Day 16 - 21st January 2014

Post date: Jan 22, 2014 10:00:47 PM

Day 16 opened with Stephen Othen still in the hot seat. Alan Watson for GlosVAIN asked a number of searching questions which resulted in Mr Othen conceding that POP’s (Persistent Organic Pollutants) should be addressed at the planning stage as it was not dealt with by the Environmental Agency. Mr Elvin QC for GCC took over the role of examiner and he spent time on referring to the scale and design. By using examples of other EFW sites in the UK Mr Elvin demonstrated that it should be possible to reduce the size of the Building to around 36m without the need to sink it into the ground, therefore indicating that UBB had not attempted to mitigate the size of the Building (contrary to WCS14). Mary Newton (Friends of the Earth) was next to question Mr Othen who fended off her questions regarding habitat surveys with confidence, and then he had to face short questions from Jan Bailey and Mike O’Dowd. The last hour plus, Mr Othen had to face a series of drawn out questions from Tom Jarman who was warned by the Inspector not to promote his own technology.

Mr Othen was at last advised that after a quick question from the Inspector he would not need to face any more questions, and he must be congratulated for the manner with which he conducted himself throughout today.

The day finished at just gone 1800 hours with a rush to go home amid the thought that we’ll all be back again tomorrow!