The application was presented to the 28th November Committee (following an earlier deferral). The officers recommendation at the November Committee meeting was that the application be refused, however, the Committee instead resolved to approve the application subject to conditions. As no conditions had been prepared within the Officer report this meant that officers had to report the item back to Committee for their approval. As there was no committee meeting in December, the item was reported to the 16 January meeting. However, at the January meeting, after having seen the conditions prepared by officers, the committee felt that the conditions proposed would not be sufficient to protect residential amenity and therefore resolved to refuse the application in line with the reasons as set out in the report in November. As a result, the planning application was refused.
The final reason for refusal was that despite forming part of an existing industrial/waste site the siting of the proposed anaerobic and in-vessel composting facilities failed to satisfy the locational criterion of the Lincolnshire Waste Local Plan as there were a number of residential properties within 250m of the application site and it had not been demonstrated that the facility could be situated within 250 m of these properties without the potential to cause nuisance to receptors of acknowledged importance through odour. Consequently due to the close proximity of the development to residential properties, the development had the potential to adversely impact upon the amenity of local residents by virtue of odour.
Proposal: Anaerobic digestion and in vessel composting facility
Site: Bowmans Business Park, Skegness
Authority: Lincolnshire
Applicant: Bowmans Waste
Decision: Refused 16 January 2012
