The North London Waste Authority (NLWA) announced on 21 December that it no longer intends to put an MBT waste plant on Pinkham Way. It has withdrawn its planning application. Excellent news.

Despite this, Pinkham Way remains under threat. The NLWA has now earmarked Pinkham Way for “delivering, sorting and transferring waste from local households”. As these waste uses have never before been proposed for the site, we can only assume that this is a hasty alternative proposal to justify the premature expenditure of £12million in buying it from Barnet.

There is still much to be done to prevent the allocation of the Pinkham Way site for any waste use in the new version of the North London Waste Plan (NLWP). If we fail to achieve this, the site will be vulnerable to these new options announced by the NLWA, or, further down the line, even to the same MBT plans that have just been withdrawn.

Haringey Council must now be persuaded to withdraw Pinkham Way from inclusion in the new North London Waste Plan, and to fully protect its strong conservation status. The council must carry out a full assessment of the site ASAP; until this is complete, they should protect it from all development.

The NLWA attribute their change of plans to falling waste figures. The Pinkham Way Alliance (PWA) has long been pointing out these figures. However, the change must also be because of the recently published planning inspector’s report on Haringey Council’s Strategic Plan, in which the council’s attempt to redesignate the site as ‘industrial’ is refused.

To read about what still needs to be done in more detail - see:

http://www.pinkhamwayalliance.org/#/nlwa-latest/4572105782

Thanks

Sakina Chenot - Pinkham Way Alliance Committee Member