Monica Lennon MSP has lodged a motion in the Scottish Parliament welcoming South Lanarkshire Council’s decision to reject a new planning application for an incinerator in Whitehill and “calls on the developer to recognise the wishes of the local community and accept this rejection as final”.
Praise was also given to Community groups such as Hamilton Energy Recovery Action Group (HERAG) and local community councils that have campaigned against plans to build an incinerator in Whistleberry Road since they were first raised in 2013.
Monica Lennon and others protesting against the Whitehill incinerator
Monica’s parliamentary motion also highlights the imbalance in the current planning system that is heavily weighted in favour of developers rather than local communities and says “the campaign against the incinerator at Whitehill exemplifies the imbalance of power between communities and developers in the planning process”.
Although developers can appeal planning decisions local communities cannot and Monica, a former town planner herself, has called for this imbalance to be redressed in the Planning (Scotland) Bill currently being considered by the Scottish Parliament.
Monica Lennon has raised a motion in the Scottish Parliament about the Whitehill incinerator
Monica also secured a members debate on incinerators in March where she called on the Scottish Government to withdraw planning permission for the incinerator.
Clean Power’s original application to build an incinerator in Whitehill was rejected by the council but that decision was overturned by the Scottish Government in 2015.
the Council received over seven thousand letters of objection, with none in support
However, last year Clean Power recently sought permission to build an even bigger incinerator with a stack that, at 90m high, would be almost three times the height of Hamilton’s historic mausoleum and one and a half times higher than the Council Headquarters, known locally as the County Buildings, in Almada Street.
How the proposed Whitehill Incinerator compares to local landmarks
In response to that application, the Council received over seven thousand letters of objection, with none in support, and a petition signed by almost three thousand people objecting to the development.
In June the latest application was also refused by South Lanarkshire Council as the scale and nature of the proposed development “would have an adverse visual impact upon the local area and a detrimental effect upon landscape character” and also have “an adverse impact upon the setting of the A Listed Bothwell Bridge, Designated Bothwell Battlefield and the adjacent green network”.
Planning officers also said that Clean Power had failed to demonstrate that the development would not have an adverse impact on the local otter population.
Monica has also written to the developer calling on them to “respect the wishes of the local community and the democratic planning process that has taken place”.
[…] the University of the West of Scotland in Hamilton and ongoing battles against the building of an incinerator in Whitehill and the closure of McWhirter House care home in Larkhall all reinforce Monica’s local […]