Acorn is not following the correct planning process and they’re proposing to build the site in completely the wrong place. The proposed site is not an industrial location as it should be, but is rural, productive arable land, close to many villages and towns: Aynho, Barley Mow, Brackley, Charlton, Cottisford, Croughton, Evenley, Farthinghoe, Fringford, Fulwell, Hardwick, Hethe, Hinton in the Hedges, Juniper, Mixbury, Turweston, Westbury would all be negatively impacted. Evenley, the closest village, is less than 2km away! It makes absolutely no sense to build one of the largest sites of its kind in the UK here.

A pre-existing landfill or other brownfield site with local access to large volumes of waste makes far, far more sense - the government’s own target for the East Midlands (including Northamptonshire) states north of the county is preferable as there are old brownfield (ex-steel works) sites. The UK has limited countryside as it is - we need to make sure it isn’t depleted further!

This site is not part of North Northamptonshire, the area suggested for this type of thing in any case, nor is the site in WNC’s designated area of growth - and quite rightly, as the site is rural, productive greenfield farmland and countryside! Totally inappropriate for industrial development.

Although anaerobic digestion is in theory a closed and controlled process, there is a high chance of releasing highly odoriferous, dangerous compounds if processes aren’t followed correctly. These can spread for many miles and negatively affect humans and animals alike. Many existing sites have had huge issues with air pollution to both humans and animals and there is no reason to believe this site would be any different. Here are just a few examples:

• In January 2020, a petition of over 1000 signatures called for the Cannock Chase, Staffordshire plant to be closed because of odour issues. (Source: Express & Star)

• A company in Middlesbrough specialising in anaerobic digestion has been ordered to pay £19,670 for odour pollution. BioConstruct NewEnergy, operating in Imperial Avenue, pleaded guilty at Teesside Magistrates Court to offences which occurred in July 2018. (Source: Energy Live News - password protected).

• Residents in a Somerset village have said more needs to be done to tackle a "sewage-like smell" coming from Cannington Bio Energy's anaerobic digestion plant. Rene Taylor, who runs Currypool Mill campsite near the plant, said "the odours can be very, very bad, especially if the wind's in this direction. Even inside the house, you get this sickly odour which is almost like a combination of dog's muck and burnt plastic.” (Source: BBC)

In this plan, there are also three digestate lagoons that would be used for collecting rain and foul water to worry about! These would be open and carry a further, high risk of releasing ammonia emissions into the air. They would not only smell pungent but also lead to increased acid depositions and excessive levels of nutrients in any nearby soil, rivers and lakes, negatively impacting aquatic ecosystems and causing damage to woodland, crops and other vegetation.

Acorn claims that no smells would travel to nearby villages but the media articles mentioned above strongly suggest otherwise… and anyone who lives in Evenley will know that if the Star Spangled Banner can reach the village at 5pm from RAF Croughton each day, so can dangerous and horrible smells from slurry pools. An expert in anaerobic digestion has also confirmed this with us! Read more about the risk of ammonia emissions here.

Contradicting Acorn’s claims, the Environment Agency states that there is a medium risk of bad odours traveling through the air, particularly when the site receives the waste (which we can understand from Acorn’s proposals will be 7 days a week).

Although anaerobic digesters capture the gas emitted through the process when working properly (which we’ve already seen they don’t always do), the subsequent combustion of this gas into usable heat or electricity generates air pollutants regardless, including carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulphur dioxide (SO2). Among other conditions, these have potential to cause respiratory illness to anyone living close to the site, as outlined by the Environment Agency, which has stated this as medium risk. The release of micro-organisms (bioaerosols) traveling through the air also has the potential to harm humans and cause respiratory illness.

According to Acorn, in one day in mid-March their own survey counted approximately 85 HGV movements, but they claim the plant could increase this by a further 130+ HGV/tractors during peak months and a terrifying overall annual increase of 9,000+ slow-moving heavy goods vehicles! Even then, we don’t believe they are telling us the full story. The most recent data available on Road Traffic Statistics shows that on average 3,965 HGVs travel on the road - every day.

Acorn has also failed to acknowledge in their planning application any additional water that may need transporting to the site, which will further increase the number of large tankers on our roads. The Barley Mow roundabout is not safe and this would only make it worse.

Their projections also don’t take into account the significant increase in traffic on the horizon from HS2 following the construction proposed at Junction 10 of the M40. There isn’t the infrastructure to cope with. even more slow-moving HGV traffic: it’s only a matter of time before there’s another fatal accident on our roads.

Acorn will tell you that the location identified has easy access to the A43 and M40, but it will be impossible to control the route drivers take. Especially when traffic is already bad, Google Maps will tell HGV drivers to divert from the main roads: we’ll see them taking routes through the villages of Evenley, Croughton, Aynho, Farthinghoe and others. All of these have bottlenecks where the road narrows to one lane and in some cases it will be impossible for HGVs to pass. Congestion will be terrible and there will be serious risk to life.

In August 2019, on the B4031 (where the waste facility would be accessed), Harry Dunn was tragically killed and there have been countless accidents on the A43 and Evenley roundabout, including 13 major incidents in the space of 15 days in November/December last year. Local villages, many of which have primary schools on the main roads, will not be able to cope with these large numbers of slow, large and heavy vehicles - often carrying hazardous materials. It just a matter of time before we see another tragedy.

Close to the listed medieval village of Astwick, a great tournament field of medieval England lies on the site Acorn is proposing to build on. We now know that in 1194 Richard 1st designated hundreds of acres of heathland in a rough crescent shape extending from immediately south of Hinton and sweeping anti-clockwise touching the east of Croughton parish, through Barley Mow farm and along north of the Buckingham road towards Mixbury, as one of only six sites in England where tournaments could be held. Tournaments are known to have been held here in 1249, 1267 and 1313.

With only six tournament fields known to have existed across the whole of the UK, it is imperative that rare archeological evidence is not destroyed or permanently damaged or hidden by the construction and ongoing disturbance of this anaerobic plant.

Acorn Bioenergy has submitted its plans to an archeological advisor at Northamptonshire Council who acknowledges that the site has potential for prehistoric, Roman and Medieval activity and proposes that trial trenching should be undertaken to assess the area. However, Acorn has failed to mention in its planning application the fact that the proposed site is immediately adjacent to Astwick. As a Scheduled Monument, the area is protected against ground disturbance or unlicensed metal detecting and to damage it in any way is a criminal offence.

The moat and medieval village site at Astwick likely has archaeological deposits retaining considerable potential to increase our understanding of the physical characteristics of the buildings and settlement, which is likely to have included a small group of houses, gardens, yards, paddocks, a manor, church and a green. It must be protected.

Despite efforts to the contrary, many devastating and damaging environmental incidents have taken place on sites like the one proposed here. The Environment Agency has tracked rising incidents at anaerobic digestion plants of serious pollution in some cases increasing more than 50% each year. In 2019, more than 10,000 fish were killed in a river as a result of ingesting anaerobic digestate (the solid and liquid waste that cannot be digested).

Surrounded by productive greenfield arable countryside and wildlife, this is not a risk that should be taken here. For more details on the gravity of incidents that have already taken place across the UK, take a look at the Environment Agency’s report here.

George Monbiot’s article on the subject also makes for interesting reading!

An explosion of biogas risks causing fire and smoke to travel through the air - and the Environment Agency claims there is a medium risk rating for this. The consequences of an accident of this kind on a site like the one proposed could be catastrophic. According to Biogas World, there were about 800 accidents on biogas plants between 2005 and 2015 in Europe and examples of UK instances can be found in this report.

This issue does not appear to have been addressed by Acorn’s proposals and will no doubt be of interest to the UK Ministry of Defence and USAF at RAF Croughton. We have informed them of Acorn’s plans.

The proposed site is totally wrong for such a plant: it’s far from partner sites and does not integrate with other waste management activities, such as large wastewater treatment plants, commercial livestock farms and manufacturing facilities. It is this integration that would enable real waste to be used efficiently as fuel, instead of requiring crops to be imported to use instead, as this project proposes. This would be incredibly wasteful and goes against the government’s National Energy Efficiency Action Plan. Major sewage plants should have anaerobic digestion plants on site, not isolated countryside locations like this.

Instead of using only locally produced waste (as anaerobic plants like this are designed for), this venture plans to use up to 97,600 tonnes of crops every year (silage, rye, maize and grass) to undergo anaerobic digestion at the proposed plant. Furthermore, this will all be transported from non-local sources!

To produce enough maize - for example - to fuel this would require nearly 7,000 acres of farmland… that’s the equivalent of 4840 football pitches! That’s also 7000 acres taken out of food production, not to mention the potential food crops that would be taken out of circulation by destroying productive farmland to build the plant in the first place.

Take a look at George Monbiot’s article on the subject for more detail.

Acorn Bioenergy submitted plans to Natural England based on ‘desk research’ (they didn’t even bother to visit the site) and concluded that the “proposed development will not have likely significant effects on statutory protected sites”. Stop right there. We live in the area and know how beautiful the countryside is around here and how it is home to innumerable wildlife, including barn owls, bats, mice, muntjac deer and many different species of birds. For this reason alone, the proposals should not be taken any further until there has been a full evaluation of all the wildlife in the area.

If this proposal goes ahead, it will set a dangerous precedent for building industrial sites on rural, greenfield locations. The countryside would be ruined: this site would cover 15 acres (that’s the size of 5 Evenley village greens or 13 football pitches - big enough to park 4,000 double decker buses) and reach up to 17.5m high (that’s four double decker buses, one on top of the other)!

The digestate tanks alone would be up to 17.5m/57ft high (a double decker bus is 4m/14ft high) and the gas flare stack would be 8.7m high. The straw building would be 67.1m long, 155.1m wide and 7.16m to the ridge. This would make it one of the largest in the UK.

No amount of landscaping can possibly be expected to make up for this.

As outlined in the Statutory Guidance prepared by the Environment Agency, there is a medium risk of this causing problem for local residents, resulting in nuisance, loss of amenity and loss of sleep.

To make matters worse, the plant must be kept on 24 hours a day, so any impact will be ceaseless.

Acres of Northamptonshire countryside would be destroyed and the air polluted if this plan goes ahead. Valuable crops would be destroyed and traffic congestion and pollution would markedly increase - all for a plant that plans on shipping the energy created outside the county!

The plant itself also only has a lifetime of 25 years and would only employ up to 8 people at most! Acorn tells us in their planning application that the site would generate jobs and support the local community. The creation of 7-8 jobs over a site the size of 13 football pitches is not something to brag about. If you want to talk about job creation, look at the businesses that are truly supporting our communities, including Mercedes AMG and Bicester Village.

The facility would be fed with agricultural waste from other counties while the energy it creates would be used outside Northamptonshire! This does not fit in with WNC’s sustainable waste management plan. Evenley is also not within the ‘Northamptonshire central spine’ as proposed in WNC Mineral and Waste Local Plan.

Acorn has not followed the correct and appropriate planning process: they have failed to consult with residents that directly neighbour the proposed site, including Barley Mow. It wouldn’t be allowed if you were planning to extend your home and it shouldn’t be acceptable for such a huge industrial site either.

The planning application is made on behalf of Acorn Bioenergy Ltd at Astwick Green Power site. A Companies House search reveals that one director’s name appears on 72 limited companies details, 45 of which are currently active. One of those is Astwick Green Power Ltd. Astwick Green Power holds some 75% of the shares in Acorn Bioenergy. Current directors of both companies are investment directors or managers and appear to be associated with Santander Global Markets or Spanish energy firms.

We surmise that Acorn Bioenergy has no intention to help the community by providing (at most 8) jobs for the area. It does not care about helping local farms, removing their waste to create energy and being part of the circular economy. It is just part of a larger money-making scheme. The directors should be ashamed of themselves.

We urge the council to reject the application.