A public inquiry (PI) has confirmed that waste management specialist ANSA Environmental Services can have a variation to its licence at one of its operating centres, on the condition that all maintenance is carried out inside the company’s maintenance building with the doors closed.
NSA holds an O-licence for more than 100 vehicles, but this decision relates to its operating centre in Cledford Lane, Middlewich, Cheshire.
It had requested a variation – to operate 70 vehicles and nine trailers at the centre – to the licence as part of a company reorganisation.
ANSA, a private company that works for Cheshire East Council as well as Macclesfield and Congleton hospitals, was called to the PI following representations from nearby residents arising from large vehicles using the centre.
ANSA runs 67 bin lorries.The PI was told the site had been in industrial use for 100 years – at least as long as the nearby residences had been in existence.
Beyond the ANSA site is one run by British Salt, which the PI recorded operates continuously day and night.
Traffic commissioner (TC) Simon Evans said he had visited the operating centre and driven around the local area to spend time close to each of the addresses that had made representations.
Residents’ concerns included noise from the operation of trucks, as well as the level of fumes and dust affecting the air quality.
The TC observed that some of the residents’ comments were “understandably and necessarily prospective in the sense of them describing what they feared might be the case, rather than what they experienced so far”.
Evans added that mobile phone footage offered as evidence of the effect of the site was not taken from the property of anybody affected, but from a lay-by at the entrance to the centre.
