BCAG Action Team Send Open Letter to Trafford Councillors

The BCAG Action Team is a group of local residents that want to get more involved in stopping BREP.

Please share this letter with your family, friends, neighbours & colleagues as you see fit. Your local Councillors are there to represent and serve you and your needs, so please do contact them in person or by phone, email or letter, draw their attention to the contents of this letter and let them know what you want from them for the ECM and beyond.

For a list of your local Councillors and their email addresses go to: https://www.bcag.co.uk/about/contact-trafford-councillors/

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Dear Councillors,

This letter concerns the appalling decision by Eric Pickles MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, announced recently, to uphold the appeal by Peel Energy for the construction and operation of the BREP incinerator, thereby overruling the clear and unanimous will of our Council.

We wish to firstly thank you for any and all efforts you have made, personally and as elected public servants, to reflect the democratic wishes of the community. Together we can and must stop the construction and operation of the BREP incinerator, for the protection of both the health and democracy of our community over the coming decades.

We applaud Trafford Council for the decision to formally appeal Eric Pickles MP’s decision and we welcome the fact that national Party Political allegiances will not be allowed to overrule a fully committed rejection of this harmful, undemocratic and wrong decision.

We also welcome the news that there is to be an Extraordinary Council Meeting on the evening of 19th June.

We will help to publicise this meeting, so that the public will have the opportunity to see first-hand their Councillors’ expressions of real concern and discuss the best course of action.

We hope that you agree with us that it would be of benefit to the evolution of 21st Century democracy in Trafford for there to be an appropriate opportunity provided for the public to participate directly in some way at this meeting, beyond silent witness.

As well as stopping the BREP incinerator plans worsening our air quality and public health, with the associated and avoidable consequences, we rightly now expect and require that our Council urgently prioritises taking significant and effective local action to address the existing designated Air Quality Management Area (AQMA).

The planning appeal process has already proved to us that we cannot reasonably place our faith in either the Environment Agency as currently constituted, or national policy as currently manifested through individuals in remote high office, for the enforcement and improvement of air quality and public health and for the urgent task at hand of transitioning our community to genuinely clean and green energy production and use.

It is now therefore imperative that our Council promote genuine public confidence that robust new plans will be put in place, that action will be forthcoming, that it will be significant and effective.

We would therefore ask that you proactively include, at the upcoming Extraordinary Council Meeting and beyond, discussion and substantive motions for local Council action addressing the following three specific items:

Comprehensive 24-7-365 air quality monitoring of designated AQMA’s and the identification of other areas at risk;

Strategies and delivery of significant and measurable improvements in air quality and associated public health;

Identification and implementation of opportunities for genuinely clean and green local energy production and use – by and for the community itself, for a sustainable and better value energy future.

Ideally, the Council’s plans for these 3 specific items would be formed in co-operation and consultation with neighbouring boroughs, local NHS, universities and other potential allies – and of course would meaningfully involve residents.

Best Wishes,

BCAG Action Team

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