Council accused of High Heavens/High Speed 2 hypocrisy (From Bucks Free Press)

Council accused of High Heavens/High Speed 2 hypocrisy

9:20am Wednesday 8th February 2012 in Politics By James Nadal

A design of the proposed waste transfer station

COUNTY council chiefs have been accused of hypocrisy in their actions over expanding High Heavens rubbish tip and fighting High Speed 2.

Plans to make the Clay Lane site a station where rubbish can be bulked before being transported to a new incinerator in the north Bucks were approved by Conservative-controlled Buckinghamshire County Council last week.

But Former Great Marlow Parish Council Chairman Cllr Jan Pritchard, pictured below with other protesters, says they have been ignored – just as BCC claims to have been by the Government.

While BCC officials and senior councillors have hit out that the Coalition has not listened to residents in Bucks over the £33bn HS2 scheme, Cllr Pritchard claims it has behaved the same way towards householders in Great Marlow.

The ex-Parliamentary candidate for Labour said: “They are being very hypocritical on that basis, they can see their point but not anybody else’s. They don’t even want to know. We, as the parish council, and residents have been completely ignored.”

Concerns centre around the extra 21 heavy goods vehicles going in and out of the site per day – an additional 160 vehicle movements in total.

Senior Tory Cllr Bob Woollard also said residents’ concerns had been ignored.

Cllr Pritchard added that the parish council has been desperately trying to find funding for a much needed new play area, not far from High Heavens, but had been turned down at every attempt.

She said investment is needed for this, rather than expanding the rubbish tip.

BCC Spokesman Aidan Shutter said: “The Development Control Committee (DCC) is an independent committee of the county council and it took the decision to approve WRG’s planning application for a waste transfer station at High Heavens.

“As with all applications, committee members would have considered the merits of the application against local policies and carefully considered the view of local residents including those of the local member, Cllr Woollard, before coming to a decision. "As with any planning application, all the relevant details are publicly available and the decision itself is made in public by the DCC.

"It cannot be directly compared with HS2, which is following a very different process.”