A Rushcliffe waste recycling facility has been granted permission to accept 150,000 extra tonnes of waste each year – despite health and road concerns from residents and councillors.
Nottinghamshire County Council’s Planning and Rights of Way Committee met on Tuesday (22 July) to discuss the extra tonnage going through the Bunny Materials Recycling Facility, located to the west of the A60 Loughborough Road, near Bunny Hill Top.
Site operator Johnson Aggregates submitted plans for the amount of waste tonnage currently going through the site per year to increase from 100,000 tonnes to 250,000 tonnes. The 100,000-tonne limit has been in operation since 1994.
Inert construction and demolition waste is crushed and screened on the site, and incinerator bottom ash (IBA) recycling has occurred on the site for around 12 years.
IBA is a form of ash produced in incineration facilities that, once processed to have contaminants removed, can be used as granules for construction purposes. Existing permission allows 100,000 tonnes of this to be accepted each year, transported in on lorries.
The site’s “significant import” of IBA stopped around the middle of 2023, and construction and demolition waste has not been processed since June 2024.
The amount of throughput of this waste increasing to more than double was approved by the committee on Tuesday with six votes in favour and four against – after a number of concerns were raised by residents and councillors.
Speaking in the meeting, Rebecca Ferguson, a mum living nearby to the site, called the application “extraordinary”.
She said: “The expansion isn’t needed. [The council’s] own waste needs assessment says there is a surplus waste capacity through to 2038 – that alone should be reason enough to refuse the application.
“If the site’s so vital, why has it sat underused for nearly two years? Even more concerning is 86 per cent of waste comes from outside the county, yet it’s our lungs and our community bearing the impact.”
Jonathan Smith, a Development Manager at the County Council, responded to this, saying: “[In the report] they acknowledge the waste needs assessment confirms sufficient recycling capacity for waste until 2038, but it also confirms that it’s not the plan’s intention to prevent further recycling capacity coming forward, as that would allow as much waste as possible to be treated.”
Rushcliffe Borough Councillor Andy Edyvean (Con), representing Bunny Parish Council, noted odour concerns from the waste recycling, saying: “IBA apparently has a distinctive odour. If you can smell it, it means there are chemicals present – and who knows what those chemicals are? Fresh air is odourless.”
He said previous plans to mitigate odour have not been complied with, adding that there are “plenty of complaints about odour in the area” and concluding that residents’ amenity will be “blighted” if plans were approved.
Mr Smith responded to this, stating odour comes under the responsibility of the Environment Agency, and the council “should assume” any regimes assessing odour would operate effectively.
The increased tonnage passing through the site means the number of lorries will more than double, with the maximum number of lorry movements in and out of the site proposed at 1,440, compared to the current 550 – an average of four extra movements an hour.
Cllr Sam Smith (Con) said: “Sitting in County Hall, [the] increase in lorries might not be an unacceptable impact, but if you live on the roads surrounding the application site, I can bet your bottom dollar the increase will have a massive impact on those that live there.”
Two condition breach notices were given by Nottinghamshire County Council’s enforcement officers in 2022 regarding breaking the tonnage limits and the number of lorries, where a 77 per cent increase in waste was put through the site in 2021.
The applicant is also seeking to change the site’s operational hours, including IBA waste being accepted on Sundays and public and bank holidays between 9am and 4pm, when this did not happen before.
Responding to the increased lorry movement concerns, Mr Smith said: “We’ve not had an objection from the highway authority on this – they do not consider the uplift to be significant.”
He said it is anticipated 60 per cent of the extra lorries will go towards Bunny Hill – bypassing Bunny village – with 30 per cent expected to go through the village.
Regarding the site’s increased hours, Mr Smith added: “The only activities that would be allowed between 9am and 4pm would be waste deliveries, with the acceptance of IBA waste, so there would be no processing on site, no export of processed material, no operation of any plant – very minimal activities.”
The committee was told the County Council’s VIA noise engineer raised no noise concerns for the extra lorry movements, and the air quality studies undertaken were acceptable – the applicant will update the dust management plan for the facility.
The increased throughput of waste and changes in operating hours would create between 12 and 15 full-time jobs.
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