Waste Issues and Options
6. Providing for New Waste Management Capacity
Broad locations for waste management facilities
6.1. We want to promote a sustainable pattern of appropriately sized waste facilities in the areas where they are most needed. This approach will help to develop a modern, safe and efficient network of waste facilities that can manage waste close to where it is produced. The current approach within the Waste Core Strategy focuses the development of new waste facilities in or close to the main urban areas where most people live and work and where the majority of our waste is produced. Larger facilities are seen as being most suitable within the Nottingham and Mansfield/Ashfield areas with smaller/medium sized facilities to serve Worskop, Retford and Newark.
6.2. This concentration of urban areas and the availability of employment land with suitable transport links suggest that these areas are likely to continue to the most appropriate broad locations for future waste development.
(17) Q14: What do you think of our proposals for the broad locations of future waste management facilities across the Plan Area? Are there other options we should consider?
Site criteria for waste management facilities
6.3. Once we have decided how we are going to manage our waste in the future, the Waste Local Plan will need to consider if any new facilities/sites will be required. The Waste Local Plan will need to provide a clear guide to the waste industry and the public about where, if any, new development will be acceptable, balancing our need for more capacity with the need to minimise any harmful environmental impacts. At this stage we do not identify specific sites to meet our future waste needs, we are carrying out a Call for Sites, in parallel with the Issues and Options Consultation.
6.4. The 'Call for Sites' is an opportunity for agents, landowners and developers to submit land which they believe could be developed to meet future demand for waste management facilities. This will help to ensure that there is sufficient land available to meet our waste needs during the Plan period.
6.5. Allocating sites or areas for new waste management capacity the Waste Local Plan could take one or more different approaches to identifying and selecting sites for the provision of new waste management capacity. One approach would be to allocate specific sites where applications for permission for new facilities will be looked on favourably. Another approach could be to identify types of sites or locations within the county which are suitable in principle for waste uses and where applications within these areas will be looked on favourably. A third approach could be to allow proposals for sites to come forward regardless of the area in which they are located and to assess each proposal on its merits. Finally, a combination of two or more of these approaches could be adopted.
(18) Q15: Do you think that a general criteria approach is sufficient to deal with future provision or should the Plan be allocating specific sites? Are there other options we might consider?