Do we want an incinerator here?

Near the top of Verne Common on the Isle of Portland, after you clear the topmost houses, there’s a lane down to the left, half in shadow, half in sunlight, leading towards the military cemetery that few know of.

Here are stunning glimpses through the trees down to the port below, Weymouth Bay and the Isle of Purbeck, just a short distance across the water.

The area surrounding is naturally generated scrub woodland, designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest, home to birds, bats, butterflies and moths, lichens and fungi, for the air here is just about as clean as it gets. In fact, the immediate area supports several SSSIs, two marine conservation zones and an internationally important RAMSAR wetland site, not to mention important cultural heritage sites. But unfortunately, there is an application, shortly coming before Dorset County Council’s planning committee, to build a waste incinerator in the middle of this view, 600 metres from the cemetery.

Not surprisingly, there has been a huge amount of opposition to this proposal. Aside from the proximity to people’s homes, this incinerator would be in the setting of the UNESCO World Heritage Jurassic Coast.

The builders and operators will try to greenwash these incinerators but this is not clean fuel. Unrecycled plastics will make up a significant amount of the fuel and plastics are derived from oil - it is burning fossil fuel. It will release 533 tonnes of CO2 a day, every day, into the atmosphere for 30 years. Despite filtering, the smoke plume contains microparticles, heavy metals, nitrogenous, sulphurous and ammoniac gaseous waste. It’s not even a good use for the waste, as current academic advice is that it is better to store it and learn to unlock and reuse it. We made it – we should be able to unmake it. Burning it makes it unrecoverable and leaves a pile of highly toxic ashes. Furthermore, Dorset’s unrecyclable waste production is relatively small and is already dealt with through existing facilities. This proposal is for a merchant waste facility to import and burn waste from elsewhere, quite possibly brought in by sea, hence its situation in a port. To damage a place such as this would be bad enough, but when you add into the equation that there are people’s homes, at Amelia Close, right next to the cemetery, that takes it to a whole new level.

Level is the operative word here. Commonly these Energy Recovery Facilities – incinerators –are built on plains so that the chimney stack, usually around 80 to 90 metres tall, discharges its smoke well above ground level. But this proposal is quite literally within metres of a hill that is far higher than the chimney itself, a hill with a housing estate on it. Worse, the houses in Amelia Close are at the same height as the top of the proposed chimney. Worse still, they will only be 600 metres from it. That’s just under four tenths of a mile.

To give that a visual perspective, that’s slightly less distance from Portland’s Lidl supermarket to the new Shell garage, or a Bridport comparison, The Town Hall to the Esso filling station at East Road. n Down to Earth: See page 58

Dorchester: Top O’ Town to the junction with High Street, Fordington.

Sherborne: The top of Cheap Street to Pageant Gardens.

Lyme Regis: Cobb Gate car park to Ozone Terrace. Weymouth: Jubilee Clock Tower to Alexandra Gardens.

There are also private homes on top of the Verne Hill that are even closer, and the Verne prison and we do have a duty of care to the staff and inmates there. So, think about that for a moment – your home at the same height as the discharge of a huge industrial waste burner that will be burning 24/7 for the next 30 years, 600 metres away. Is this ‘NIMBYism’? If being a nimby means standing against things that are going to damage the place you live in and the lives of the people you share it with then yes, it’s a charge I’ll happily accept.

The planning arguments are in already. They are nuanced and complex but behind it all there is a very real issue of human health and quality of life, so I’ll ask you again, would you want it?

Car and bike enthusiasts are getting revved up for a special motor show being hosted by Dorset Blind Association at Lulworth Castle.

After a successful return in 2022, following three years of covid delays, the association’s seventh motor show will take place on Sunday, May 21.

Described by organisers as ‘the South’s most picturesque automotive event’ it will begin with a 20-mile Dorset tour, sponsored by Summit Land and Development. The tour will set out from the estate at 10.30am, wending through the beautiful local countryside before returning to the estate for a display at the Castle showground.

The display is free to attend from 11am and will include live entertainment, a kids’ fun area and stalls selling food, local crafts and handmade products.

Fred Potter, who drives a Porsche R26, said: “We have attended the Dorset Blind Association Motor Show at Lulworth Castle for many years and is no doubt our favourite event in our calendar.

“Displaying our car in front of the castle is a unique opportunity and we love the atmosphere, plus it’s all for a great cause.”

Organisers hope this year’s event, which is being sponsored by Blue Sky Financial

ON PARADE: Classic vehicles on show at Lulworth Castle