Residents in Haddenham have been contacting us, complaining about the straw mess when straw lorries drive through the village. We have taken this up with the power station management and they came to our Parish Council working party. They are now applying for a change to planning conditions.

The Straw Burning Plant has at long last submitted plans to change the netting conditions and to include routing conditions instead.

I have arranged that plans have be sent to Haddenham and Wilburton Parish Councils for their comments. I will get a copy of the plans as well, so you can contact me if you want more information. 

Managers of the Straw Burning Plant at Sutton will be coming to Haddenham Parish Council TONIGHT at 7.30 (Wednesday 11th Feb) to explain their planning application. They are requesting East Cambs Planners to relax their planning conditions on the lorries that carry the straw to the power station. At the moment the planning consent that enabled the straw burning power station to be built originally, stated that all loads should be netted except when wind conditions made it unsafe.

However, because the driver has to net the load after he has loaded it, they state that there is no safe way to net them. Throwing a heavy net over whilst balanced on the tynes (bale spikes) of a fork lift, high in the air is obviously unsafe. They have been unable to find a better method to do this tricky job, in a field, single handed.

They are requesting that if this netting condition is removed they will route their vehicles so that the majority use the A10 and A142. Some vehicles will however still have to come through Haddenham, as some of the straw is collected from Aldreth.

We will be asking them to promise, to inform the Parish Council when they will be using this local straw and to sweep up the straw mess after these lorries have come through. Will they accept this?

Will this be sufficient? What do you think? Come and have your say.

If you can’t come tonight you can still have your say as every resident can write to East Cambs planers with their comments.

We desperately need to reduce the straw mess in Haddenham. Will the new arrangements work?

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