Forres is rubbish?

The Forres Gazette has a front page splash today entitled: “Waste plant to power 8,000 homes” The paper goes on to say: “The “Gazette” can exclusively reveal that the proposed state-of-the-art Forres Clean Power Energy Recovery Centre would provide 30 full-time jobs and have the capacity to turn up to 200,000 tonnes a year of the area’s non-hazardous domestic, commercial, industrial and organic waste – most of which currently goes to landfill sites nearing full capacity – into electricity.”

Many Gurnites who travel on the Inverness/Aberdeen line will know the proposed site beside Forres railway station where the former sidings have been slowly turning themselves into a woodland over the past twenty years or so. It seems a company called Clean Power Properties, in collaboration with Network Rail, are seeking to obtain detailed planning permission for a plant that will use Advanced Conversion Technology and Anerobic Digestion.  They have, so far, submitted a EIA Scoping Report which can be seen on the Moray Council Planning here (click on "scoping report" once on that page).  There are further details and a picture in this week’s Gazette for those who may like to know more.

A quick google comes up with this “Request for a scoping” opinion” document available on the web for what seems (at first glance) to be a very similar development proposed for land next to Micheldever railway station in Hampshire, again a proposal by Clean Power Properties and Network Rail. There seems to be opposition down there just north of Winchester, as detailed in the Hampshire Chronicle – there is mention of four, 100 foot, chimneys. The drawing on the front page of the Forres gazette does show two grey things sticking out of the roof of the proposed plant – would they be chimneys too?  On page 39 of the EIA Scoping Report there is a drawing which appears to show chimneys or stacks of approx 25m high. The company has great claims for their technology however, see the video below:

Perhaps a Clean Power Properties Ltd website like this one will soon pop up aimed at the Forresians.  The Forres area has a very active alternative/environmental community, will this development be “right up their street” or will things pan out the Micheldever way with a protest movement starting up. An interesting juncture for the Moray town 10 miles along the road.