Council demands more information on controversial landfill proposal due to "omissions and inaccuracies” in the planning application

A CONTROVERSIAL proposal to create a huge new landfill site near Exeter has been called into question due to “omissions and inaccuracies” in the planning application.   

BT Jenkins Ltd wants to turn 75 acres of green fields at Lower Brenton Farm at Kennford, near Exeter, into a landfill for up to 700,000 cubic metres of construction waste, as well as an industrial scale demolition waste crushing facility.

The company has earmarked the farm known as the Orange Elephant, off the A38, as a replacement for their Trood Lane landfill site at Matford in Exeter, which has reached capacity.

But there has been fierce opposition to the planning application, and more than 2,850 people have signed a petition against the proposal.

Now, Devon County Council has demanded that Tetra Tech Planning - which is handling the application on behalf of BT Jenkins - provides more detail on the environmental impact of the landfill site.

A letter from the council to Tetra Tech says: "It is clear that further environmental information is necessary to address omissions and inaccuracies within the submitted Environmental Statement together with other documents accompanying the application."

After the initial planning application was submitted in December 2021, residents set up a community action group called Residents Against The Landfill (RATL) to fight the scheme.

That original proposal was withdrawn in March 2022, just days before Devon County Council’s Development Management Committee (DMC) was due to meet to decide on the scheme - with a recommendation from planning officers to refuse the application.  

BT Jenkins returned with a new application, just within the 12-month deadline for resubmission, but it was not made public until late July 2023. At the time, the company admitted it had “got it wrong” with the first proposal.

The main changes in the new proposal are for a reduced landfill volume (down from 1.2 million to 700,000 cubic metres), for the vehicular entrance to be off the A38/Brenton Road overbridge instead of the A379, and for the hardcore crusher to be in a less visible position in the southern valley.

Since then, over 900 objections to the revised plans have been recorded by Devon County Council.

The communities which would be directly affected by the landfill include Kenn, Kennford, Clapham, Shillingford St. George and Shillingford Abbot. The proposed site is in a designated Area of Great Landscape Value, and residents are upset about the threat to their quality of life, and the loss of countryside recreation and scenic landscape views.

John Nuttall, one of the founding members of RATL, said: “If this enormous landfill site goes ahead, Kenn will have the dubious distinction of being the only parish in England to have two landfill sites within its boundaries.  

“This brings with it the prospect of over 500 HGVs coming and going each working day along roads and country lanes not designed for heavy lorries, all of which will destroy the peace and tranquillity of a beautiful countryside location, not to mention the very real dangers to pedestrians, cyclists, horse riders and other drivers.”

A respected local wildlife photographer and enthusiast, Trevor Ridgers, spelled out the irreversible cost to wildlife and rare and endangered species in particular: "The proposed development is so large that it would unleash total war on the flora and fauna that lives not only within the boundary of the site but collectively within the surrounding landscape. Greater horseshoe bats, cirl buntings and many other bird species with regional, county and district importance would be put at significant risk.

“The proposed mitigation measures offer little more than a magical optimism that somehow, when the right amount of greenwashing is applied, wildlife will be okay. The reality is, with the continuing erosion of the landscape along the Kenn Valley, this area needs protecting."

According to Mike Elliott, a Shillingford Abbot resident, the new landfill site is not even needed: “The application is based on out-of-date data and projections made on unreliable assumptions. These are contradicted by the latest data from the Environment Agency and DCC’s own need assessment, published in October.

“On top of that, earlier this year, planning permission was granted to import approximately 940,000 cubic metres of inert waste for the restoration of Zig Zag Quarry, near Newton Abbot. This waste recovery is much more appropriate and desirable than a new landfill.”

Lower Brenton has been a farm for more than 800 years and the Taverner family – which runs the nearby Orange Elephant Ice Cream Parlour – has been farming there for five generations. It is understood that the Taverners would be paid an undisclosed sum by BT Jenkins for use of their land for the landfill and recycling centre.

Parts of five of the steepest fields would be filled with inert material from nearby construction, demolition and excavation schemes, but also potentially from as far away as Plymouth and Torbay. Once full, the landfill would be covered over and the fields would once again be usable as farmland, the application says.

BT Jenkins also claimed there will be no increase in traffic in the area as vehicles will use the same route as their previous landfill site at Trood Lane, although this and other assumptions in their Transport Statement have now been questioned by the planning authority.

It added that the impact on the environment due to the landfill site “will mostly be temporary, and varied in nature and degree during construction, operation and restoration”. However, residents argue it is misleading to refer to a development that will blight the area for 10 years or more as temporary, and the council has also asked for more details about the environmental impact of the proposed development.

BT Jenkins has not yet said how long it will need to respond to the latest request for additional information. Once submitted, there will be a further consultation period before a decision on the planning application is made by DCC’s Development Management Committee.