Parish council joins Birks row

SADDLEWORTH Parish Council is being allowed its say on controversial plans to tip waste at Birks Quarry.

It was feared the parish council had been overlooked by the Environment Agency (EA) as a statutory consultee — potentially throwing the consultation process into chaos.

But the EA insists the council is not a statutory consultee. Despite the deadline for objections having passed, it will allow parish councillors to give their views and will include them in future consultations.

Councillors will discuss the application at a planning meeting tonight and then send a letter with their conclusions tomorrow.

Labour parish councillor Ken Hulme had called for the council to demand a copy of the licence application and for the consultation to be reopened for four weeks to allow councillors to comment.

He wrote to parish council chairman Councillor Pat Lord, saying: “I believe that the residents of North Nook, Austerlands, who pay the parish precept and whose properties are just a few metres from the quarry edge, as well as many other local precept-paying residents, would expect no less from us.”

However, Councillor Lord said: “The parish is not a statutory consultee. The Environment Agency general manager Bill Darbyshire has said if we put a complaint in over the next few days he will accept it.

“It’s just a case really of consulting as many people as possible. The quarry is not in the parish but people near by are affected and are very concerned.”

Planning permission for Birks Quarry to be used as a tip was given 20 years ago on appeal following repeated refusals by Oldham Council to give it the go-ahead.

Royton-based Opengoal Limited has applied for a licence to tip at the site on the Lees/Austerlands border. the EA has until February 9 to decide if it will grant a permit.

But Phil Woolas, MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, has written to the Minister of Environment, Jane Kennedy, asking her to call in the application for review before a decision is made.

At a recent public meeting 150 householders voiced their concerns on everything from noise, dust and bad smells to the effect on wildlife. Of particular concern is the safety of the site access — on a sharp bend on the steepest part of the A62 Huddersfield Road.

Residents have drawn comparisons with Scouthead’s controversial High Moor Quarry, where lives have been blighted by noxious smells, and criticised the EA’s “toothless” attempts to deal with problems there.

But while Mr Darbyshire has sympathised, he says the agency has no reason to consider any applicant as anything other than fit and proper to run a tip unless it has been previously prosecuted under waste laws — which does not apply to Opengoal.

He has emphasised that the two tips are totally different, with Birks Quarry’s proposed permit being for inert waste, including building materials, while High Moor carries domestic rubbish.

An EA spokeswomen said: “We have spoken to the councillors involved and have resolved this informally. At no point was the parish council ever excluded in this process, it is just not a statutory consultee.”