Planning Application Information

Selborne Brickworks is seeking planning permission to construct an anaerobic digester on its site. This will turn food waste into bio-methane that can be used in the kilns. 

An earlier, similar application aroused controversy locally, which resulted in it being turned down by just one vote by the planning committee in 2010, thereby delaying the start of brick making (and 20 jobs) by at least one year.

The company has revised the plan to solve the problems that were identified, and hopes that permission will be granted at the earliest opportunity.

In the controversy, some of the facts were misinterpreted and some scare stories gained traction.  The purpose of these pages is to ensure that the facts are easily available to all.  They will also explain why we are doing this, and what the benefits are.  All of the information on this page is extracted from the full planning application, which can be downloaded from the HCC web site.  Application details are at the end of these pages.
 
The main benefits of this development are that it:

• Secures the sustainable production of Selborne Bricks, an integral part of the local vernacular architecture.
• Creates  20 jobs
• Generates  2MW of sustainable, renewable energy
• Provides for the sustainable disposal of 22,000 tons of food waste per year
• Reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 32,000 tons per year of CO2 equivalent
The impact on the local community, flora and fauna is minimal, as is explained below.
Links to next pages.
Why are you doing this?
Why are you connecting to the grid, and not just putting the gas direct into the kilns?
What is an anaerobic digester?
What will it look like?
What about traffic?
Where does the waste come from?
Doesn’t it smell?
Is it noisy?
Is it dangerous?
What about the aquifer?
What about wild life?
So what is all the fuss about?
 
Why?

The single largest cost in making a brick is the fuel to heat it. Selborne Brickworks uses gas. Since 2007 the price of gas has more than doubled to a level which makes brick manufacture uneconomic. It is forecast to continue rising. Making our own gas with an anaerobic digester solves this problem.

As an added bonus, gas from anaeobic diegsters is renewable energy, so the Seborne Brick also becomes a low carbon, sustainable brick.

Anaerobic digesters require heat to operate. They need to be at about 39˚C (body temperature). Brick making produces large volumes of hot air from the brick kilns, and this can be recycled to provide this heat. The result is a very efficient AD plant.
 
Putting the Gas into the Grid

The AD plant produces gas at a constant rate but the kiln demand varies minute by minute. Although the digester has been specified to produce the average demand, the variation is wide.

The choice is therefore either to build a large gas storage holder, or to inject the gas from the digester into the grid, and draw it from the grid to the kilns  The latter route occupies less space and provides more flexibility, which is why the company chose it.

Connecting to the grid brings with if further external monitoring of the plant's performance and safety.
 
Anaerobic Digestion
An anaerobic digester converts organic matter into bio-methane (which is effectively natural gas). The process is broadly similar to the operation of a cow’s stomach, albeit somewhat larger. The process also produces a fertiliser (called digestate). This contains nitrogen and other plant nutrients.
There are over 70 anaerobic digesters in the UK, (more if you include sewage works and water treatment plants) and over 10,000 in Europe.  At least 5 of the UK plants are processing food waste, and two of them are injecting gas into the grids The processes are safe, well known and well tested.  .
The diagram below shows the process.  The entire process from the delivery of organic matter to the expost of digestate takes place in a sealed, gas tight plant.
The loading shed is a sealed, airtight, industrial shed. The digester is a concrete tank and the digestate store a slurry tank identical to ones found on farms across the country. The gas cleaner is a small (20 foot) container.
At Selborne the organic matter will come from food waste. The biomethane will be used in the kilns and the digestate spread on local fields.
 
What Does it Look Like?
The plans and images below show what the digester will look like.  The existing brickworks is shaded yellow for ease of reference.
The digester is virtually invisible from any public right of way or private dwelling.  (If you don't believe this, take a look at the photographs in Appendix Two - click on the link at the top or bottom of the page).
 
What About Traffic?
Food waste has to be delivered to the plant and digestate removed. This will generate some HGV movements.
All the food waste has to come in by road, during working hours on week days only. This generates 4 HGV deliveries per day.
About 25% of the digestate will be used on Chapel Farm. The balance will go to other farms nearby, if possible by pumping. If all the digestate had to go by road it would generate another 2 deliveries per day.
Thus the total impact of the traffic is less than one delivery per working hour.
There is a designated route for movement, illustrated on the map to the left.


You can see that NONE of the vehicles will pass through Selborne, Oakhanger or Blackmoor.  Nor will they pass along Latchford Lane or Honey Lane.

The stretch of the C70 from immediately to the South of Oakhanger to the Junction opposite Chapel Farm will be upgraded as required by HCC, at the company's expense.
This is being done under a Section 278 Agreement.

In her report, the Planning Inspector stated that 11 deliveries per day would not “prejudice the free flow of traffic or highway safety”  
 
Where Does The Food Waste Come From?
There are (broadly) two sources of food waste:
• Domestic collection. This requires the food waste to be separated by households and placed in special bins. Some counties are doing this. Hampshire is not, yet (with the exception of Eastleigh).
• Commercial and Industrial Waste. This is produced by food processors, supermarkets, hotels, hospitals, schools and the like.
It is disposed of by separate arrangements between the waste producer and waste disposal companies.
The Selborne plant will process both types, including packaged waste. The capacity is 22,000 tons / year. (Equivalent to all the domestic food waste in East Hampshire).
At the moment East Hampshire does not separately collect food waste. However the Bordon Ecotown is likely to separate its waste (forecast to be 4,500 tons/year); the Selborne plant is perfectly placed to dispose of all this. The balance will come from commercial waste in Hampshire (over 30,000 tons is estimated to be produced within 20 miles of the plant) and domestic waste from counties that do separate.
 Most food waste either goes to landfill (where it emits methane, a very powerful greenhouse gas) or to incineration. In thermal terms incineration of most foodwaste is not worthwhile, as it is so wet that the net energy gain is near zero, in other words the benefit of the energy in the food waste is lost forever.
 
Won’t It Smell?
 

 

No.

All the food waste is delivered in sealed vehicles. They drive into an airtight shed, in which they tip. The food waste is immediately transferred to gas tight tanks.
The shed is maintained at less than atmospheric pressure, so that when the door opens to let the trucks in and out air in the building (with any odour) stays in the building. The air from the building is extracted through a bio-filter which removes all odour (and destroys any bacteria). The systems being used at Selborne are now in use in other anaerobic digesters processing food waste in the UK. They work.
The plant will also operate under strict odour management plan, monitored by both the Environment Agency and East Hampshire District Council. The draft odour management plan forms part of the planning application.
The digestate does not smell either. This is because the rotting that makes the smell has all been performed in the anaerobic digester to produce the methane. The digestate is then pasteurised, which kills all the bacteria that make it rot in the first place.
 
Noise
The brickworks operates within strict noise limits, established and monitored by EHDC and the Environment Agency.
In fact the AD plant is very quiet. The majority of the operation involves pumping fluids along pipes. The pumps are electric. The most noisy part is the de-packaging of food waste (i.e. removing cans, bottles and wrappers). The machine that does this is located within the feed stock processing shed, and the walls of that shed are designed to contain the noise.
A specialist noise assessment of the plant operating with the brickworks has been submitted as part of the application.  It found that the anaerobic digester will operate within the existing noise limits.  In other words, the plant will be no noisier.
 
Safety
Methane is a potentially explosive substance, and therefore its production and handling are governed by very tight regulations. The plant has to be designed and operated within these.
In fact the risks are lower than one might think:
• Firstly, methane is only explosive when mixed with specific amounts of oxygen. Within the anaerobic digester it is mixed with CO2 and therefore not explosive.
• Secondly, the methane and CO2 is at a very low pressure, 10 millibars. This is one tenth that of domestic gas (which of course contains no CO2).
• Thirdly the amount of Methane in the system is small. The entire explosive potential is less than that of two 200 litre drums of petrol (or the full fuel tanks of 5 cars).
Which does not mean that the company underestimates the potential for danger. Methane detectors will inform of any leak, at which point the relevant part of the plant will be isolated and shut down automatically.
The chances of a leak are small – the entire system is tested beforehand and the technology of moving gas in a pipe is well known and proven. If there is a leak, the gas will vent to atmosphere and disperse rapidly before becoming an explosive of toxic hazard.  The pressure drop will be detected automatically and alarms triggered.  The gas will automatically be diverted away from the leak.
As the plant is connected into the national gas grid, there are a plethora of agencies monitoring safety. These include The Health and Safety Executive, The Environment Agency and the gas grid operator.
 
The Aquifer
Oponents of the scheme have expressed great concern about the possibility of an anaerobic digester afffecting the aquifer.
The security of the water supply in the aquifer  has been extensively investigated by South East Water, the Environment Agency and the Planning Inspector. There is no threat to the aquifer, as the Planning Inspector's report makes abundantly clear.
 
What About Wildlife?

An ecological survey was conducted in December 2011.  The expert concluded that the proposed devlopment poses NO risk to Greater Crested Newts (a European protected species) or any other animal.  A copy of the report is part of the planning application.
The landscaping work that forms part of the proposal includes the planting of 3,000m2 of native woodland and the maintenance and enhancement of over 1,000m of hedgerow. Details of the landscaping plan can be viewed here.
The development therefore enhances the landscape and increases wildlife habitat.
 
 
Why the Controversy?
Part of the local community objected strongly and vociferously to a similar application filed last year. The grounds that were cited were:
• Traffic through the village of Oakhanger. In fact, as you have seen, there will be no traffic through the village and the number of vehicle movements is small.
• Threat to the aquifer. There is no threat to the aquifer, as has confirmed by South East Water, the Environment Agency and the Planning Inspector.
• Odour. AD plants do not smell – confirmed by the Planning Inspector.
• Visual Intrusion.  As you have seen, the plant is virtually invisible from any public right of way or private dwelling at any time of year
 In other words, none of the concerns were actually based on fact. 
So why did they object?
Good question.  There are a few residents of Oakhanger who have long opposed the Brickworks. They produced scare stories centring on traffic, amenity and the water. Some residents believed them and, unfortunately, so did the local County Councillors.

The company entirely accepts that this development could, at first sight, be alarming to local residents.  It believes that it has ensured that the adverse impact on locals is minimal - and is keen to engage in a constructive dialogue to further reduce impact.  

For a dialogue to be constructive it has to be based on facts, and that is what this page is all about.
Have Your Say?

Now that you have the facts, you may want to comment on the application.

If so, the application number is EH015/20661/048 and the full application is on http://www3.hants.gov.uk/mineralsandwaste/application-details.htm?id=14916

The case officer is Peter Chadwick and the e-mail address is planning@hants.gov.uk

 
A form to enable you to comment to the company or ask the company qestions can be found by clicking the link below.
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