Bristol Evening Post
Ian Onions
COUNCIL officials have admitted a planning blunder after residents complained about noise from a new recycling centre near their homes.
The mistake means the council might be obliged to pay out thousands of pounds in compensation to the firm if it is forced to move to another site.
Residents in Dovercourt Road, Horfield, and pensioners at nearby Jack Knight House, a sheltered housing complex, were furious when the Ashley Waste Recycling Centre in Petherbridge Way began operating last summer.
Waste is brought to the site in skips on lorries where it is emptied and sorted for recycling or taking to landfill sites.
Pensioner Miss Anne Tominey, who lives nearest the recycling centre, said: “The noise is absolutely horrendous.
“I’ve never been able to open a window since they moved in.
“I feel live I’m living in Iraq qith bombs continually exploding.
“It’s dreadful”.
Miss Tominey, 67, suffers from a wasting disease which causes so much pain that she has to take a daily dose of morphine.
She said on one occasion, there was such a loud bang when she was in her patio garden, that it made her fall over.
It took her nearly two hours to hoist herself back into a chair.
She said: “I should be able to sit in my own home and have a cup of tea with my window open.
“But now I am even denied that. The only way I can enjoy any peace and quiet is to site in my car on the Downs.”
Miss Tominey, who lives in a bungalow as part of the council-run Jack Knight sheltered housing complex, said: “My only quality of life was the peace and quiet, but now even that has gone.
“They should never have been allowed to work from that site in the first place.”
She said residents from the complex had complained to the warden about the noise.
Her next-door neighbour, retired decorator Herbert Broome, 74, said: “The noise starts from 6am. It’s diabolical.”
Residents Sally Jones who lives in Dovercourt Road, said: “We didn’t realise the recycling centre was there until we came back from holiday last September.
“We began hearing all this noise from six o’clock in the morning and as time has gone on, it just got worse.”
Her husband, Chris Jones, said: “It was an idyllic little spot where we live but that has been shattered by the noise.
“I realise skip lorry drivers are just doing a job like everyone else, but the noise they make needs to be heard to be believed.
2Sometimes it sounds like an explosion because it’s so loud.
“It’s all very well that the council has admitted that it has made a mistake, but it ought to be doing something to rectify the situation.”
In a letter to Mrs Jones, council planning officer Bryan Cadman says the firm has been operating within planning permission.
It is allowed to operate every day of the year from 6am to 6pm – except Christmas Day and Bank Holidays when its opening hours are reduced to 8am to 5pm.
Council spokesman Simon Caplan said the case was now being reviewed “to ensure a fair outcome for both the company and the local residents, which also minimises the council’s costs and liabilities”.
“We have sought advice from acoustics consultants and are taking legal advice,” he said.
“Once we are clearer about the options for the way forward we will notify residents.
“Our planning team deaks with thousands of applications every year and an oversight of this nature is very rare indeed.
“We apologise to the residents in question and want to assure them we are working hard to find a satisfactory solution.”
The options which the council is considering include seeking a “Discontinuation Notice”, which would need approval from the Secretary of State.
This would effectively null and void the planning permission, but they are extremely rare.
If agreed, the council would have to pay compensation to the firm.
Another option would be to seek a a Discontinuation Notice and find an alternative site for the business, reducing the amount of compensation that would have to be paid.
A third option would be to find ways of reducing the noise levels for residents by enclosing the site and using barriers and baffles.
The council has no idea what, if any, compensation might have to be paid – but it is insured against such costs.
Steve Pearce, owner of Ashley Waste Recycling Centre, said: “I have used the correct channels to get approval to establish a much needed recycling centre in Bristol and we always operate within the parameters of our licence.”