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Green light for UK's biggest prison biomass project
05/06/09 by Rosanna Holmes Friday, February 13th 2009
HMP Guys Marsh near Shaftesbury has won planning permission to update its heating and hot water system by removing old oil-fired boilers and building a 1.2megawatt biomass boiler that will burn woodchip from local woods.
The prison service already has several small biomass boilers heating its compounds but Guys Marsh will be the first in the country to use wood for fuel on such a large scale.
The renewable energy system will burn 30 cubic metres of woodchip (from woods within a 50-mile radius) each day to provide heating and hot water for the 600 inmates plus staff.
Members of North Dorset District Council's development control committee on Tuesday gave the go ahead for a seven-metre high building with two 1.5m chimneys to be built to house the boiler and plant machinery on a corner of the prison compound within the perimeter fence where polytunnels currently stand. Large security gates will open on to the B3091 to allow a 30-tonne tipper lorry to unload the wood every day.
A large building that contains the 1970s oil boilers will be demolished along with a 26-metre chimney at the back of the prison.
Guy Beaumont of the Ministry of Justice told the committee that two million kilograms of carbon dioxide would be saved every year by replacing the outdated heavy fuel oil boiler with the new technology.
"This is a good opportunity for us to take forward the Government's green initiative," he said.
But Edwin Rayner, chairman of both the Melbury Abbas and Cann Group parish Council and the Guys Marsh Residents Association, said the council was concerned about noise and on-site activity affecting people living nearby as well as smoke, dust, fumes and emissions. He added that the road through the hamlet was already chaotic and was worried it would be made worse by more delivery lorries.
"Such a large biomass plant should not be sited in an area where there is not a reliable fuel source," he said. "There is no evidence that the area around Guys Marsh can provide the considerable quantities of woodchip needed to fuel such as system. Carbon emissions from the delivery lorries will outweigh any savings that the biomass plant may make."
He said there were concerns that treated waste wood might be used which would contaminate the emissions, but was told that a condition tied to the planning consent insisted on the use of clean, virgin wood.
A condition was also laid down that deliveries would be restricted to one vehicle a day, so traffic would not be a problem.
Mr Rayner wondered about the ash left over from the wood and whether it would be taken away by more lorries.
David Priddis of development company Kier Western, which is helping the prison with the project, said: "Burning virgin wood is extremely efficient. There is a two megawatt biomass boiler at Stansted Airport that produces less than one wheelie bin of ash a week. The ash can be used as a soil conditioner on gardens and farms within the prison."
Councillor Brian Anderson was concerned about dust, pollution and noise, and asked why the plant could not be built at the back of the prison where the current boiler will be demolished.
Councillor Joe Hickish welcomed the project and felt that the overall savings for the environment would still be considerable even with the lorries transporting the wood.
A majority of councillors voted to go with case officer David Randle's recommendation to approve the application.
*Green prisons are nothing new - a Norwegian prison near Oslo and a prison in Nevada produce their own heat and electricity using waste wood and solar panels.
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