It’s March 9th 2008 and…

in Bedford I just opened my garden door and am still able to smell Stewartby Brickworks… am I somehow f*ed to be that stupid to believe that Handson will shut the production as it was promissed???

I appreciate the history of the Stewartby Brickworks and fact,
that for many local people it might be a sort of symbol…
but times change and I sincerely cannot imagine UK taxpayers
paying EU penalties for a German concern polluting Bedfordshire…

German Heidelberg Cement completed the acquisition
of the British building materials manufacturer Hanson Plc.

…
Hanson Plc is owner of the Hanson Building Products Limited
and subsequently the Stewartby Brickworks. For full info: click here

Now, assuming possible fine for Britain by the
European Court of Justice over the SO2 emission limits
breach near Stewartby Brickworks I come to think…

• The private German company extends its global operations
  merging with another private company, Hanson
• European Court of Justice gives UK as a country a penalty
• Finally we, the UK taxpayers would pay that bill,
  even though here in Bedford we are technically the victims

There must be something I’ve missed about the European Justice…
It is a bit confusing and no wonder that some people campaign against the EU…

Mr. Bob Boyce of SEPA, Edinburgh replied
my email yesterday (thank you Sir)!

Thanks you for your email.

In order for you to get up to date 1998-2006
please use the Environment Agency’s
“what’s in my backyard website”.
The EPER is only for 2001 and 2004.
It will be avail be annually starting
in 2009 with 2007 emissions data.

Hope that helps.

Stay well
Bob

Bob Boyce
Senior Environmental Assessment Officer
SEPA – Edinburgh
T: 0131 273 7242
http://www.sepa.org.uk

Now, I had to google a bit and came across
this interesting website “What’s in your backyard?”.
It is run by the Environment Agency, link here:

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/maps/

The only trouble is that dataset for this plant in Stewartby (?) ends in 1999.

Click here to see

Public information access is a bit of a window-shopping,
but the difference is that they always make you pay…
one way or another.

Be green, or so they say, right?
And what about the government?
Or is it just an IT glitch…

Stewartby Brickworks (Bedford) is owned by Hanson Building Products Ltd
all info below is fetched from a planning application they submitted to
Cambridgeshire County Council (to download original document click here).

Hanson Building Products Ltd (HBP) is part of Hanson plc. Hanson plc is a
building materials company employing over 15,000 people working mainly in
the United Kingdom, the United States and the continent of Europe.

Hanson Building Products Ltd is the UK’s leading manufacturer of quality
facing bricks and operates 19 brick works throughout the UK. Due to the
diverse geological setting of these sites and the 200-year history of brick
making at some of these locations, HBP is able to offer more than over 200
different colours and textures of brick.

HBP is also a major producer of concrete blocks (10 works in the UK),
bagged aggregates (22 facilities in the UK) and pre-cast concrete
(6 factories in the UK). The company employs more than 3000 people
in the UK and its main administration centre is at Stewartby in Bedfordshire.

Copyright notice: This photo is linked from publicly accessible
                  Flicker account by sindidziwa

What’s much more important Stewartby plan is registered in
the European Pollutant Emission Register. That’s good.

Click here to see details

Unfortunately again publicly available information is outdated
and covers only year 2004.

I turned to Mr. Bob Boyce of SEPA (Scottish Environment Protection Agency)
to obtain newest dataset and will keep posting all replies on the blog.