Carmarthenhsire County Council have decided to improve recycling facilites in the north of the county by creating a new recycling centre close to “Five Roads” Junction south of Drefach Felindre. A planning application has been lodged by the council’s Technical Services department for the site which would include skips for recyclable materials only and would employ four full-time and four part-time staff. The centre would be open every day until 5pm in the winter and 7pm in the summer.
The council has been looking for a recycling depot in the north of the county for years, to save people the long trip to Nantycaws. However people living near the proposed site have raised objections to the proposals and have organised a campaign against the proposal details of which can be viewed online.
Residents of villages in the vicinity of Five Roads, five miles from Newcastle Emlyn, have come together to form an Action Group (FRAG) to campaign against the plans. The FRAG committee is keen to point out that it believes in recycling but is strongly opposed to the location of the proposed site with its forecast 3000 tonne annual throughput and numerous drawbacks. Namely
1. Local residents were not consulted about Carmarthen County Council’s (CCC’s) planned site for the recycling centre (application W/25658) on a plot of land at Five Roads, where planning permission was refused for a bungalow in 1975 and applications continue to be rejected because the area falls outside the County’s ‘development areas’. The plot of land immediately adjoins an active smallholding along its boundary to the South.
2. The proposed site conflicts with CCC’s unitary plan intentions for preserving the character of the area overlooking the Teifi Valley: a local bird specialist (Sally Hall) says “It is in an area dominated mainly by large, open, exposed fields so this particular piece is quite unique and forms a valuable wildlife habitat with much potential as a food source and nesting area for birds”. This area of natural beauty mixes upland agriculture and forestry with a number of tourist businesses and attractions such as the Nant Gronw Country Park used by equestrians. Increased lorry traffic on the approach road to the proposed recycling centre would seriously affect the riders approaching the Park, which is accessed from that road.
3. The large-scale site, set at an altitude 270 metres, would be floodlit by night and visible from the other side of the valley as well as having an adverse effect on the various and numerous wild-life species in the locality that includes birds in red and amber danger categories. The site is very exposed and winds are much stronger than in the valley, allowing rubbish to be blown around the locality. Snow settles here when valley roads are clear and Five Roads has been cut off for weeks as a result.
4. The large expanse of the concreted-over site could affect and contaminate both surface-water run off and boreholes for dwellings in the vicinity and it is not known whether an environmental impact assessment has been made. The approach roads from North and South are small country roads, single track on much of their length and with poor surfaces that always erode badly and develop bad potholes in the winter as a result of water runoff and frost. The five road junction, where at least two school bus stop twice a day, is very dangerous and vulnerable to heavy lorries travelling too fast on the transverse East/West road connecting the A484 and the B4333: the new centre would introduce three new entrances to the junction. It is not believed that a ‘movement impact assessment’ has been carried out.
5. Along with the local impact on a remote rural area is the more general point of needing to meet the Welsh Assembly’s constitutional commitment to sustainability. The main centre of population is at Newcastle Emlyn, where a new supermarket has been approved. An assessment needs to be made of how many more car trips would be made as a result of the inhabitants of NCE making trips to the recycling plant rather than those in outlying areas combining a trip to town with one to a recycling plant were it to be situated closer to the town. Carl Sergeant, Minister for Local Government, has recently introduced a ‘Compact between the Welsh Government and Welsh Local Government’ setting out a framework for closer cooperation between Welsh local authorities in three key areas: education, social care and waste. It does not seem sensible for Carmarthen to forge ahead with its own site when cooperation with Ceredigion could open up the Cardigan site to people from neighbouring counties and tie in with the Welsh Assembly attempts to increase efficiency.
The group has a website at http://fiveroads.info/
If you would like to help with the fight to protect the unspoiled area at Five Roads then please contact the Five Roads Action Group at group@fiveroads.info
Latest News 14th January 2012 – Press Release from Action Group
On Tuesday objectors to the proposed recycling site at Five Roads, Penboyr were celebrating when the Council Planners said that the proposal had been withdrawn from the planning process. But less than twelve hours later they realized that their guard could not be dropped as clarification revealed that it was only because the Waste Disposal Services could not afford to answer the many points not clarified before the application was made within their current budget: it is forecast that by 2015 the budget could allow the site to be put to planning again.
A drop-in meeting, promised to the Community Council after complaints about the lack of consultation before the proposal was made, continued to take place in Penboyr Church Hall on Wednesday night and, even though promulgation was tardy and patchily publicized, around 60 locals and Community Councillors turned up to ask questions of three Council officials and make points about such issues as weather-related limitations, the impact on local tourist enterprises, water run-off and road safety and maintenance. The main question was why the site was being placed at such a high point above the visual attractions of the Teifi Valley and not closer to the major centre of population in North West Carmarthenshire – Newcastle Emlyn.
The officials could not answer the major question about ownership of the land, nor were replies about the road issues relating to the approaches and to site access consistent. Similarly, when questioned about how the site tied in with the Council’s Unitary Development Plan (UDP), TANs and MWMs, it seemed that the main criteria for choice was the fact that the Council thought that the site was available rather than whether a greenfield site was appropriate at all or whether it should be closer to Newcastle Emlyn (proximity to major urban centres being laid down as an important criterion). The main conclusion to be drawn was that money was the key driver for location rather than consideration of Council planning criteria. Locals suggested other more suitable sites.
The evening’s open presentation was brought to a close by Council official Ainsley Williams who agreed that much of the detail of the objections brought to their notice had not been fully appreciated before and gave impetus to the need to look for a more suitable site. During the evening most people had expressed a desire for a recycling plant to be built in this region of the county but at a site that had the virtues of Whitland’s recycling centre and not the many disadvantages of Five Roads. All in all a useful exercise for both parties but, even though there were fulsome apologies by Council officials for lack of consultation earlier in the process, it is clear that a wider set of criteria need to be considered before any new proposal is put forward. The FRAG will continue to monitor developments and thanks MP Simon Hart and AMs Angela Burn and Rhodri Glyn Thomas for their support in raising the concerns of local people who had written to them.
Cath and Alistair
Llainddu Farm
Five Roads
Cwmduad
Carmarthenshire
SA33 6AU
01559 371369
