Core Strategy - Consultation Draft

Background

The government's policy on waste, set out in Planning Policy Statement (PPS) 10 Planning for Sustainable Waste Management is to protect human health and the environment by producing less waste and using it as a resource wherever possible. It encourages more sustainable waste management by moving up the waste hierarchy of reduction, reuse, recycling and composting, using waste as a source of energy, and only disposing of it as a last resort.

The Core Strategy approach

The emerging Regional Spatial Strategy refers to the Regional Waste Strategy that seeks to "minimise the amount of waste produced in the region, and to make a major shift away from current reliance on landfill of untreated waste, so that by 2020 less than 20% of waste produced in the region will be landfilled". This is reflected in the indicative allocations in the RSS:

West of England annual municipal waste management capacities for Landfill Directive Target Years (000s tonnes per annum):

Target year	Minimum source separated	Secondary treatment	Minimum landfill
2010	230	150	300
2013	280	220	240
2020	310	370	120

West of England annual commercial and industrial waste management capacities for Landfill Directive Target Years (000s tonnes per annum) :

Target year	Recycling/reuse	Recovery	Landfilled
2010	420-460	220-240	470-515
2013	440-490	280-310	390-430
2020	490-530	430-470	190-200

The four unitary authorities (UAs) in the West of England are preparing a Joint Waste Core Strategy (JWCS) which sets out the strategic spatial planning policy for the provision of waste management infrastructure in the West of England. It will sit alongside the emerging UAs' Core Strategies, removing the need for the UAs to produce separate Waste Site Allocation DPDs.

The emerging JWCS provides a policy framework for all waste streams (except radioactive waste) including municipal, commercial and industrial, and construction, demolition and excavation waste. It states that hazardous waste treatment and disposal facilities are highly specialised, generally operating at a regional and often national scale, and that the South West region is broadly self sufficient in hazardous waste treatment capacity. It states that there is no identified need for new hazardous waste landfill capacity within the WoE area.

The emerging JWCS includes criteria-based policies on non-residual waste treatment facilities such as those for recycling and composting of waste.

The JWCS also identifies potential locations for residual waste treatment facilities (for treating waste which cannot be recycled or composted). Examples of residual waste treatment methods include anaerobic digestion and thermal methods such as gasification or pyrolysis, which can produce energy from waste. However the JWCS is technology-neutral, and does not specify which method would be used in the identified locations. The JWCS identifies a total need for 800,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) capacity for residual waste treatment in the WoE to 2020, of which 100,000 tpa is envisaged for a south west sector including Weston-super-Mare.

In North Somerset the emerging JWCS proposes two areas at Weston as potentially being suitable for the location of residual waste treatment facilities:

1) The existing Towns waste management facility, Warne Road, Weston.

2) A broad area of search based on the Weston urban extension.

The JWCS acknowledges that landfill will have to continue to have a role, albeit a limited one, and includes a strict, criteria-based policy on landfill and land raise proposals, requiring, for example, prior elimination of methods such as recycling or energy recovery etc, or that landfill is needed to restore mineral workings.

The JWCS also includes development management policies to be used in conjunction with those in the UAs' Development Management DPDs, in assessing proposals for waste management facilities.

How and where the policy will be delivered

The emerging JWCS identifies potential locations for strategic residual waste treatment facilities at Weston-super-Mare. The location of other non-residual waste treatment facilities will largely be determined by assessing proposals against development management policies.

There will need to be close liaison between the council and the West of England Partnership, who are preparing the JWCS, as well as the Environment Agency and waste industry.

Alternative options and contingency planning

Alternative options were explored in the preparation of the Joint Waste Core Strategy which sets out the spatial planning policy for provision of waste management infrastructure.

There is flexibility built in to the emerging JWCS policies in respect of the location of facilities.

Monitoring and review

Monitoring will assess the amounts and proportions of the different waste streams (e.g. municipal, commercial and industrial).