Campaign against agrofuel power station in Ealing successful

Ealing London Borough Council's rejection of a proposed agrofuel power station in Southall has been upheld by the Secretary of State, following a planning appeal and public enquiry. More than 1,000 people, mostly from Southall, had objected to the planning application, both because of concerns over further increasing the demand for agrofuels, and over air quality impacts in a heavily polluted urban area.

 

The London Plan 2010 - West London FoE response

At a seminar on the London Plan, an officer from the GLA was asked if the Plan stated any environmental limits to growth, eg air pollution or greenhouse gas emissions.  The short answer was “NO”.  That is, there are NO sustainability criteria for London.

If it is the policy that sustainability should be sacrificed in a ‘rush for growth’ (population, construction, transport schemes, biofuel plants, incinerators, car parks, etc), this is of such fundamental importance that it should be stated clearly and debated fully.  Indeed, we consider it of such importance that the process of finalising and adopting the Plan should be deferred if that is what is necessary in order to resolve this fundamental issue.

Comments on the London Plan

West London Friends of the Earth are appearing at the 'Examination in Public' on Climate Change on Thur 15th July 2010 in the morning.

Statement for matter 5a (Climate Change).

How to take on the Climate Change Deniers

Sceptic questions/claims:

1. Climate changed peaked in 1998 and the world has been cooling
since. Why is this happening when CO2 is still rising relentlessly.

2. Solar activity caused the warming.

3. The polar ice cap has recovered all its recently lost area.

4. Sea level is not rising.

5. The cold winter of 2009/10 in the UK and Europe disproves global warming.

Responses:

1. 1998 was an exceptionally warm year (global average) but several years in the 2000s were very similar, within the accepted margin of error of the measurements (ie about 0.1 C). It is true that since the late 1990s, the warming curve has flattened out, but it is totally untrue that global average temperatures have fallen back. 

Overall the 2000s were warmer than the 1990s showing that the decadal mean is
still rising (UK Met Office). The sceptics do accept that CO2 levels are rising but try to de-link this with global warming. They fail to understand that the temperature curve will not exactly match the CO2 curve year to year (see response 2). 

(Temperature data source NASA GISS).

                                                      more...

For further claims & responses see  www.campaigncc.org/sceptics         

 

                                                              www.skepticalscience.com

Food Chain

Biofuels

Ask your MP to Fix The Food Chain

 

The meat and dairy industry produces 18% of global climate-changing emissions 

– more than every plane, car and lorry on the planet.                 more...

 Biofuel power plant in Southall

Public Inquiry was  9th  to 17th March 2010. 

Nic Ferriday of Ealing FoE who gave evidence said :

“Blue-NG refused to accept any responsibility for the health impacts of the air pollution that the power station would cause.

“Blue-NG also refused to accept any condition on the sourcing of the biofuels that the power station would burn. This means that they could burn any fuel they wanted – for example palm oil grown on cleared tropical rainforest.

“To add insult to injury, Blue-NG attacked Ealing council and the democratic system by claiming costs from Ealing council. They argued that the democratically elected councillors had behaved 'unreasonably' to oppose the power plant on the grounds of air pollution and health of local people.”

The Inspector will now make recommendations to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. The Secretary of State will make the final decision.

See closing submission to the enquiry

See press release

Crossrail Scrutiny committee - Ealing Broadway station

See Save Ealing's Centre presentation by Richard Chilton

Campaign for a better bus interchange at Ealing Broadway station

EFOE have been campaigning for a better bus station for several years. We tried with Ealing Centre Partnership but got nowhere. In 2007 we enlisted help from EPTUG. Then when Save Ealing's Centre was formed it became a major campaigning point for them.

Now Ealing council have produced a brief for consultants to examine all the ways a new interchange could be created.

Latest from New Economics Foundation

Shorter working week soon inevitable

Arcadia Planning Permission refused

John Denham, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government agreed with Inspector David Richards that Glenkerrin's planning application should be refused. Glenkerrin wanted to redevelop the Arcadia site with a 26 storey tower straddling the railway line and 6 other blocks of shops and flats.

The inspector's main reason for recommending refusal was:

"The bulk, massing and certain aspects of the design would be inappropriate in its surroundings, and would fail to preserve or enhance the character or appearance of the Town Centre conservation area, and the setting of the Haven Green conservation area" 

The inspector did not agree with us about the traffic implications. He accepted that there would be an increase in the morning peak traffic of 14.4% northbound on Springbridge Rd and acknowledged that that would cause periods of driver inconvenience and congestion. But he dismissed it by saying that this is characteristic of many parts of London . He did not mention the effect of extra traffic fumes on pedestrians or local residents.

A spokesman for Glenkerrin said "We’re bitterly, bitterly disappointed after three years of working through the due process".

We suggest that next time they try to stick a bit closer to what we, the residents, have asked for in the UDP and the upcoming Local Development Framework.

Copenhagen photos  

Latest Photos

Dickens Yard

Ealing Broadway Interchange

A recent report from the Greater London Authority spells out the section 106 monies which will be due from the Dickens Yard development                                  more...

Now that the Arcadia planning application has been refused there is still the thorny problem of the Ealing Broadway transport interchange. Save Ealing's Centre have been working tirelessly on this and have produced this report

Airlines to cut emissions?

Climate change

 

IATA (International Air Transport Association) which represents 93% of the world's airlines has unveiled plans to halve emissions but 

not until 2050.

The industry will not even achieve carbon-neutral growth until 2020. They have only made these promises because environmental groups have criticised them for not doing enough to prevent climate change.

Ealing council now runs an

 'Environment and Climate Change Board' 

as part of its

 'Local Strategic Partnership'.  

Ealing FOE has been invited
to attend, be we are reluctant to get sucked into a time-consuming
bureaucratic process, whose machinations are hard to relate to the
pressing need for drastic action on climate change.

On a committee paper for this board we noted that Ealing's per-capita
emissions seem to be going up. 

The last two yearly figures are:
2005 - 5.6 tonnes CO2 per person
2006 - 5.8 tonnes CO2 per person

In fact the increase may be worse because the population has gone up and
therefore total emissions will have risen faster than per-capita
emissions.

It is hard to see any consistency between the reality of Ealing's
performance and its aspirations and the government's target of cutting
emissions by 80% by 2050 (total, not per-capita). If the Environment and
Climate Change Board were to tackle this mismatch head on, EFOE might
be interested.