Touch Point 4 Be pro-active in community engagement to promote the need for waste development Infrastructure and to get people to think and act differently with respect to their use of resources and waste management. |
Action Required: |
• Engage the community and stakeholders early in the process to improve understanding and acceptance of the proposal or strategy, ensuring clear explanations of the need for the facility are given to help encourage local support. • Ensure any opportunities for joined up community engagement between the waste planning authority (WPA) and waste disposal authority (WDA) are taken in preparing the municipal waste management strategy (MWMS) and the waste elements of the LDF. • For the longer term establish operator-community liaison meetings which meet an agreed number of times per year to discuss the day-to-day running of the waste facility and any impacts it is having upon the local community. |
• Pro-active community engagement will encourage the community to take responsibility for the waste it produces, ensure that information is relevant and accurate, and could change life-style choices to reduce the amount of waste produced. The community engagement undertaken for the core strategy, the DPD and the MWMS will help to explain to local residents the changes in waste management practice and hence the need for new waste infrastructure to replace landfilling. It is anticipated that such processes will deliver some acceptance and understanding of new waste management processes.
• Those involved with submitting or assisting the submission of planning applications for waste infrastructure projects must ensure that early on they talk to local communities most affected by the proposals. Local residents are often fearful of the development of such facilities in the vicinity; such facilities are perceived as noisy, smelly and presenting a health risk and resulting in additional traffic movements on local roads. Acceptance is only gained from a community that is informed and engaged on the provision of waste management infrastructure.
• Raising awareness of waste management issues in the round should also assist in changing public attitudes to waste and even impact on life-style choices. These actions will help not only to deliver the waste hierarchy and national policy objectives, recognising the waste produced as a resource, but also to reduce the amount of waste generated.