Dear Messenger,

If you live on the end blocks of Verdon St flats you now have a new view: a massive rubbish tip. It is in the grounds of the so-called Northern Recycling. For the past few months huge mounds of stuff from emptied skips have been building up. There are large sheds but they don’t seem to get used; most of the stuff is outside. The site is just on the other side of the railway line right under our balconies and windows. 

They have big stone crushing machines and when they are working the noise is terrific. There is often a bad smell if the wind is in that direction (south west of the flats, so it is the prevailing wind). You can smell fumes of the dumper trucks moving around; presumably as they are off the road they don’t have to be kept serviced. And of course you can smell the rubbish. There is more and more stuff building up there. 

They usually work on Sundays as well as in the week, starting very early. Because of the noise and the smell, not to mention the disgusting appearance, you can’t avoid it. The site comes to near the side of the road on Brunswick road just on the town side of the railway bridge. There is nothing except some shrubs to contain the rubbish there and it just spills over into the street. 

How did they get planning permission? What happened to consultation with those affected by new developments?  Did anyone in the council even notice that it would be overlooked by flats? Or is this acceptable to city planners who themselves live in the leafy suburbs. They would have known of course that in an area where people are already campaigning against one rubbish tip there would have been trouble if anyone knew it was coming. There are plenty of sites of empty waste ground where this type of activity could take place well away from houses. This part of Burngreave has always been pleasant and a nice place to live. Now it is spoiled, not by anyone living in Burngreave, not by crime, but by a presumably legal activity. 
What is the good of trying to regenerate the area when this kind of activity is allowed so near to people’s homes?

From M. Windle, 

marcus@unisonfree.net

Waste processed near city centre

Marcus Windle is not the only Burngreave resident to complain about the Northern Waste recycling site. A Messenger photographer had already visited it. We also contacted the operators of the site, who told us that they had all necessary permissions for running a waste processing operation, and that they worked within the guidelines set out in their licence. They said that they have permission to store 10,000 tonnes of inert waste, held for extraction of materials that can be recycled, with the remainder used as hardcore or sent to a landfill site. They assured us no waste is held permanently there, and it is not a landfill site. 
So that’s alright then!

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