Former BSE cattle disposal facility challenge

This was a successful to redevelopment for housing at an old cattle rendering plant at Thruxted Mill in the Kent Downs AONB. Residents were concerned that what they believed to be a highly contaminated site has not been properly investigated before grant of outline planning permission for up to 20 homes.

The site had been used for dealing with cattle slaughtered during the 1990s BSE crisis. Ashford Borough Council were told that before the matter could be considered for planning permission, a proper assessment of its environmental impact was required, or it should make public its “screening opinion” and that the development was not likely to have significant effects so did not require a formal assessment. The Council took several months to produce this document, which indeed concluded that formal assessment was not required.

Local resident Camilla Swire was dissatisfied with the Council’s approach and asked the Secretary of State for Housing Communities and Local Government to make a “screening direction” that EIA was required. He also concluded it was not required, because the expected impacts could be dealt with by planning conditions. Mrs Swire challenged the Secretary of State on the basis that he had not understood Court of Appeal authority on how to approach these decisions properly: he could not be sure that significant effects were not a real possibility without knowing what carrying out complying with the conditions would involve.

Mrs Justice Lang sitting in the High Court’s Planning Court was unimpressed and quashed the decision. She said that although the Secretary of State had correctly recognised that the issue of BSE-related contamination required further investigation, assessment, and remediation of any contamination found, he dealt with what was before him in an unlawful way. There was a lack of any expert evidence and risk assessment on the nature of any BSE-related contamination at the Site and any hazards it might present to human health. The measures which might be required to remediate any such contamination and hazards had not been identified. The proposed planning condition would be agreed by the Council without any party knowing what the remediation for BSE-related infection might comprise. The Secretary of State was “was simply not in a position to make an “informed judgment” … as to whether, or to what extent, any proposed remedial measures could or would remediate any BSE-related contamination…“.

To date, after the application was positively screened, no statement has been forthcoming and the site remains undeveloped.