It seems likely the domestic waste of Barnet will soon be headed to a huge new waste plant on the north side of Muswell Hill Golf Course, alongside the North Circular Road at Pinkham Way.
The “pre-application consultation” by the North London Waste Authority (NLWA) ended, almost as soon as it began.
There were three public sessions, with no plans or descriptions for residents to take away, then a badly advertised extra week on the NLWA website. That was it — blink, and you would have missed it.
The NLWA has toyed with the idea of a waste incinerator (gasification plant) at Pinkham Way. However, the plan there now is to convert a third of the waste from seven London boroughs into “incinerator fuel” which will then be carried by lorry to Brent Cross, either to be burned there, or put on trains to give other people the pleasure of the fumes and huge quantities of ash.
It is possible that even more incinerator fuel will travel from an even bigger site at Edmonton, also to Brent Cross. None of this lorry traffic was ever included in the Brent Cross transport plan.
There is no need to burn domestic waste in Britain at all.
We are producing less waste per capita all the time. If people started buying chocolates in cardboard instead of polycarbonate packaging (which takes 1,000 years to degrade) we could do even better.
Some landfill of waste is the best solution, as long as the quantities sharply decline. Let us promote new jobs in the re-use and dismantling of manufactured goods, more composting of organic waste, and new laws banning mixing of plastics in products which stop them being recycled.
We have had claims from the Brent Cross developers about the safety of the “Brent Cross gasifying incinerator”', with its 140-metre chimney, but still no word from the top man.
The current Lord Mayor of London Finchley’s Michael Bear has been Hammerson’s regeneration director since 2003.
How can a “regeneration director” keep absolutely silent?
John Cox
Chelsea Close, Wilesden
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