News Articles: December 2005

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Sunday Times - BAG Featured 4/12/05

BAG has made it into the national newspapers. An article in the Sunday Times 4 Dec 2005 featured villages that were being adversely affected by proposed new housing developments. The article centred around two villages fighting development; Bishopton and Wormit in Fife. A member of BAG and Mr Graham Vincent of BAE Systems were interviewed. BAG put forward the case against the development and Mr Vincent gave BAE's response.

According to the article Mr Vincent will be holding an exhibition in February and is quoted as saying "I understand the residents' fear, but over time I hope we'll win the majority of people over".

It will take more than a shiny exhibition and glossy pamphlets to win the people of Bishopton over especially after Friday night's public meeting.

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Objection Letters Delivered - Magnificent Result 5/12/05

Despite the appalling weather conditions BAG volunteers collected 2205 objection letters. 526 letters contained additional comments. The quality of the comments was superb. This is a magnificent result.

A great big thank you to all of the volunteers for their hard work and to the public for their participation.

The letters were hand delivered to the Structure Plan HQ today. BAG also delivered a very detailed objection letter, which will be available on the website very soon.

Bishopton is making its voice heard loud and clear.

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Badgers in residence at ROF  5/12/05

Thirty badger setts have been found in the ROF site. Twenty-nine are located at Georgetown, but one sett is located in one of the proposed development areas. Badgers and their setts are protected by the Protection of Badgers Act 1992. This might just send the developers back to the drawing board.

Let us hope that they find a multitude of protected species in the ROF site.

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Public Meeting - Renfrewshire Council PR Disaster 8/12/05

Confidence in Renfrewshire Council's ability to deliver a safe, just and fair solution to the proposed ROF development reached an all time low on Friday night (2 December 2005). Cllr Langlands organised a public meeting and invited:

• Bob Darracott (Director of Planning and Transport);
• Bert Wilson (Head of Environmental Services);
• Pete Murray (Regional Manager of Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA));
• Dorothy Simpson from Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and
• Cllr McNally. The purpose of the meeting was to reassure Bishopton residents. On that count it was unsuccessful, but it did give the public a great opportunity to question the officials. The meeting was supposed to last one and a half hours. Due to demand, the meeting was extended by a further hour.

As the evening progressed a pattern began to emerge. It seems that BAE Systems and Redrow are controlling the whole process and Renfrewshire Council is letting them:

• The reports on which Renfrewshire Council were basing their decisions were commissioned and paid for by BAE Systems. (Independence/Impartiality?)
• Contamination testing would be carried out by BAE Systems. SEPA might monitor the contamination tests by testing samples provided by BAE Systems.(Academics would have a field day criticising these procedures) 
• The developers will have a right of appeal if the planning decisions are not in their favour, but the public will not. (Completely unjust and unfair)
• Environmental Services could force BAE Systems to clean up the site without a development taking place, but they feel it should be done through the planning process. (So Environmental Services Dept has made its own decision that a development should go ahead in order to achieve a clean-up of site.)
• The developers will be submitting a planning application around March 2006 and Renfrewshire Council will be working on it, although the Scottish Executive will not have made its final decision at that stage. (The developers are being ably assisted by Renfrewshire Council)
• Developers will decide where on site that they want development to take place.Contamination  

It also became clear that Renfrewshire Council does not have the expertise to handle the complex de-contamination issues and yet Mr Darracott confidently recommended to Renfrewshire Councillors that the ROF site was suitable for inclusion in Schedule 1(c) i.e. suitable for urban expansion. Renfrewshire Council admitted that they will have to buy in expertise.

Head of Environmental Services explained that the highest ranking of any component within the ROF site was 121 on the list of concerns. He could not give an adequate excuse as to why the site was not ranked higher. However we can.

It was explained how ranking worked at a previous meeting. Ranking is dependent among other things on current contamination, history of component's use and the number of complaints received from the public. Environmental services do not know the history of use of each component and members of the public have not complained about the component. The data is missing hence a proper ranking cannot be made. Also there are over 2000 buildings on the site. The site is massive. Have they any data on the contaminated grounds? Ranking is 121, because the data is insufficient. If they ranked the whole site instead of individual components, the ranking might be No. 1.

Residents were also concerned about SEPA's role. It seems that buildings will not require to be encapsulated when being knocked down. To reduce dust, buildings will be sprayed with water. Residents are concerned that dust will still escape into the atmosphere and that contaminated water will soak into the ground. Contaminated substances will be removed by lorry from the site and could be passing through the village. Residents were concerned that these lorries may be open or that there may be an accident.

Mr Darracott gave an assurance that "100% site remediation would be complete to the required standards before a single brick was laid".

Transport

M8 access has still not been finalised and it is going through STAG 2 process. Mr Darracott said that BAE had pursued this M8 access without Renfrewshire Council. When asked what studies have been carried out to assess the impact of increased traffic on the road networks around Bishopton, no satisfactory answer was given.

Summary

In summary the residents of Bishopton were completely shocked by the lack of knowledge displayed by the "experts" and the bias shown towards the developers, BAE Systems and Redrow.

Here is what Stewart Ferguson, Chairman of Bishopton Action Group, had to say about the meeting:

"Members of BAG were in attendance at the public meeting, arranged by Councillor Langlands, and listened intently to the ensuing debates. We witnessed strong opposition to the proposals and continued requests for assurances concerning the safeguarding of our community's public health, as fears were far from allayed by responses to questions posed.

It was clear that the aims and objectives of BAG are fully justified, in relation to the actions required by our community and indeed the strength of feeling within. In no way do the majority of residents wish Bishopton to be altered beyond all recognition".

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New Search Facility 11/12/05

The Bishopton Action Group website has grown so rapidly recently that we have added a new search facility to help you find information on the site. Click here to go to new search facility.

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Cllr Langlands - Objection Letter 26/12/05

Cllr Langlands has kindly given Bishopton Action Group permission to publish his letter on the website. Cllr Langlands wrote his letter following the public meeting which was held on 2 Dec 2005. Click here to view Cllr Langlands' letter.

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Envirocentre Report 28/12/05

We have added a new page where our visitors can read details of the EnviroCentre Report. Click here to go to page.

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Fly Over ROF 29/12/05

For all of you who have always wondered what mysteries lie behind the security gates at the ROF, now you can "fly" over the ROF grounds and inspect them from the comfort of your own home. All you need is a copy of the Google Earth program, a broadband internet connection and a computer with at least a Pentium III processor and a 3D graphics card. Google Earth is free to download and use. For more information on computer requirements or how to download software visit http://earth.google.com/. Google Earth uses satellite imagery which is on average 18 months old.

For those of you who cannot use Google Earth: If there is a particular part of the ROF site which you want to view, contact us with a rough description of the area and we will try to e-mail you a Google Earth aerial picture of that area.

For those of you who can use Google Earth: After you have downloaded and installed Google Earth program, run program and just type in Bishopton Renfrewshire UK in the search box and hit Return key. Google Earth will automatically "fly" you towards Bishopton. The ROF grounds lie to the south west of Bishopton.

Using Google Earth you can zoom in on the ROF grounds and view the buildings and pipework. At a distance the ROF grounds look like a green and pleasant village, but when you zoom in you can see that the "houses" are actually underground bunkers or factory units. Unfortunately what you cannot see is the contamination, which extends across the buildings, grassland and woodland.

As you view this massive site it is worth bearing in mind the following statistics about site contamination and proposed remediation:

• ROF site covers 964 hectares.
• Over 2000 buildings will be burned to decontaminate them. (Source: BAE - Demonstration of decontamination of building by burning)
• To ensure safe public access, 270 hectares of woodland areas would likely have to be removed as part of the remediation strategy. (Source: Cass Report commissioned by BAE Systems)
• A further 150 hectares of woodland and grassland may have the potential to remain, but this would require to be subject to a full assessment for contamination. (Source: Cass Report commissioned by BAE Systems)  

Enjoy your flight.

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