Plan for holiday lodges site in Chesterfield is rejected amid underground gas fears for human safety
An applicant has failed in a renewed bid to get planning permission to base holiday lodges near a former landfill site in Chesterfield after a council officer warned that underground gas was potentially explosive.
Chesterfield Borough Council planners have refused to grant James Cash consent for the change of use of land at Mayfields, Hady Lane, Hady, to site 15 timber lodges and a shop/reception office.
The decision was made on the grounds that the site is actively gassing and it was not considered feasible for the land to be made reasonably safe and fit for the planned use. The ruling also stated that the proposed development was located beyond the walkable distance and average walking journey to shops and that infrequent public transport would mean holidaymakers using private cars which was contrary to the sustainable travel aims of the Local Plan.
Correspondence from district environmental health officer Steve Payne to planning officer Helen Firth said: “There have been many instances of ground gassing from landfill sites (Loscoe explosion*, and subsequently many landfill sites across the country– once people realised that there could be a problem), from former coal workings (Arkwright Town) and from the use of inappropriate in-fill materials during construction works (Rufford Close). The potential for fatalities was clearly demonstrated in the Abbeystead valve house explosion in 1984**.
"I come at this with a clear precautionary approach, based on my experiences in this field of work. I was employed at Sheffield MBC from 1983, and assisted in the monitoring of landfill sites following the Loscoe explosion. It was clear that a repetition of the Loscoe explosion was only averted due to good luck, as near explosive atmospheres were found in the voids below a number of houses surrounding landfill sites in Sheffield, and I am sure that this was the case across the country.
“Given this, I do not wish to withdraw my objection to the proposed development as I fear that there is the potential for a reasonably foreseeable tragedy to be the result.”
The Environment Agency stated: “Our landfill engineer’s opinion is that the proposed development is unsafe, unsuitable and inappropriate on an actively gassing landfill site.
“Human health risks are the remit of the Environmental Health Department and it appears to us that there are human health risks that are yet to be resolved in relation to the application site. Therefore, we fully support the environmental health officer’s objection in relation to the human health risks identified in relation to the proposed development site.”
However, Andrew Pearson from AP Building Design (Commercial) Ltd stated in correspondence: “I understand concerns of other previous landfill sites causing problems with methane gas migration from unvented sites. This concern appears to be misguided, as the other sites were unvented.
“The neighbouring site to Hady Lane is a DCC fully controlled, piped, mechanically vented and regularly tested site having a mechanical gas extraction piped system in action removing any potential hazards migrating from the site to the development. The Hady Lane site has had methane and gas testing done over a two-year period to prove these are at an acceptable level.
“The proposed holiday units are designed to be surface only with no disturbance of ground being on wheels and have a ventilated skirt under the units to ventilate any potential (if any) gases.”
A design and access statement prepared on behalf of the applicant and submitted to the council in November 2022 said the land for the proposed holiday lodges was near a travellers site.
The plan would create a minimum of four full-time and eight part-time jobs.
Based on an average spend of £1,500 per family per week and full occupancy of the proposed holiday lodges for 31.5 weeks a year, this would pump £708,750 into the local economy benefiting shops, pubs and restaurants.
Letters regarding the proposal have been sent by members of the public to the council since 2022. Objectors have outweighed those in favour by three to one.
An earlier application for change of use consent for the land to a holiday lodge site was withdrawn in June 2022.
*Three residents were badly injured when their bungalow in Loscoe was destroyed by a landfill gas explosion in 1986.
**Sixteen people were killed and 28 injured when an explosion occurred in the valve house of a water pumping system in Abbeystead, Lancashire in 1984.