Report to Scrutiny Item Number: Contains Confidential or No Exempt Information Pollution issues relating to the FM Conway Ltd asphalt Subject of Report: plant in Hayes and the regeneration work at the Southall Waterside site Scrutiny Review Panel 3: Air Quality Meeting: 27 September 2018 John Freeman, Regulatory Services Officer, Service Report Author: [email protected], 020 8825 7226 Harjeet Bains, Scrutiny Review Officer, Scrutiny Officer: [email protected], 020 8825 7120 Cabinet Responsibility: Cllr Julian Bell (Regeneration and Transport) Cllr Mik Sabiers (Environment and Highways) Cllr Binda Rai (Health and Adults’ Services) Tony Clements, Executive Director, Regeneration and Director Responsibility: Housing, [email protected], 020 8825 8531 To consider the information provided on pollution issues relating to the FM Conway Ltd asphalt plant in Hayes and the Brief: regeneration work at the Southall Waterside site and make recommendations accordingly. The Panel is recommended to: Recommendations: - consider and comment on the information provided; and - make suggestions for further improvements appropriately. Page 1 of 35 1. Pollution issues relating to the FM Conway Ltd asphalt plant in Hayes and the regeneration work at the Southall Waterside site Introduction Two industrial sites in or adjacent to West Southall have been the subject of numerous odour complaints from residents, businesses and employees in Southall Green and Southall Broadway wards. The sites concerned are (a) the roadstone coating (asphalt) plant located in North Hyde Gardens, Hayes, operated by F.M. Conway Ltd and (b) the ‘soil treatment hospital’ within the Southall Waterside development site (the former Southall Gasworks). The map below shows the location of the two sites in relation to the surrounding residential and commercial areas of Southall. Figure 1 Location map of F.M. Conway Ltd and Southall Waterside soil hospital sites Complaints of odour from both sites have been received from a wide area of Southall, as illustrated in Figure 2 below. Since the area affected by the two odour sources overlaps to some degree depending on the wind direction, there has at times been difficulty in assigning the source of the odour, particularly when wind speeds have been low. Please note therefore (a) that the site initially assigned as the source by the complainant is shown, which in some cases might have been incorrect and (b) that multiple complaints have been received from some addresses about the same site. A more detailed breakdown of complaints will be provided as a supplement to this report. Page 2 of 35 Figure 2 Map showing geographical distribution of complaints received The F.M. Conway Ltd roadstone coating plant In 2012 the London Borough of Hillingdon received a planning application for the development of a new industrial facility at the former Powergen site in North Hyde Gardens, Hayes, located close to the boundary with the London Borough of Ealing in Southall. The development included the construction of a new roadstone coating plant for the manufacture of road surfacing products. The plant comprises equipment for heating asphalt and mixing it with stone and other additives to produce a range of road surfacing materials. There was also proposed a separate plant for recycling material that had been removed from existing road surfaces, known either as “Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement” or “Recycled Asphalt Planings” and abbreviated to RAP. Ealing Council was consulted on the planning application for the plant and raised an objection on the grounds of the likely adverse impact of emissions on air quality in Southall, increased traffic flow and detriment to visual amenity, however the application was granted in August 2013. The new F.M. Conway plant was constructed and started operations in 2014. Roadstone coating plants are one of the categories of polluting industrial activities that are subject to regulation under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 (as amended). A company proposing to operate such a facility must apply to the local authority for an environmental permit, which in this case is the London Borough of Hillingdon. F.M. Conway Ltd’s permit was granted in September 2014 and extracts from it are attached in the Appendix. Page 3 of 35 Odour complaints and the local authorities’ response The first complaints of a strong bitumen odour from the plant were received in early July 2014 from a business in Trident Way, Southall. Subsequently many more complaints followed from other business and residents, mainly in Southall Green ward. From the outset, complaints made to Ealing Council have been referred to the London Borough of Hillingdon. Where possible, officers from Ealing’s Response team have attended to try and witness odour at the complainants’ premises and to assist Hillingdon in their enforcement role. In response to ongoing complaints, Hillingdon officers asked F.M. Conway Ltd to undertake measurements of odorous emissions from their plant and they commissioned an environmental monitoring consultancy to carry out a survey of emissions both from the chimney and from the loading bay to the plant. In view of widespread concern amongst complainants as to the potential health effects of the bituminous odours they were exposed to, both within Hillingdon’s own area and from the affected parts of Southall, the London Borough of Hillingdon also sought advice and assistance from Public Health England, whose Environmental Hazards and Emergencies Department undertook an analysis of the emissions survey results. An extract from the PHE report is given below: Page 4 of 35 The report concluded: In 2015, F.M. Conway Ltd agreed to undertake improvements to their plant in an attempt to reduce odorous emissions. The works agreed with the London Borough of Hillingdon as regulator included (a) an increase in the height of the chimney serving the plant to the maximum permitted by the Civil Aviation Authority and (b) the provision of an extraction and filtration system to the loading bay to prevent the escape of odorous emissions during the loading of lorries with (hot) coated material for dispatch. These improvement works were completed in April 2016, but unfortunately the works did not bring about a cessation of complaint from the previously affected area of Southall. In 2017 it is understood that following the retirement of the officer who had previously been responsible for the F.M. Conway plant, the London Borough of Hillingdon appointed a new specialist contractor to undertake their environmental permitting regulatory functions. The contractor subsequently undertook a site visit to the plant in order to review operations and the measures in place to control odour emissions. It was learnt that early in February 2018, Hillingdon Council served an enforcement notice on the company in relation to the use of an incorrect fuel in the plant. At the time of writing (17 September 2018), the most recent advice from the London Borough of Hillingdon is that the company is operating the plant in full compliance with their permit conditions and that the numbers of complaints they are receiving have decreased considerably. Lessons learned Subject to available resources, the Council must continue to ensure that applications for polluting development in neighbouring adjacent boroughs are fully appraised for potential impacts on Ealing borough. Neighbouring local authorities must maintain clear lines of communication and agreed approaches to complaint logging and response. The Southall Waterside development site soil treatment hospital Southall Waterside is a major brownfield regeneration scheme in the west of the borough located on the former Southall Gasworks site. The developer, Berkeley Group, has outline permission for a large mixed-use development across the site. Page 5 of 35 The extensive contamination of the soil arising from the former gasworks and chemical works that operated on the site from the late 19th century until the late 1960s needs to be treated in order to make the land safe and suitable for its new uses. Though contaminated soil can, in principle, be removed from site and treated elsewhere, this would involve many HGV movements in and out of the site. As an alternative, in situ remediation methods are available, and have been deployed in this case, in which various soil remediation operations are carried out on the site within a designated area known as a “soil treatment hospital”, so that treated soil can be returned to the site for reuse and removing the need to import clean soil from elsewhere. Soil treatment involves the mixing of contaminated soil with other materials to neutralise the contaminants or render them harmless. The treatment process involves the turning over of stockpiles of material, with the consequent release of odorous substances where these are present. The extent and nature of contamination at the site has been the subject of many studies over the years. The outline permission for the current development included several conditions to ensure that contamination is comprehensively identified, that an approved remediation scheme is carried out and that the completion of remediation is properly verified. Responsibility for the implementation of these requirements and the discharge of the relevant planning conditions rests with the Council as the Local Planning Authority. In consultation with the Environment Agency’s groundwater specialist, the Council’s contaminated land officer has maintained close oversight of all operations undertaken to deal with contaminated material and groundwater, however the soil remediation activities themselves, since they involve the handling and treatment of soil deemed to be contaminated waste material, are subject to regulation by the Environment Agency under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016. Figure 2 Recent aerial photograph of the Southall Waterside site showing the location of the “soil hospital” Imagery ©2018 Bluesky, DigitalGlobe, Getmapping plc, Infoterra & Bluesky, The GeoInformation Group. Map data ©2018 Google Page 6 of 35 The Southall Waterside developers, Berkeley Group, have appointed C.A.