June 19, 2008
England
England
Plans for a renewable energy park in Staffordshire, to serve the area’s proposed eco-town have further horrified campaigners opposed to the development.
The park, planned for the eastern side of the A38, could feature a combined heat and power plant and wind turbines, and news of the plans has left opponents claiming Fradley has become the “dumping ground” of the Midlands. The plant would utilise municipal waste, waste from food processing companies on Fradley Park, and plant and animal matter.
The purpose of the park is to play a key role in enabling the eco-town of Curborough to become zero-carbon and a net exporter of renewable energy.
Jan Green is secretary of Fradley Against Curborough Town (FACT), an action group set up to oppose the eco-town.
She said: “I have been saying for a long time that Fradley has become the dumping ground of the Midlands. Have the developers and council forgotten that existing residents will
have to live with the effects of their half-baked schemes?”
The group has also said that no mention of the energy park was made at public consultations held by the Curborough Consortium, the developers behind the eco-town.
FACT chairman Richard Holloway said: “We eventually found this embedded in the huge document about the eco-town submission.”
Mr Holloway said that while the group was not against the idea of renewable energy, it felt the Government was being “cloak and dagger” about what an eco-town would actually entail for the people who have to live beside it.
Curborough Consortium spokeswoman Jackie Alderson said: “We have got to find a way of producing energy for the community which results in zero carbon emissions, and the whole ethos of eco-towns is that they should be self-sufficient.”
19 June 2008
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2008/06/19/energy-park-scheme-horrifies-opponents/