“You don’t care what we think about biochar” says Ludlow Mayor

The Mayor of Ludlow Town Council told a senior officer at Shropshire Council that ‘ you don’t care what we think’ about plans to turn garden waste into a usable substance called biochar.

The former anaerobic digestion plant on Coder Road Business Park, on the outskirks of the town, has been targeted as a site for the biochar production to be placed. It is part of a £2 million investment that Shropshire Council is putting into locally manufactured biochar-producing pyrolysis plants, with the first one being built by Woodtek Engineering Ltd on Caebardd Farm in Powys.

Mark Foxall, from Shropshire Council’s waste management team, gave a presentation to Ludlow Town Council members on Monday evening (October 28), explaining what biochar is and the benefits it can bring.

“We understand it is a growing market,” said Mr Foxall.

“It’s a way of generating renewable energy and we can generate money from feedstock and people who deposit their wooded materials.

“It’s a black material and very honecombed in it structure, and that’s where it gets its benefits from. If you apply it to land, it retains moisture and nutrients and provides a refuge for micro activity to work with it.”

Mr Foxall explained the return on the investment will be about five years, with funding coming from DEFRA. The council hopes to award a contract

in late November, with a planning application submitted in December. The construction phase will then be in March, with the operation starting from April to June.

However, Councillor Beverley Waite, the Mayor of Ludlow Town Council, believes Shropshire Council has already made its decision.

“It states quite clearly that planning permission will be required and you’re saying it’s going to be done,” she said.

“Does that mean the planning decision of Ludlow Town Council means absolutely nothing to Shropshire Council? Because if we turn you down, are you just going to go ahead and do it?

“All the way through, you’ve said ‘we’ll be doing this on this day, and by this day we’ll be up and running’. You’ve made that decision already. You don’t care what we think. You should have said ‘this is what we want to do’ but you assume it will go ahead.”

In response, Mr Foxall said he wasn’t asking for a decision, he had just come to brief members on what the proposals are.

“So if Ludlow town and Ludlow Town Council don’t want this, will you still be going ahead,” asked Cllr Waite.

“That will be determined by planning colleagues and the planning committee,” said Mr Foxall.

Anyone wishing to find out more about the scheme can pop along to a drop-in event at Ludlow Library on Wednesday (November 6) from 2pm to 7.30pm. It will also be an opportunity to meet Lezley Picton, the leader of Shropshire Council.