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Comment by Jacqueline Swanson on March 27, 2019 at 9:25

Click on link for the 4 conditions relating to deliveries and waste collection for Colpai. 

Comment by Charles Humphries on March 26, 2019 at 13:36

I thought it would be useful to look at the refuse arrangements for Prior Weston School which is a good comparator. The have eleven 1100 litre Eurobins. Five are used for general refuse, six are used for recycling. In addition they have five or six smaller wheelie bins and areas for bulk refuse. The refuse storage area is 49 sqm. Collections are every day of the week with  refuse collection every Mon, Wed and Friday and recycling on Tues and Thurs. 

Bear in mind the CoLPAI consultation states collections would be once a week, and the proposed storage area is around a quarter of that required at Prior Weston there is clearly a reality gap in the CoLPAI proposals. Here is a plan of the Prior Weston bin store (coloured red) and a photograph.

Comment by Anna Parkinson on March 26, 2019 at 10:07

At the consultation event on 21 March there was nobody with any technical expertise able to clarify some quite fundamental points.  We were given limited and flawed information and the choice was not a real one.

1. 10 bins are mentioned on the information board presented.  Five are drawn on the current plan presented.  The Colpai representative said all 10 bins would fit in the building as drawn but he did not know how big the bins would be.  This is significant because in either scenario providing space for 10 Eurobins, for example, whilst they are awaiting collection at the street edge would be around 20 sq m minimum.  The architects need to draw the street side collection point for either scenario on their plans so we can understand the significance and practicality of the proposal. 


2. The Colpai representative said that  the Health and Safety risks of taking the bins through the site were because they would be taking them through the playground, forgetting that they would also go through the playground to collection from Baltic Street. As the school’s waste will be commercial it will need to be collected by a private contractor and delivery times could be arranged outside school hours.

3. The Health and Safety risks of turning/reversing large refuse collection vehicles in both scenarios should be presented and explored.  The architects and Highways consultants need to present a vehicle tracking plan for both options, either directly in front of people’s homes for Basterfield and on a well used cycle route on a heavily parked dead end street for Baltic Street.

4. The Colpai representative also said that there was not level access from the Golden Lane entrance to the school entrance.  He must be misinformed as this is counter to Disability Discrimination Act legislation and Building Regulations.  So it should be possible to take the bins through the school site to collection on Golden Lane out of hours.

5.  I also think that this condition should be considered alongside any other conditions regarding vehicular access for deliveries, especially to the school kitchen and office, teachers’ Amazon deliveries and the like.  The impact of additional vehicle movements in either scenario will only exacerbate the difficulty of refuse vehicle access off narrow carriageways.

6. Similarly what restrictions are made on parents delivering their children to school by car?  We now know that the school’s catchment area will be significantly larger as there are insufficient local children for this school. 

7. And what conditions are there on access and parking for users of the school hall hours out of hours for community and commercial events? Again in both Basterfield and Hatfield options additional parking whether legal or otherwise will constrain the access for refuse vehicles.

8.  Do we think it is acceptable that one week’s worth of school dinner food waste for 458 pupils + staff will be sitting next to our homes and community allotments?

It was very clear that we have been presented with inadequate information to make an informed choice and that not all options had been presented.  

Comment by Charles Humphries on March 25, 2019 at 17:13

Thank you for your advice about completing the survey without a vote Sue - I have done that and suggested that they collect the waste from Golden Lane. I note that the survey appears to be open to CoLPAI parents and neighbouring workers; and presumably anyone who wants to fill it in. 

Comment by Charles Humphries on March 25, 2019 at 17:05

The CoLPAI developers have already reneged on planning promises about keeping the trees, crushing concrete on site and now incorporating Basterfield Mews as part of their scheme. What next? If they are allowed to use Basterfield Mews as part of their site, there will be no way to stop kitchen deliveries, visitors to the MUGA and the School Hall using it. This was a small, but hard-fought concession.

They claim there is a health and safety issue taking the rubbish across the playground to the Golden Lane side of the site, but they are ignoring the health and safety issue of large lorries backing down Basterfield Mews, which - as part of this scheme - they have made much narrower. Why are residents always at the bottom of their list of  priorities? What about the health and safety of our children?