2013. I therefore encourage you to contact the developer directly at this stage of the process as this is the best time to influence a project. I am aware that, to date the applicant has carried out informal consultation on this project.
At the pre-application stage of the process, the developer is required to carry out extensive statutory consultation (under s42, 44 and 47 of the Planning Act 2008) on the proposals before submitting their application to the Planning Inspectorate. This involves providing information about the proposal to various statutory and non-statutory bodies and the wider community, and to have regard to questions and suggestions made in order to influence and inform the application ultimately submitted. The length of time taken to prepare and consult on the project will vary depending upon its scale and complexity.
Once the application has been formally submitted to the Planning Inspectorate a period of 28 days is given to decide whether to ?accept? the application to proceed to Examination. Part of this assessment will consider whether the applicant has adequately complied with their duty to consult and have taken account of any relevant responses from persons they are required to consult under s42, 44 and 47 of the Planning Act 2008.
I have enclosed copies of the following Planning Inspectorate Advice Notes which may be of interest to you. These include further information on the planning process.
Advice note 8.1: How the process works
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Advice note 8.2: Responding to the developer?s pre-application consultation
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