Two upcoming public meetings are planned for September, in Ealing and Harrow. The first of these will take place at the Ealing Friends Meeting House, Woodville Road, 7.30pm on Thursday 16th September and the second will be at Northolt Road Hall, Northolt Road, Harrow, 7.30pm on Thursday 23rd September. (Please contact SAIN for more details or to help with publicity etc)
Meanwhile SAIN are still active in Slough. Since the victory achieved in ousting the Labour Slough Borough Council in June, SAIN have been pressing for the council to investigate the potential for revoking the planning consent issued to Grundon. We are pleased to say that Slough Borough Council have engaged legal advice to achieve this end and SAIN will continue to follow and aid this process.
For more details or to join the fight please contact SAIN at mail4.sain@virgin.net or alternatively please ring SAIN on 01628 662774. For more in depth information and updates please see the campaign website at www.sainslough.co.uk.
Background notes:
Slough Borough Council issued planning consent in June 2000 for Grundon Waste Management Ltd to build two new waste incinerators at their site in Colnbrook near Hillingdon. The first would be a 440,000 tonne per year municipal waste incinerator (the second largest in Europe) and the second would be clincal waste incinerator, burning 17,000 tonnes per year of hazardous and radioactive clinical, military and GMO waste. The Environment Agency issued a license to operate in 2003.
25 local GP's spoke out against this plan early in 2004, and Slough Anti-Incinerator Network (SAIN) formed to fight the proposal. The major concerns about this plan are health related as studies show links between incinerators and huge increases in cancers, heart disease, respiritory problems and foetal/reproductive problems. The claim from the industry that new incinerators are safe is based entirely upon guesswork as no long term studies have yet been carried out on these plants. The population is essentially being used as an experiment. Environmental concerns are also paramount as incineration releases climate changing gas as well as detracting from globally necessary efforts at waste minimisation and recycling.