A Harrogate district Green Party councillor has voiced concerns about plans to build an asphalt plant alongside the Allerton Waste Recovery Centre near Knaresborough.
Tynedale Roadstone wants to produce the roadbuilding material at a new plant next to the recovery centre, which was approved a decade ago by North Yorkshire County Council.
The £1.4bn recovery centre uses an incinerator to generate energy from waste but has been dubbed a blot on the landscape by locals.
Such was the strength of opposition to the incinerator that two MPs and protestors handed in a petition with 10,000 signatures at Downing Street.
The bid to build a second plant alongside it has fuelled fears about industrialisation of the area.
Planning documents state Tynedale claims the asphalt plant is needed on “vacant brownfield land” at Allerton Park, partly for environmental reasons.
The papers state:
“The extent of Tynedale Roadstone’s contracts in Yorkshire is such that a new asphalt facility is required to meet demand and ensure locally resourced product is within easy reach of key contract locations.
“The demand is established and continually fuelled by maintenance works requirements; an additional independent asphalt plant is needed to service it.
“Government and company policies on sustainability, carbon footprints, energy efficiency, transport networks, trafficking and haulage distances are some of the many drivers behind establishing another asphalt plant.”
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The planning documents state the site has been identified as the best location to serve demand, as the nearest asphalt plants to the site are in Pateley Bridge and at Stourton, in Leeds.
The Allerton site is close to the A1(M) and A59 junction. Existing plastics from the waste recovery plant could be reused at the asphalt plant.
Cllr Arnold Warneken
Green Party councillor Arnold Warneken, whose Ouseburn division includes villages closest to the proposed plant, said the firm’s description of the site as brownfield was “absolute rubbish” and that increasing the number of heavy goods vehicles entering and leaving the site would be a cause of concern.
He said:
Ouseburn councillor: ‘pause thoughtless Linton asylum centre’“There will be very little support for this locally. It is a very rural location which has had a blister of a building put on it. The site has a waste plant next to it, but beyond that you’ve got prime agricultural land in a rural setting.
“The original purpose of the site for recycling and incineration has to be retained. Whilst it is good practice to put two industries that are complemented together, you have got to look at the impact of the vehicles that are coming onto that site.
“To get to the A1 the HGVs will have to use the A168 which has already got heavy traffic on it from the waste plant and a quarry, so it would add to an existing problem.”
“It’s an industrialised function which needs to be alongside true brownfield sites.”
The new Green Party county councillor for Ouseburn, Arnold Warneken, has called for a pause in ‘thoughtless and careless’ plans to house 1,500 asylum seekers in Linton-on-Ouse.
The government is pushing forward with its plan to house 1,500 asylum seekers for up to six months in a ‘reception centre’ at Linton-on-Ouse.
The site closed in 2020 after being used by the RAF for almost a century.
Although located in Hambleton, the site is only about a mile from the Harrogate district, on the other side of the River Ouse.
It’s close to villages Great Ouseburn, Little Ouseburn and Nun Monkton, which are all part of Cllr Warneken’s new division.
The asylum seekers will not be prisoners and will be free to leave the centre. Cllr Warneken said he is concerned services in the villages will not be able to cope.
Cllr Warneken, who won his seat last week by over 700 votes, said:
“The plan needs to have the brakes put on it. Rural locations are losing shops, pubs and post offices.
“The government has not looked at what the asylum seekers need, whether that’s religious or cultural things or food. They are not prisoners, they are victims.
“The centre will be twice the size of Linton-on-Ouse, three times the size of Great Ouseburn and eight times the size of Little Ouseburn. It’s not been thought through and is careless.”
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Cllr Warneken said ‘99.9%’ of residents in the villages are “compassionate and understanding about the issue”.
But he fears the centre, which has been dubbed “Guantanamo-on-Ouse” by a Lib Dem councillor, could become a target for far-right protestors.
He added:
“I’ve been out talking to people who were concerned this week. They are saying it’s not right for the asylum seekers or the community.”
Migration crisis
The government has said it hopes the changes will help it crack down on people-smuggling gangs.
According to the BBC, 28,526 people are known to have crossed the channel in small boats in 2021, up from 8,404 in 2020.
Home Secretary, Priti Patel, said:
Stunning Green win in Ouseburn sets blueprint for future collaborations“The global migration crisis and how we tackle illegal migration requires new world-leading solutions. There are an estimated 80 million people displaced in the world and the global approach to asylum and migration is broken.
“Existing approaches have failed and there is no single solution to tackle these problems. Change is needed because people are dying attempting to come to the UK illegally.”
New Green Party councillor for the Ouseburn division, Arnold Warneken, said he is looking forward to working with other political parties in the new North Yorkshire Council.
Cllr Warneken beat Conservative candidate Richard Musgrave decisively, by 1,328 votes to 586 in a two-horse race.
There was no Liberal Democrat candidate standing after the party agreed to step aside to help the Greens unseat Mr Musgrave.
In Cllr Warneken’s acceptance speech, he suggested the local Conservative Party had “lost their conscience” and the result sent a message to other parties to work together around a common purpose based on decency.
He said:
“I will work with anybody, whatever their party is, as long as they are honest, transparent, have integrity and tell the truth.”
A blank canvas
Cllr Warneken told the Stray Ferret afterwards that the result has given him hope that environmental issues are now vote winners.
He said:
“There are all sorts of challenges and it’s a blank canvas.”
Cllr Warneken was a Green Party councillor in the 1990s and will join his old friend, the Lib Dem councillor Pat Marsh, in the new chamber.
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Cllr Warneken said he believes he still would have won even if the Liberal Democrats had put a candidate forward, due to his huge majority. He said the Tory candidate was “complacent” throughout the campaign.
Mr Musgrave did not attend the count to hear the verdict.
Echoing the words of Labour’s Margaret Smith during her speech at the election count, after failing to win Oatlands and Pannal, Cllr Warneken said the time had come for a proportional representation voting system.
He said:
“If we had PR we’d have more candidates from minor parties.”
Collaborate
Next door to the count in the Harrogate Convention Centre yesterday was The Assemblies of God conference, where over 500 different churches were meeting.
In previous local council elections, it has felt like most Green candidates haven’t had a prayer of winning.
But Shan Oakes, the local party coordinator, said Mr Warneken’s win was “a real story” locally.
He will join four other North Yorkshire-based Green Party councillors on the new authority.
Ms Oakes added:
“The world is coming to its senses. It’s given us hope.
“We face serious existential issues. We have the climate crisis and we have to green up out town.”
Ms Oakes said she hopes parties can agree to step aside in future, but thinks it will be a tough ask.
“It was a real struggle to get the one that we did.”