Like so many of my constituents, I am angry and dismayed that the second planning application for an unwanted battery energy storage development on greenbelt land at Glasgow Road and adjacent to the Belle Craig roundabout was approved by East Renfrewshire Council on 15th April.
The unacceptable battery plant proposal was voted through by two Labour councillors and one former SNP councillor who now sits as an independent.
The repeat application generated in the region of 315 objections and considerably more than the approximate 250 submissions from residents who opposed the first proposal.
The council also decided to bring forward a report on the second planning application before the Scottish Government Reporter has delivered an outcome on the appeal for the first and near identical submission.
The first application could well be rejected through this process but whatever happens now with the appeal, the developer is in possession of planning permission for the battery storage facility because of the council’s decision.
Battery plant type systems house lithium-ion batteries and there is a growing body of real-life examples of fires starting at such facilities.
In just the week before the council’s Planning Applications Committee convened to determine the outcome of the second submission for the facility on Glasgow Road, a fire broke out at a battery recycling plant in Kilwinning.
Six fire appliances were dispatched to deal with the incident and it was the second fire at the North Ayrshire plant in the space of one year.
Perhaps more comparably, a 20MW battery energy storage plant in Liverpool – half the size of the proposed 40MW facility for Glasgow Road – went ablaze a number of years ago and with the fire lasting for hours.
Moreover and when responding to discussions about a proposed storage plant to use lithium-ion batteries at a farm near Faversham, a Physics professor and former UK Government advisor told the BBC last February that this type of technology brings with it a real risk of fire.
The professor said and I quote, “We know about fires or explosions and these batteries that are being proposed here are more liable to explosion than other types of batteries. It’s almost inevitable that there will be a fire at some point in this battery storage during it’s 40-year lifetime.”
On another key point, the council’s existing local development plan designates the application site as greenbelt and the land was not allocated for the construction of a battery energy storage facility.
Despite the land’s status as greenbelt, the council has nonetheless decided to case aside this protection in favour of an unacceptable battery plant proposal.
When considering the public safety concerns with a fire erupting at a North Ayrshire facility only one week before the council’s decision and the removal of significant greenbelt land to make way for the development, it really does beggar belief that planning permission has been granted.
As demonstrated through the public consultation process for both applications, there is no public support for the battery energy storage facility.
Instead, what exists in the local community is robust and resilient opposition to the unwanted development.
I will continue to stand up for my constituents who have been so badly failed by East Renfrewshire Council on this issue.
