Herts County Council approves waste transfer station for used vehicle oils in Farnham Road, Bishop’s Stortford

A waste transfer station for used vehicle oils on the edge of Bishop’s Stortford has been given the green light.

Oil Salvage Ltd (OSL) asked Herts County Council for permission to use the former Butler Fuels Distribution depot in Farnham Road to receive, store and transfer waste oil.

The change of use in the Green Belt was approved by the authority’s development control committee last Tuesday (Sept 24).

Councillors were told waste oil would be collected from regional producers in tankers. That oil would then be stored in seven 55,000-litre tanks on the Farnham Road site that were previously used to store kerosene, gas, oil and diesel.

The next step is transfer to OSL’s recycling site in Merseyside – one of just two “re-refineries” in the UK. There, every 1,000 litres of waste oil is processed to produce 800 litres of “high-quality base oil”.

OSL managing director Vin Vernon stressed to the committee that as a result there was “zero waste” – and nothing to landfill.

Councillors were told that half of the waste oil would be collected in Hertfordshire, with the rest expected to come from Essex and London.

They were assured the number of vehicles accessing the 0.75-acre (0.3ha) waste transfer site would be limited to 16 a day – eight in and eight out.

Questions were asked at the meeting about the vehicles. Councillors heard that those ranging between 10 and 16 tonnes would be used to collect waste oil. Three or four larger vehicles – 26-28 tonnes – would be used to transport the waste oil to the re-refinery at Merseyside each week.

The site’s hours of operation would be 6am to 10pm Mondays to Fridays, although the application suggests Saturday operations would be considered “if demand dictates”.

Councillors were told vehicles would not be permitted to access the site between 8am and 9am or between 3pm and 4pm to avoid drop-off and pick-up at the nearby Avanti Meadows Primary School.

Mr Vernon said the UK was short of “re-refineries” – “by possibly another 150,000 tonnes.” Currently waste oil either gets burned or is sent to Europe for processing.

The company expected to deal with 20,000 tonnes of oil a year at the site but would have the capacity to deal with up to 30,000.

The application was unanimously backed by the committee, subject to 15 planning conditions.

In addition to the change of use planning permission from the county council, the waste transfer station requires a permit from the Environment Agency, which, it was reported, had withdrawn an initial objection to the application.

East Herts Council objected because it said it was not possible to fully assess the risk of potential contamination to the ground and watercourses from the development.

Farnham Parish Council was concerned about HGVs using a narrow lane. It also said: “Sewage is discharged directly into Bourne Brook at this point. It is a point that severely floods on a regular basis and becomes impassable. The thought of raw sewage being spread over the road at this point (also a footpath) raises many issues of a health and safety nature.”