The NLWA ( North London Waste Association) , in conjunction with Barnet Council, want to develop a ‘waste management facility and depot’ on the land adjacent to Sydney Road, Muswell Hill Golf Club and Hollickwood Park - with access from the slip roads between Colney Hatch and Bounds Green off the N Circular (Pinkham Way).

Although not classed as an 'incinerator', the intent is to build an MBT (Mechanical Biological Treatment) facility here capable of handling up to 240,000 tonnes of waste per annum.

Another new, and even bigger, MBT is similarly being planned in Edmonton capable of handling up to 345,000 tonnes of waste per annum - but that site is 3 times larger than Pinkham Way!

The following information has come from a multitude of reliable sources including representatives of the NLWA and Freedom of Information Requests.

We have referenced some websites at the end of this bulletin that you might find useful – particularly those that explain the function of an MBT. The picture below is a typical example of an MBT - please check out the dedicated page on this website that describes the functionality of an MBT if you want to learn more about the technology.

   

• The site is described as the former 'Friern Barnet Sewage Works' and covers an area of 6.9 hectares. A rather disingenuous way of describing a facility that was closed in 1963 and has subsequently become an ecological haven and very much part of the green corridor.

• Unable to find a buyer who would take the site without planning permission, the London Borough of Barnet resorted to one who would - the NLWA.

• Consequently, after a last minute 'conversion' of the status of the land to accommodate its new potential use, Barnet has finalised the sale of 63% of the site to the NLWA in Feb 2011, for £12.1M and retained the rest as a logistics centre for their refuse collection and recycling fleet.

• Although the site belongs to Barnet/NLWA, it sits within the London Borough of Haringey - so planning permission is theirs to withhold.

• The NLWA is now seeking planning permission to build an MBT on the site - and will submit its application to Haringey Planning Officers in May 2011.

• Effectively the NLWA will assume the role of 'landlord' to the company who will propose, plan, finance and build the MBT. The tender being let by the NLWA is worth £4 billion, and 5 bidders have met the February 8 2011 deadline.

• The NLWA handles waste disposal for seven London boroughs – Waltham Forest, Camden, Enfield, Barnet, Haringey, Hackney and Islington.

•  Pre-application exhibitions, conducted by the NLWA, for this planned ‘Eco Park’ at Pinkham Way have already taken place. Their purpose was to solicit views and then factor them into the formal planning application that will be presented to Haringey Council in May 2011.

• Letters from the  NLWA were issued by email and post in late January and early February 2011 notifying local councillors, MPs and local residents associations of the pre-application exhibitions (allegedly) - did your local MP get in touch with you?
  

• Sadly the pre-application exhibitions have been and gone (12^th 15^th & 16^th Feb and 28th Feb 2011) and many of us knew nothing about them. Less time than was spent consulting residents about the Dollis Valley Greenwalk Logo and the future of Barnet's allotments (74 days).

• Note: these were merely exhibitions - those who submitted responses to the questionnaire handed out at the exhibitions, believing it to be a formal consultation, are mistaken.

•  Haringey Council will not commence a consultation process until they actually receive the planning application from Barnet. So they currently have nothing on their website and have issued no literature.

• The application will actually be a joint application – one to use a portion of the site as a parking/maintenance/washing/fuelling facility for Barnet's refuse vehicles and parking for employees vehicles (Barnet) and the other to install and operate an MBT facility on the larger remaining portion of the site (NLWA).

• Barnet need somewhere else to park their vehicles as the current depot in Mill Hill is closing to make way for housing. Barnet have sold that too.
  

• 560 lorries per day will visit the site - Monday to Friday with numerous collections on Saturday as well. 77 large refuse lorries will remain parked on the site overnight alongside approx 200 smaller vehicles of Barnet's fleet– imagine the smell from them and the noise as they start up in the early morning! And as for the perpetual reversing beepers....
  

•  An average of 184 employees' vehicles will enter and leave the site daily and this traffic will be joined by numerous smaller vehicles, e.g. high sided trucks also deployed in the collection and re-cycling of household waste that will also remain parked overnight.
  

•  NLWA anticipate that lorry movement will increase traffic on that portion of the A 406 between Tesco’s and the retail park by 2.6%  and Pinkham Way and Colney Hatch by 2.4%.  Clearly this will cause huge congestion at the foot of Colney Hatch Lane! Can’t imagine that Tesco’s are going to be pleased about this either - given the current congestion in their car park when the N Circular backs up.

•  Apart from administrative staff, the NLWA comprises of 2 councillors from each of the 7 boroughs. Haringey’s councillors at the moment (they are elected on an annual basis every June) are George Meehan (who is currently Vice Chair) and Nilgun Canver.

• Cllr Juliet Solomon of Alexandra Ward, LB Haringey, has been appraised of this project and has requested a meeting with Meehan and Canver. Her request has been refused.
  

•  The NLWA claim that everyone within a 1km radius has received notification of these exhibitions. Apparently they have been let down by their ’distributer’ who they have discovered distributed leaflets with MacDonalds flyers - consequently many went unread into the bin. They did however concede that many were not delivered at all.

•  the site has 2 SINC’s i.e. Sites  of Importance to Nature Conservation. http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/home/riba-forgotten-spaces/forgotten-spaces-friern-barnet-sewage-works-by-jl-gibbons/5217371.article

http://www.pinkhamwayincinerator.blogspot.com/

http://clyderoadn22.posterous.com/incinerator-planned-for-pinkham-way

http://www.bowesandbounds.org/forum/topics/waste-incinerator-on-our?xg_source=activity