Gilpin fight for 25,000-tonne facility

Devon-based Gilpin Demolition is coming up against fierce resistance from local residents in its bid to construct a material recycling facility in an old Hanson operated quarry even though it only wants to process 25,000 tonnes of building waste a year.

As the UK seeks to halve the CDE waste it sends to landfill by 2012, local residents have handed in a 500 signature petition and continue to pound Devon County Council with letters of objection from organisations and individuals.

Hanson moved from the Buckfastleigh quarry at the end of last year. Newton Abbot-based Sam Gilpin Demolition wants to move in to the 2.63 hectare old spillite workings and spend £2.7million on a Blue material recycling facility.

It has applied to process 16,000 tonnes of aggregates a year, 7,000 tonnes of C&D waste and 2,000 tonnes of metal. The full site will take five years to construct, require over 200,000 tonnes of inert waste and employ a further 26 people when finished.

Georgi Gilpin told MQR today that the site is the only space in the area they can move to and construct a single site integrated demolition and MRF operation. “It is only 25,000 tonnes a year but people are being really resistant,” she said.

She continued: “A worker of ours was jeered out of a local community meeting this week when he went to explain the plans. There is the A38 between the quarry and the nearest houses and there will be fewer lorries than when it was a working quarry,” she said.

Lobbyists claim the project would destroy their quality of life, reduce the price of their houses and spoil the character of the town. They also say dust generated by the development could damage their health. They also claim it would harm wildlife living on the site including pairs of peregrine falcons and horseshoe bats.

All claims are vigorously denied by Gilpin and it has commissioned surveys on the impact to wildlife. A recent Devon County Council development control committee meeting voted to defer any decision on the scheme until the environmental impact survey had been completed. The next meeting is in October.