Garston waste plant campaign progress?

We've been meeting with some of the campaigners against the waste plant in Garston to see if , even at this late stage, we can stop Jack Allen building this in our community.

Last week, Richard, Peter and I wrote to the Council leader to ask the administration for two particular bits of help.

The story about this letter is in today's Liverpool Echo here.

There's actually a rather encouraging editorial on page 10 of the same newspaper (I can't find an electronic version of it but if I can I will post it here).

The text of the letter we sent is pasted below.

We believe it is not too late to get this scheme stopped. We may have fewer avenues open to us now but it would be wrong of us not to follow up every possible idea.

Text of letter starts here


Friday 15th October – BY HAND


Dear Councillor Anderson

You may be aware of the decision by the independent Planning Inspector over plans for a waste plant in Garston. The decision, which follows a Public Inquiry in June, is that Jack Allen Holdings WILL be allowed to build a plant on land at Garston Dock.

We believe however that there are still things that can be done to prevent this happening and to therefore support the views of the local community. The site is in Speke Garston ward and affects thousands of people there. It also, because of its situation, affects thousands of people in Cressington ward and potentially some residents in other parts of South Liverpool.

Following discussions with members of the local community, we have been asked to contact the administration to request two things.

Firstly, that a sum of money is found to ensure proper legal research into the published decision and, if there are legal grounds, to pursue High Court Action. Planning officers have told us they have no money to do this but clearly it is impossible to plan departmental budgets to anticipate these sorts of appeals. The administration could, however, choose to prioritise this action and we feel sure there would be cross party support for this.

Secondly, that negotiations take place with either Jack Allen or with Jack Allen’s representatives (Jon Egan and colleagues) to see if, at this late stage, there is a piece of land which would be more suitable and which the Council can suggest. We are aware of several plots of land which could prove suitable for a facility like this and which are some distance from housing. For whatever reason, Jack Allen has not investigated all of these. We believe however that discussions are still worth having to see if persuasion is possible. We understand you and your colleagues are working on exploring the use of various bits of unused land across the City and this could be an opportunity. One of us would of course be willing to join you and/or your colleagues at any meeting.









You may wonder why we are writing directly to you. We would, under other circumstances, approach Councillor Moore because of his Cabinet role in respect of waste collection etc. He however lives very near the proposed site and we don’t want to put him in a compromising position.

We look forward to your, hopefully positive, reply







Cllr Paula Keaveney Cllr Peter Millea Cllr Richard Oglethorpe

On behalf of residents in Garston.