Mandale Park identified as waste management site

Mandale Park in Rochdale is one of many areas identified by AGMA (the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities) as a waste management site.

The ten Greater Manchester Authorities, which includes Rochdale, are working together to produce a waste plan.

Household waste accounts for just 25% of all waste produced in Greater Manchester and facilities to treat this waste are already provided. One of the objectives of the waste pPlan is to identify places where new waste treatment and disposal facilities can be located to manage the remaining 75% of remaining waste.

Mandale Park is one of 33 locations identified within the Greater Manchester Waste Plan Publication Development Plan Document as suitable for the development of waste management facilities.

It is one of three identified specifically as suitable for waste facilities within the borough as a whole (the other two are at Rhodes Business Park, Middleton and within an existing employment area at Heap Bridge, Heywood) although some facilities may be appropriate within existing employment areas.

The Mandale Park location covers some 24 hectares and includes the adjoining existing employment premises on Corporation Road.

A spokesperson said: “The waste plan is saying that this area has potential to accommodate high-end waste management facilities including anaerobic digestion and in-vessel composting subject to neighboring uses and residential amenity. Other types of waste facility such as open air waste facilities, open windrow composting, conventional thermal treatment, and advanced thermal treatment are identified by the plan as unlikely to be suitable due to potential adverse impacts on surrounding uses.

"This approach has been informed by a sustainability appraisal of the sites which looks at potential impact on the environment (e.g., loss of habitats, relationship with the Roch Flood plain, noise, smells etc. impacting on residents, etc).

"A pre-requisite of any significant development of waste management facilities would be the construction of a new access to Manchester Road. This would function as an alternative access for existing and future industrial traffic diverting traffic away from the residential part of Sparth Bottoms, e.g. Norman Road and would therefore vastly improve the local housing environment. Another proviso would be to ensure that any development on Mandale Park retains some high quality open space. This could be achieved by setting buildings within a high quality landscape setting with improved routes for pedestrians and cyclists.

“There is no firm proposal to build new waste facilities in the area at present. If the location is retained in the final adopted waste plan a planning application would be considered against the policies of the waste plan and the Council’s Local Development Framework. These policies can be used to ensure that only appropriate uses are permitted in the right places, that potential environmental impacts are mitigated, that design and layout are acceptable and that satisfactory access arrangements are in place and that the scheme incorporates the retention of open space.”

Save Spodden Valley Campaign Jason Addy feels that the public are last to know. He said: “Mandale Park, a site once exceedingly controversial with the local community, is being considered again for a waste site.

“This is within a few hundred metres of the dead centre of Rochdale.

“It is very close to residential, business, shopping, education and green space. Over the past 30 years the Mandale Park site has had extensive work (with the co-operation of local communities) to create an urban green space. This appears to be threatened. It may be trite to suggest that waste disposal plants always seem to be constructed close to poorer communities.

“I raise this not as a 'nimby' issue or as some form of 'uninformed scaremongering'. As a society we consume and dispose of waste, something has to be done with it. My main gripe is that, as with so many previous 'public consultations', the public appear to be the last to find out about the decisions being made on their behalf.”

Greater Manchester Waste Development said that they have complied with all the regulations they have to with regards to consultation and that Mandale Park has been in at least three of the consultations they have carried out since 2006.

Full details of the current stage of the plan can be found at www.gmwastedpd.co.uk
There is an opportunity to comment on the plan between 1 November and 13 December.