Refuse - Refuse: Say NO to the Hollingdean WTC

1- This aerial picture gives you an idea of both the scale of the proposed facilities and its proximity to both local schools and local houses. The red line shows the boundary of the proposed site. The block of red on the left-hand side are the playgrounds at Downs Infant School. Click the image for a larger version.

2- The proposed site contains two main buildings – the waste transfer station and the material recovery facility. There will also be a visitors’ centre, where local schools can view the benefits of recycling (unless, of course, they come from Downs Infants, where they’ll be able to view these benefits every day).
The Waste Transfer Station (on the right of this map, below) will provide a transfer point for all of Brighton & Hove’s household waste. This will be stored and bulked into larger lorries (we believe that they will be 32 tonners), which will then take the waste to the landfill site. When this is closed down in 2008, waste will either go to the proposed incinerator in Newhaven or, well, who knows.
The second building (on the left of this map, below) is called a Material Recovery Facility, where dry recyclable materials are received and sorted. This is the key to the scheme, as it is critical to the council’s plan for increasing the amount of the city’s waste that is recycled. All Brighton & Hove’s recycled waste will arrive here, and be sorted into storage units for further transfer onto, as yet, unstated facilities. Sorting will take place within the building, which will be noise soundproofed.
The red arrows on the picture show the direction of the lorries arriving in, and exiting, the facilities. The HGVs with recycable materials on board will drive down to the bottom left of the facility, before entering the MRF building through double doors. The Downs Infant School playground is coloured in red, just to demonstrate how close each of these HGVs is going to come to the school each and every day. The larger HGVs will be loaded from the two bays on the right of the MRF. Click the image for a larger version.

3- The increase in traffic is one of our other main concerns. As we understand it, half of the HGVs will come down Ditchling Road, with the other half coming from the Vogue Gyratory. All the kerbside traffic will come and go via Ditchling Road. The bulk vehicles will go to the Lewes Road via the Vogue Gyratory – with over 60 traffic movements a day. The HGVs will go under the old railway bridge, which has one pavement in place for children to walk on. There is a proposal for a new roundabout just after the bridge.
We have asked Onyx, the developers, how many lorries will drive past the Material Recovery Facility, but we have not had a straight answer. As far as we know, there will be 17 kerbside vehicles in the fleet, but they will be coming into and out of the site more than once a day. Similarly, the 22 refuse vehicles and 20 street cleaning vehicles will also go in and out of the site more than once a day. The result – a huge increase in traffic. Click the image for a larger version.

4- So why has this site been chosen? Well, first, because it’s next to the CityClean depot, so the lorries don’t have far to go. Secondly, this site has been named as suitable in the Waste Local Plan (well, it was one of a few, but now appears to be the only one). It’s cheap for the council (they own the land). It’s convenient for Onyx (they only have to build one waste transfer station and one material recovery facility). So, triples all round.
Click the image for a larger version.

5- This is an image of the Material Recovery Facility, which will be 15 m high, the equivalent to a five storey building. The image shows the two doors from which the larger HGVs will be loaded (whether their opening will affect the noise suppression techniques that have been promised, we’re unsure…). Click the image for a larger version.

6- This gives you an idea of the scale of the development. The proposal will dominate the landscape, despite assurances of ‘soft’ landscaping. The school can be seen towards the top right of the image. Click the image for a larger version.

7- This is an image of a Waste Transfer Station. Again, with the doors shut, the noise should be manageable. Whether they will remain shut all year round, however, seems unlikely. Click the image for a larger version.

8- This is another impression of the proposal, showing the scale, height and massing of the project. The building on the very left of the picture is the school, with the playground just next to it. Click the image for a larger version.

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