Housing doubt sparks tip fear

Relief: Birks Quarry.

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SHOCKED residents living near a controversial quarry fear Oldham planners may reject a housing scheme leaving the door open for a potential landfill operation.

Locals have campaigned for 28 years against planning permission to tip up to 800,000 tons of waste at Birks Quarry, Austerlands.

The site, off the main A62 Oldham-Huddersfield Road, is surrounded by residential properties.

Locals overwhelmingly supported a plan to build new homes on the quarry with the belief blight would be removed from their homes which they have been unable to sell because of the possibility of the site becoming a landfill operation.

And if Oldham Planning Committee turns down the housing scheme at tomorrow’s meeting there could be a new application for a licence to redevelop Birks Quarry into major landfill.

That could see convoys of lorries entering and leaving the site with ensuing dust and disturbance problems. Local ward councillor Adrian Alexander is planning to speak at the meeting on behalf of worried residents.

He said: “I am completely shocked council officers have ignored the overwhelming view of locals, councillors and Saddleworth Parish Council who support this moderate-scale housing development.

“Planning committee members clearly have a choice either to approve this housing application or subject long-suffering residents to more years of uncertainty as the quarry’s owner, or future owner, seeks to obtain a licence to tip 800,000 tons of waste.

“Why are our officers recommending refusal when the council has already spent hundreds of thousands of pounds fighting the landfill scheme and four public inquiries to oppose a major landfill operation?

“It beggars belief and our officers need to seriously reconsider their recommendation to refuse this plan. The long-term costs to the council and my constituents will be immense and devastating.”

Saddleworth parish councillor Rob Knotts, chairman of Birks Quarry Action Group, is organising a delegation of residents to lobby the planning committee at the meeting.

He said: “I cannot understand this move on the part of Oldham Council.

“The council has spent considerable sums of money in trying to stop the quarry being used as a tip.

“For some unfathomable reason the planning application has prompted a change of direction.

“The housing plan would remove the spectre and threat of tipping. This would be replaced with a far more wholesome need of housing in an area, by virtue of it being hidden, and will not encroach on anybody else.

“The additional housing will also contribute directly to the needs of the Greater Manchester Strategic Framework which aims to provide more homes.”

A report by planning officers to the committee recommends refusal, stating that the applicant has failed to demonstrate that the development will not have a detrimental effect on the openness and appearance of the site and surroundings and that visibility at the access junction is restricted.