I and other members of Horsham Labour Party attended the public meeting on Saturday (9 Feb) arranged by the No Incinerator 4 Horsham Community Group and we share the concerns expressed by many Horsham residents.

The project appears to be driven more by a profit motive than the public interest.  We understand that the proposed facility will be able to incinerate commercial, industrial and demolition waste in addition to domestic waste and there are serious concerns over the impact of waste incineration on the environment and on people’s health.

There are also concerns that an incineration facility will discourage recycling. There is plenty of scope to improve recycling and to tackle the overuse of plastic and we therefore believe that local authorities should focus their efforts on reducing the amount of residual waste that has to be dealt with, rather than sanctioning controversial incineration facilities.

For these reasons, Horsham Labour Party did not support the original planning application last year and we are disappointed that it has now gone to appeal.  More information about the No Incinerator 4 Horsham campaign, including a plume plotter and how you can contribute to the campaign, is available on their website; www.ni4H.org.

One step Horsham District Council could take immediately would be to provide a weekly separate food waste collection for treatment by composting or anaerobic digestion.  We have supported an initiative by a Horsham resident calling for a weekly collection of food waste in Horsham and we helped to collect over 1,000 signatures for the petition. We encourage others to sign by visiting start-food-waste-collection-in-horsham-district.