Hospice under threat

Plans for the venture, which would process 40,000 tons of waste a year, have provoked outrage from hospice staff and local residents.

The site at The Vinery, Poling, used to be a mushroom growing factory owned by Blue Prince Mushrooms.

It is situated just off the A27 dual carriageway, half a mile from Chestnut Tree House, which offers respite care for terminally ill children. The nearest homes in Poling are even closer.

The hospice site was carefully chosen because of its location in the countryside, allowing the children to play in the fresh open air.

According to the Environment Agency, which licenses and regulates composting operations, the process releases potentially harmful fungal and bacterial micro-organisms into the air.

Maggie Fry, head of care at Chestnut Tree House, said: "It's worrying, we have children with cancer and respiratory conditions here.

"We have quite a big garden, it's lovely to make use of the beautiful countryside.

"We take the children for walks, they play football and do all sorts of other activities."

The business would process animal by-products and catering waste as well as green waste, which are all classed as hazardous waste by the European Waste Catalogue, a classification system for waste materials.

Objectors fear that heavy lorries delivering and removing material from the site, industrial shredders grinding it down and tractors and other heavy machinery used to turn and move the decomposing waste would be likely to create a terrible noise. Along with the smells and bacterial emissions of the compost, the noise would be carried by prevailing south-westerly winds directly onto the nearby hospice.

The two hectare (20,000 square metres) site is as big as four football pitches, with half the space taken up by open storage of composting materials in long piles up to four metres high, known as windrows.

These windrows would air the decomposing material for up to eight weeks and have to be turned regularly by heavy machinery to aid the composting process, which takes up to 16 weeks in total.

There would also be three 150,000 litre open-air containers on site to allow for the aeration and evaporation of waste water from the composting process, which is fed back into the system to be used again, possibly causing further odours.

Speaking on behalf of the site's new owners Vinery Management, Paul Aires, of Luken Beck Partnership, said: "Our view is that all of these issues are going to be well within any acceptable standards in view with the licensing.

"We do not think that smells are going to be an issue at all."

When asked about the inevitable odours from the 10,000 square metres of open-air windrows, he conceded: "If smell does become an issue for any reason, then the licensing authority is there to make sure that the problem is solved."

In its outline policy on the health effects of composting, the EA states that odours and airborne bacteria and fungus known as bio-aerosols are an inevitable consequence of the composting process and have "the potential to impact on the public at some distance from the operations".

A report commissioned by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and produced by the Composting Association and the Health and Safety Laboratory in 2003, states that the handling of large quantities of compost can lead to the release into the air of large quantities of the bacteria and fungi found in compost, as a bio-aerosol.

Whenever composting materials are moved around, for example during the shredding, turning and screening processes, these micro-organisms can become airborne, forming what is termed a bio-aerosol.

One such fungal bio-aerosol is Aspergillus fumigatus. Its spores are found naturally in small amounts in the air we breathe but rarely have an adverse effect, as they are eliminated by the body's immune system.

However, in rare instances they can cause infections like invasive aspergillosis, which is severe and usually fatal.

The EA policy states that during the composting process, levels of bacteria and fungi released are significant and Aspergillus fumigatus, a pathogen (an agent that can cause disease), can be present in sufficient concentrations to give rise to adverse health effects in humans.

The spores of the fungus are small and can reach deep into the alveoli of the lung. If they overcome the immune defence in the lung, they germinate and invade the lung tissues.

Many of the children at Chestnut Tree House Hospice have debilitated immune systems which would struggle to combat an invasion by such fungal spores and as the HSE report suggests, this could be fatal.

Hugh Lowson, chief executive of St. Barnabas Hospice which runs Chestnut Tree House, said: "The proposed site is very close to where the children's hospice is. Our concern is obviously for the children and their families, and our staff.

"We would worry about increased noise from the increased number of lorries going to and from the plant, as well as the smells and odours which would doubtless affect Chestnut Tree House.

"Apart from the noise and smell, a major concern would be the impact of flies and insects that would manifest themselves around the area and the potential spread of disease."