WHEN you or I are affected by planning law, we expect it to be applied strictly and would be surprised if it were not.
With industrial projects like ship dismantling, which have the seal of political approval and are regarded as desirable Government policy, then the rules appear to change and become much more accommodating.
One gets the impression that UK and inte
rnational laws and European directives on environmental matters are followed only when they are convenient.
Otherwise lame excuses, exemption certificates and ineffectual public enquiries are the order of the day.
Why otherwise should a vessel containing 700 tons of asbestos be brought to Hartlepool from Europe to be dismantled and the old asbestos stored in landfill.
It is said that Seaton Meadows landfill – the proposed home of this asbestos – is excessively high, too close to the high water mark and suffers from spontaneous fires!
First, Hartlepool is expected to dispose of toxic and hazardous waste from American ships. Now we are expected to dispose of Europe's asbestos!
To cap it all and add insult to injury, the Government has the audacity to push local authorities to have nuclear waste dumped in their back yards.
Presumably they work on the basis that up north we are all ignorant plebs, as they go on to describe this cash incentive as a reward!
Possible a reward for saving electricity by glowing in the dark.
Careful not to be injured in the rush as the council grabs this lovely loot. Do not be so naive as to assume the waste disposal sites have not been pinpointed – namely the "brine caverns" and anhydride mines near Greatham.
We lose schools, we lose hospitals, we lose our environment. We get waste in return.
Statutory duties seem to be abrogated, regulation and planning law is circumvented and common sense goes out the window.
We have no-one to turn to and are contemptuously dismissed by patronising experts.
Hartlepool is always being pressured into a future it does not want by people who apparently – couldn't care less.
Who can call a halt to these alarming future scenarios before they become bleak reality?
Peter West Bsc Hons,
Sandwich Grove,
Hartlepool.
The full article contains 366 words and appears in Hartlepool Mail newspaper.
