PRESS RELEASE
Residents Oppose Planning Application
Local residents from the Woodstone
Village area have united to oppose a planning application submitted to Durham
County Council by local petrol distribution company Par Petroleum.
The planning application which is
supported by the local planning team at Durham County Council, states that the
company must expand its operations on the former Lumley Sixth Pit site in order
to satisfy a new contract which the company has recently been awarded to store
and distribute highly flammable aviation fuel.
However, in order to do this, it will
be necessary to transform a well established green belt which forms part of the
Great North Forest and which is currently overlooked by the majority of
residents living in the Chesters Wood housing development, into a storage area
for heavy goods vehicles and petrol tankers. The application also describes the
need to erect 12 metre tall security lights which are powerful enough to light
up sports stadia, as well as build drains which are able to cope with any form
of fuel spillage to minimise environmental risks should a spillage occur.
Led by neighbours Andrew Lister and
Marc Hopkinson on behalf of local residents, the campaign has been endorsed by
Local Councillors and Member of Parliament for North Durham Kevan Jones; with
hundreds of home owners as well as the local primary school submitting their
objections to the proposal to the local council.
Hopkinson said: “The message we want
to communicate to the council is that it is not appropriate to turn a well
established green belt back into an industrial site, particularly as many
people have bought houses in the area to benefit and enjoy the open space.
Nor does this type
of operation have a place in a residential setting either as it poses far too
many risks, not only to the environment but to people living and working around
the site as well. The local roads will not be able to cope with the increase in
number of heavy goods vehicles and tankers, whilst the storage of aviation
fuels is extremely dangerous to start with never mind it being so close to a
densely populated housing estate.
In fact the County
Durham and Darlington Community Risk Register - written by our local Emergency
Services such as the Fire Brigade, Police and Ambulance Service - describes how
the impact area for a major incident on this site such as an explosion would be
approximately One Kilometre wide
with 15 fatalities expected. This impact area would include our housing estate,
the A1 motorway, local business located next to the site, a primary school and
a nursing home. You have only got to look at the damage, danger and disruption
caused at Buncefield, a petrol storage site in Hemel Hempstead when that
exploded in 2005.
It is clear that the
council, in their support for this planning application, have not considered
any wider impacts or risks which would be caused by agreeing to this proposal -
a failing which to be honest is very worrying and needs to be addressed
immediately and the application subsequently rejected .
ENDS
Media Enquiries
Please
contact Marc Hopkinson on 07771 932830 or Andrew Lister on 07880 507471 or
e-mail woodstone@hotmail.com for further information.
For
reference:
Par Petroleum, Par
House, Woodstone Village Industrial Estate, Fencehouses, Houghton-Le-Spring, Tyne
& Wear, DH4 6DU, Tel: 0191 3858001. Par Petroleum is a sub
contractor to JET Fuels ltd a ConocoPhillips Company.
Woodstone
Village is a former mining community within the parish of Little Lumley
consisting of terraced streets and a modern housing estate built in 2000.
Councillors
for Little Lumley Parish
Alan Bell, alan.bell@durham.gov.uk 01913891831
Local
MP for North Durham, Kevan Jones, Labour, www.kevanjonesmp.org.uk
Planning
Application reference: 2/12/00078/FUL, related documents can be accessed
via http://planning-cls.durham.gov.uk/publicaccess
Blog:
www.woodstonevillage.com
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