Press Releases - ABLE

ABLE COMMENT RE: COUNCIL’S DEFERRAL DECISION
5th Oct 07

The decision by Hartlepool Councillors to further delay a decision on plans by Able UK for the development of its TERRC (Teesside Environmental Reclamation and Recycling Centre) facility at Graythorp has been described by the company Chairman as ‘a failure to act in the interests of local people which will cost huge investment and job opportunities for the area.’

Peter Stephenson was speaking following the decision by the Council’s Planning Committee to defer a decision on proposals which would enable TERRC to be developed for a wide range of purposes, including the construction, repair, refurbishment and decommissioning of ships, vessels and other craft, the manufacture of wind turbines, construction of drilling rigs together with refurbishment of the existing dry dock (largest in the world) and construction of new deep quays.

Prior to the meeting Mr Stephenson had made it very clear that timing was critical in clinching major construction contracts which would have brought £300million into the local economy and provided over 750 jobs over the next two years.

In October last year the Council’s Planning Committee refused similar applications from Able UK, but in June this year the Council withdrew its objections to the appeal. The Planning Inquiry into ABLE’s appeal against those refusals begins next Tuesday and Mr Stephenson says that, whilst he is very hopeful that the inquiry will rule in the company’s favour, the decision will come too late to avoid losing major business for the Region.

He explained “For the second time, Councillors were being advised by their own Officers, and now also by their independent consultants to approve the proposals. The independent consultants advised the committee that the proposals would not result in harm to either the human or wildlife environments – which is also the view of Natural England. Given that they had decided not to contest the appeal against their previous refusal, there can be no justification whatsoever for the failure of the Planning Committee Members to make a decision today on what surely must be amongst the most scrutinised planning applications there has ever been.

“ Our Managing Director, in his presentation to the Committee, offered cooperation for the long-term benefit of the town – this has clearly been completely rejected.

“ The Council was fully aware that it was imperative we received planning approval in order for us to begin large scale construction contracts next year—and that, if we did not receive planning approval in October then the work would be lost.

“Inevitably, if we have to wait until the outcome of the forthcoming Planning Inquiry, which probably will not report until early next year, these contracts—and with them the £50m investment and 750plus jobs they would bring to the area—will be lost.

“ Today’s decision is all the more incomprehensible given that there has been a very full public consultation process during which any concerns could have been raised or relevant material produced. We firmly believe that the documentation produced by some objectors today bears no relevance to these applications and provides no justification whatsoever for the deferment of a decision. There has been a sustained campaign against us based on inaccurate information and scaremongering and it is completely unacceptable that councilors have relied on this to avoid making the decision.

Their Lawyers advised the Councillors that they could not defer simply to pass the responsibility onto someone else which seems to be precisely what they have done. We believe the deferment was unlawful.

“ Over the past four years a huge amount of attention has been concentrated on the issue of ship recycling, but that is just a relatively small element of the work we want to bring to TERRC…something in the order of 4 per cent in terms of turnover for the next four years.

“ The potential contracts we have in the pipeline—and which are dependent on a positive planning decision on October—include the construction of oil and gas platforms and drilling rigs, as well as concrete tunnel segments, and wind turbine towers—and the recycling of redundant offshore oil and gas platforms which we have successfully and safely carried out at TERRC over many years.

“ I only hope that, even at this stage, Members of Hartlepool Council Planning Committee will think again and make a clear and firm positive decision in the interests of local people, especially those who could gain much-needed and employment and the many local businesses that would benefit from the huge investment which would come from having the largest dry dock in the world.”

The company had hoped that work on contracts for steel and concrete construction projects would get underway by summer 2008, together with the start of the recycling of six vessels already berthed there, including the four redundant vessels from the American National Defense Reserve Fleet.

The vessels, the Caloosahatchee, Canisteo, Compass Island and Canopus arrived at TERRC in November 2003, but the company was unable to go ahead with work on recycling them following a court ruling against HBC stating that their previous planning permission allowing the recycling of ‘marine structures’ did not include ‘ships’.

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