Comment for planning application SCC/0045/23SE

Vicarage Cottage, Burton End, West Wickham CB21 4SF

I have just been made aware that this application is relevant to us. The remote digestate lagoons are located about 2km from my Listed house. Despite this industrial building taking place this close I had not been informed, beyond the "Muck Off Acorn" posters near Haverhill. They are on the old RAF Airfield, and immediately adjacent to a public footpath. They are just uphill from the watercourse that runs through Withersfield and feeds into the Stour. During works the footpath will be blocked. The pipelines cross the path. Any leakage from the remote lagoons, which I assume will not be manned, will flow directly into the Stour Brook. The plan is for the digestate from the lagoons to be used for fertilising farmland. The results of an anaerobic digestion process are notoriously smelly, and remain so until they have been allowed to ferment in an aerobic manner or dried in the presence of oxygen. As I understand the plan is to spread this noxious substance on the farmland, where there is little doubt that the smell will spread for many miles. For these reasons I must object to this plan.