We might wonder, what, in society, is ‘due’ to us and what we are ‘due’ to offer society. It has been said that the most important thing due to us is the freedom to discover who and what we are: anything that impedes that, impedes the heart of Justice. Closer to ground level, I think each one of us is due the rays of the sun, clean air, rain and pure water, and fresh unpolluted earth.
Enter Otterpool Lane Quarry site and the proposal of Countrystyle Ltd to build a Waste Treatment Processing Plant there. Various agencies exist to maintain our just dues of sunshine, air, rain and earth, and one of them is the Environment Agency. They recommend that Anaerobic Digestion and the material that has been digested should not be processed or stored less than 250 metres from any habitation where food is being prepared. In Germany and America, similar agencies are recommending best practice to be that habitations and food processing areas should be at least 500 metres away from waste treatment processing.
Now, dead opposite the proposed treatment site at Otterpool Lane, not more than 50 metres away from the Quarry gate, is a well known food processing site in a very human habitation called ‘The Airport Café’. It has been trading for over 40 years and as we all know, it is a café that serves among many other good things, a superb breakfast. And we know the owners Patrick and Julie Breen have worked hard to develop their business. I would say that this hardworking couple pay their dues to our society by providing a good service and continuing to develop their catering standards. Surely they deserve sunshine, clean air, clean water and unpolluted earth. Others too, have homes nearby this proposed site – for a start those living in Newingreen, Stanford and Lympne and 1,300 of us living in Sellindge. And we would all like what is justly due to us. We don’t even want the danger or a possibility of sunshine being obscured by waste processing gases and odours, or air borne diseases, or poisoned water or fouled land. What we want is Justice. And as the flood picture in the January Sellindge Newsletter show, Sellindge is regularly subject to extreme weather conditions that would sweep the waste treatment poisons straight across the A20 right into the Airport Café, into the fields and into the ditches that lead straight to the river Stour. As my Grandchildren would say “Come on Countrystyle – get real!”.
A further meeting has been organised by Kent County Council to be held at Lympne Village Hall on 8th February at 7.00pm (KCC delayed their visit on 13th January due to the snow as they wanted to personally see the site). Please may the young and not so young make every effort to be there even if for a short time. Let us convey to Countrystyle Ltd. our thoughts as to where to stuff their fetid waste and let us reasonably suggest to KCC that waste treatment is best processed far away from human habitations. I look forward to seeing you at the meeting.
Ronald Lello – Chairman Sellindge and District Residents Association
