Stroud District Council Leader's Diary

The first of two visits this week to understand the needs of the district’s employers. This one was to meet Dale Vince at Ecotricity in Stroud. Ecotricity employs around 300 people, of which over 250 are local.

Later this year it will start its move into the offices vacated by the Stroud & Swindon Building Society giving it a clear visible presence at the gateway to the town. The company is also developing a new type of small scale vertical wind turbine, a quarter of the size of the one at Nympsfield. This will be the first to be developed by them completely in-house. Great to see such innovation and dynamism.

Thursday, March 14 – Employer visits - part two

The second visit was to the Magnox site at Berkeley. In contrast to our visit to Ecotricity, this visit was about an energy facility coming to the end of its life as the former nuclear power station is decommissioned. Construction of the facility began in 1957 with electricity first being produced in 1962.

It was then shut down in 1989. The site is currently preparing to enter its ‘care and maintenance’ phase in 2021. It has 128 employees. When it was in use it provided a total output of 276 MW of electricity - enough energy to serve an area the size of Bristol.

Thursday, March 21 – Incinerator planning meeting, Gloucester

No doubt you’ll already be aware of this. After a very long meeting, it culminated in a unanimous vote to reject the proposed incinerator at Javelin Park.

Our strategic head of development services, Barry Wyatt put forward the council’s official objections, and after many hours of discussion, Councillor Dennis Andrewartha, who as well as being on the planning committee at Gloucestershire County Council is Stroud District Council’s executive member for planning, proposed a motion, seconded by Councillor Sarah Lunnon, to refuse the application.

Their in-depth knowledge of planning policies and ability to stick to the pertinent planning considerations played a major role on a very long day. Well done to them and, of course, everyone who campaigned, particularly GlosVAIN a local organisation that has highlighted the drawbacks of this proposal for years. I don’t think anyone anticipated such an overwhelming rejection.

Thursday, March 21 – The Planners

At the same time as the incinerator application was being determined, SDC’s planners were on TV for the last time as the BBC 2 documentary, The Planners, broadcast its final episode.

As a strange coincidence, this episode included last year’s refused application for wind turbines along the M5 corridor. Some of the rationale behind that decision was being used in the debate in Gloucester at the same as the show was being aired.

We’ve had many positive comments about the council’s participation in this TV series and we hope that it is shone a light on the difficult and controversial work that goes on behind the scenes.

Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here