Residents Against Pollution has scored a great victory!

When we started our campaign in February last year there was a threat of a new waste facility on Blackhorse Lane. The North London Waste Plan proposed new sites for north London’s waste – mostly in the poorer working class areas along the Lea Valley – with the potential for a new incinerator in residential areas.

But we organised a campaign of local residents. After participating in the official consultations, holding big public meetings, leafleting our streets and the tube station, and protesting at the town hall, we are pleased to announce that we have won!

We demanded “Hands off Blackhorse Lane”. The latest stage of the consultation has been published – the “preferred options” report. In this report it is clear that Blackhorse Lane has been excluded from the plans – there will be no new waste facility in our area!

We demanded “No to incineration”. It is clear that the planners have moved away from incinerators, which we explained are dangerous to health and the environment, towards a policy of waste re-use, recycling and other methods of disposal such as composting.

We demanded “Give us a real say” – well we made sure our voices were heard.

However, we still have concerns and we still urge everyone to take part in this stage of the consultation process - to attend the information session on 19th October, to submit your views online, and to come to our next meeting where we will invite the consultants back again for clarification on some of the issues.

We are concerned still that:
Incineration is not ruled out – the future of Edmonton incinerator after its contract runs out in 2014 is not clear.
We want to know more about the other technologies that will be used – do these have damaging implications for health and living conditions?
Most of the new waste facilities are still concentrated in the Lea Valley.
The waste facilities will still be run by private companies for profit.

We want to raise these issues so the planners know we are looking over their shoulders – but at the same time we are happy to repeat – victory for Blackhorse Lane residents!