THE decision announced this month by the Environment Agency to issue a Permit to GRS Stone Supplies for a Landfill Site at Lower Hare Farm, Whitestone, is as disappointing as it is unsurprising.

It only serves to underline how weak and ineffectual that organisation has become and how inadequate it is to protect us from the real and present dangers to our health and well-being, to our quality of life and to the environment.

The public consultation it undertook appears to have been nothing more than an exercise designed to make the community think that their views might count for something.

Hundreds of people responded but their views were ignored.

Officers based in Sheffield, who have never been near the site and really don’t care, waved it through as they were always going to do, no matter how powerful or persuasive the arguments were to the contrary.

This included analysis by a leading UK firm of consulting geotechnical engineers which pointed out that the conclusions presented by the applicant were based on inadequate evidence and unrealistic assumptions.

And that the site, on the side of a steeply sloping hillside in an area which is prone to landslips and highly unstable, is in all likelihood a disaster waiting to happen.

The EA took the view that this was a risk worth taking, but we don’t agree.

Although the permit has been issued it can still be quashed, and STAWL (Stop Another Whitestone Landfill) is looking to challenge it.

If we are able to confirm what appears to be the case, that the Environment Agency has failed to do its job properly and that the decision to issue the permit failed to take into account salient information, a court can annul it.

STAWL firmly believes that the Environment Agency has behaved unprofessionally and recklessly and that there is a case to answer.

With support from the community we can still stop this disaster and will be looking at putting together a legal case and serving proceedings on them within the next few weeks.

The message is that the fight to stop this nonsensical scheme from happening is far from over.

Guy Fielding

Chair, STAWL

(Stop Another Whitestone Landfill)