Summary Of Events

• The day started with the Inspector revisiting what needs to be covered in the remaining planned time for the Inquiry. The likely end outcome of this being that the Inquiry will run into an 8th day on Monday. Friday will likely see the conclusion of expert witness testimony. Monday would then start with the Inspectors site/area visit and then in the afternoon closing statements from the counsels of RASH, ECC and CSH.
• During the site visit the Inspector will consider distant views, site operations, the general environment and impact on residential properties. To aid the Inspector’s visual references CSH will position at grab with arm extended to 11.4 meters at the east boundary on the proposed development.
• Additional documents were shared with all parties. These being a map showing all commercial and residential buildings in the immediate area. For commercial buildings a table showing the existing floor space and that of the proposed development was also detailed. The other additional document showed distances from residential properties.
• The 1st witness of the day was Dr Doggett speaking on behalf of heritage issues on behalf of CSH. Under questioning by CSH’s counsel they sought to argue that the setting of the grade 2* listed building Rochfords would not be compromised by the proposed development.
• Dr Doggett was then quite thoroughly cross examined by ECC’s counsel seeking to present why the wider environment was part of the setting of Rochfords, and that historically Rochfords as recently as the early 20th century was a farmhouse set in farmland.
• The next witness was Mr Johnson of the Johnson Denehy Partnership speaking for CSH on matters of building design. His underlying argument was that the proposed building is well designed and to fit into the environment with negligible impact. Additionally the recycling benefits outweigh the negative impacts on the environment.
• Mr Johnson was then cross questioned by ECC’s counsel seeking to represent how the building would be inappropriate in the environment and that CSH had not really considered any other design options. Mr McPhie on behalf of RASH picked up a few issues that ECC’s counsel had not raised.
• Finally in this section the Inspector asked Mr Johnson some questions on skip storage and parking proposed on the large hard standing area, and what the theoretical capacity of the building might be.
• We then moved on to Mr Justin Bass of Intermodal Transport speaking for CSH on transport issues. The mains point here being lack of objection by ECC Highways Department and CSH no seeking any additional movements over and above their existing 150 licensed HGV movements per day. It was explained that around 50% of their vehicle movement go via Fordham Rd, the other 50% via the B1508 and nothing in their license controls the split, it’s purely a factor of operational and routing requirements.
• As ECC had not objected on transport grounds, their counsel did not cross examine Mr Bass. Mr Bass was then cross examined by Mr McPhie on behalf of RASH seeking to understand the designation of the local roads, how Mr Bass had arrived at his calculations on acceptable traffic levels and how vehicle size may or may not have been considered within this.
• Finally the Inspector added some questions on how the standard of may impact Mr Bass’s calculations. And if he had any information to prove or disprove assertions by members of the public about increasing vehicle sizes, he did not.
• The last witness of the day was Ms Alison Crooks speaking for CSH on matters relating to waste planning policy and need for capacity within the County. Ms Crooks sought to justify why CSH had limited their search of other sites to be sites within a 15 minute drive time from Colchester and why the building needs to be the size proposed.
• The Inquiry continues Friday 11th May at 09.00am in Court Room 1 at Shire Hall, Chelmsford.