Derby campaigner Dorothy Skrytek to take on Eric Pickles over waste plan
AN environment campaigner is to take on a Government minister in a last-gasp court bid to halt a controversial city waste plant.
Dorothy Skrytek, who once set up home on the roof of Derby’s old bus station in a bid to stop it being demolished, will go head-to-head with Communities Secretary Eric Pickles in a David and Goliath battle.
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Dorothy Skrytek and Communities Secretary Eric Pickles
She is the figurehead of a High Court attempt by environmentalists to stop a controversial gasification complex planned to treat Derbyshire’s waste.
Miss Skrytek, from Derby & South Derbyshire Friends of the Earth, and protest group Sinfin and Spondon Against Incineration (SSAIN) have battled the plant plans since they were first announced in 2008. They fear emissions would cause health problems for people living nearby.
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Miss Skrytek, 51, won fame in January 2006 when she protested against the city’s new bus station by living in her caravan on the old site’s roof for three-and-a-half months. Now she is taking on the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Mr Pickles, Derby City Council, and the firm behind the waste plant, Resource Recovery Solutions (RRS).
At a High Court hearing in Manchester on Friday, March 15, Miss Skrytek will challenge RRS’s permission to build.
Mr Pickles is involved because the latest decision to give the plant the green light was made by a planning inspector on his behalf.
Battling Miss Skrytek, of Normanton, said she was “looking forward to the challenge”. She said: “I think we stand a good chance because the law is on our side.
“This is the biggest campaign I’ve been involved with because it cuts across so many areas – emissions, traffic, climate change.
“It’s a difficult thing to get ready for but it’s become second nature as I’ve attended two inquiries and a court hearing on the subject already.”
SSAIN chairman Simon Bacon “It’s a David and Goliath battle – members of the public against big business and Eric Pickles. I’m proud to be a part of it and to continue the battle. No retreat, no surrender is our policy.”
Miss Skrytek said her lawyers had made an application for legal aid but had not yet heard back.
She said that, in the meantime, a fund had been set up to raise cash to help pay for legal representation at the hearing, which had already attracted donations.
The city and county councils entered into an agreement with RRS in 2009 to deal with the county’s waste for 27 years.
The waste treatment plant in Sinfin Lane was intended to be a central part of this work, dealing with 200,000 tonnes of the county’s household waste a year.
It would heat-treat the rubbish, creating gas which is then burned to generate electricity.
RRS’s plans were originally rejected by the city council’s planning committee as councillors feared environmental damage and traffic problems.
But the company challenged the rejection and was successful in getting it overturned on the grounds that the original inspector had failed to properly take certain important documents into account. In September 2012, another planning inspector gave the plant the go-ahead.
The United Kingdom Without Incineration Network (UKWIN) has been giving Miss Skrytek legal support. Its national co-ordinator, Shlomo Dowen, CRRCT said: “The important question is whether the proposed incinerator is a recovery facility, in that it is a valuable source of electricity, or it essentially a site for waste disposal, like a landfill site?”
A spokesperson for RRS said: “We are aware of the legal challenge and will review it and comment in due course.”
City council leader Paul Bayliss, who has said the authority had no option but to press ahead with the contract for the plant because the council would be sued if it reneged, said: “We will have to wait and see what the judgement is.”
50 Comments
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by kessie2012
Monday, February 04 2013, 10:46AM
“spondon you are correct when rolls royce were in trouble derby people fought hard to save your company .where are you now on this .no where yet it will be built next door to you , often you release kerosene into the air surely the fumes could catch fire from the flames of an incinerator flash point maybe ,or do you prefer it to be built next door to you to hide your pollution and crimes .blame each other ,basis .yes ratepayers helped you now you dessert us , thats the thanks derby get for suffering illness through your company that help cause it perhaps when this incinerator case is over and dorothy has won she may look more into your pollution sinfin 576 cancers at pressent .mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm who adds to that”
by DerbyFoE
Monday, February 04 2013, 7:23AM
“Parliamentary Aidit Committee Air Quality Report
http://tinyurl.com/89x7gxk”
by DerbyFoE
Monday, February 04 2013, 7:05AM
“We are very good at creating ingenious ways of producing birth defects
http://tinyurl.com/cmmj5wr”
by DerbyFoE
Monday, February 04 2013, 6:59AM
“actty – waste is not burgeoning - UK waste is falling - more people are reducing, reusing and recycling, as well as less plastics packaging being produced (from fossil fuels, to be conserved under UK Sustainability Objectives) Coloured plastics give off dioxin when burned - under the Persistent Organic Pollutants Treaty, which the UK signed, we are supposed to be reducing the creation of dioxin and educating women and children about dioxin, as dioxin passes through the placenta into the foetus. (See dioxin history in Vietnam, Bhopal etc and lately in Corby UK where it caused birth defects) The Derby prototype incinerator on the Isle of Wight breached dioxin levels by 800% and is to be closed down next year. Yet the plans are to build an almost identical AND unaffordable one in a city where we ALL already live a full year less than the national average (Local Transport PLan 3)
RRS/Shanks have stated that Deaths Brought Forward will be caused in people who are seriously ill, because of particulates from their chimney stack, and life expectancy may thus be reduced by 2-6 months. More info on
http://tinyurl.com/cypct3p which confirms that the air we breathe is not good enough and is not improving. Why worsen it
The waste hierarchy is clear -REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE, before incineration and landfill; this is supposed to be applied across all sectors, not just domestic waste, but commercial and industrial.
Derby and South Derbyshire Friends of the Earth”
by Pagenotfound
Sunday, February 03 2013, 11:47PM
“So why do you keep suggesting putting all your so called undesirables in the vicinity of the plant?
You don't really seem to know what to think yourself, if it's safe, what exactly would that achieve?
Are you now suggesting your not the same poster, many times banned, with an accountancy 'firm'
You may recall an earlier post on this same story where I said I was your neighbour in Mickleover
Derby is a small place it has it's characters, people are indetifiable”
by Pagenotfound
Sunday, February 03 2013, 10:40PM
“I wonder if for all his bravado and died in the wool opinions if Spring_bok (John) is aware that the site of this fCulity is less than 4 miles as the wind blows from his own small ideal part of "richer suburb" Mickleover”
by Pagenotfound
Sunday, February 03 2013, 10:22PM
“"People in industrial heavily trafficked Sinfin live almost a full year less than people in Allestree"
To be fair the people in Allestree probably wish they live a year less too
Save a fair bit on those big mortgages...
I jest, but good luck Dorothy and can the other two trolls please pick a less significant story to have their lovers tiff on, perhaps this one - http://tinyurl.com/azd2ywv”
by shiftworker
Sunday, February 03 2013, 8:59PM
“Rolls Royce have been polluting the air again with kerosene odours around these parts. Now we've probably got this plant to add to the mix. The whole area is low-land and lies in a basin making any pollution hang around for us all to inhale. What a great plan this is then. It solves the councils waste problems and gets rid of the lower classes all in one go.”
by asctty
Sunday, February 03 2013, 8:16PM
“DerbyFoE - Any useful response to my question?”
by DerbyFoE
Sunday, February 03 2013, 7:47PM
“Apologies - missing link
http://tinyurl.com/ayuqlpq”