DANEGATE has been earmarked for the site of a possible rubbish recycling plant.
Residents living around the fields originally planned for the Learning Zone development may now face a very different prospect, with rubbish being sorted, left to decompose, or perhaps stewed in large vessels with the methane gas being burned off.
The sites, one between the Danes Moss landfill site and the Moss council estate, the second the Hurdsfield Industrial Estate, which is also next to a large housing estate, have been identified as potential waste recycling sites by Cheshire council's local waste plan.
The plan has been put forward as a "basis for consultation". Local people have until June to make objections and this week more details of the methods to be used on the two sites were spelled out by the county council at a public meeting in Macclesfield.
Anyone objecting to the methods to be used has until September to get their protests registered.
Labour county and borough councillor Alan Claro is concerned that no-one seems to be able to say what the impact will be in terms of smell, noise, dust and extra traffic.
The site at Lyme Green was once designated for the Learning Zone site, and earlier for the Danegate development.
Now the proposed uses include sorting and separating recyclable waste, storing waste, creating big compost heaps, a scrapyard and crushing and recycling old concrete and hardcore.
In addition, the council want to treat waste biologically by letting it rot down either before or after removing metals and recyclable materials.
Large sealed tanks in which waste is broken down by bacteria may also be built. They produce a liquid which can be used as fertiliser and methane gas which is usually burned off to generate heat and power.
At Hurdsfield there are no proposals to recycle aggregates, compost waste or set up a scrap yard, but all the other options are possible. Some or all of the facilities may be housed in large, factory-like buildings.
Alan Claro says the county is late in taking action and should be telling people about the methods being used before asking them to comment on the proposed sites.
Cheshire admits it is over-dependent on landfill and committee chairman, Coun John Fraser said: "We are facing a future crisis - a threat to our quality of life - which is not going to go away. Doing nothing is just not an option." Cheshire already pays out nearly £6m a year in landfill tax and that bill is set to rise by almost £1.2m a year.
The Macclesfield sites are two of 23 preferred sites but not included in the seven where an incinerator is an option.
Each has suggested options for a wide range of waste management techniques and Coun Claro believes that the reason for such a range is that it will enable them to swap facilities from one site to the next if they meet public protests or refusal of planning permission.
One major problem for potential protesters about the Danegate site is that it is officially rated as suitable for "unneighbourly uses".
At the same time part of the site already used commercially for sorting industrial waste.
Protesters have already launched a major effort to stop an incinerator in Ellesmere Port and other protests are likely. If Alan Claro is right, any area which does not make a protest may end up with a larger share of rubbish treatment facilities
The county say there will be a second consultation in the autumn and a public inquiry in spring 2005. It will be 2010 before the first facilities are complete and the council expect it to be 2020 before it is fully ready.
