I READ the article ‘Company moves to allay fears’ (Barry & District News, April 20) with great interest and feel I must take up the point made by the unnamed spokesman regarding the weather data obtained from Rhoose Airport.
The unnamed spokesman has rather defeated his own argument because the whole point that concerns the people who fear the consequential and health risks of the facility becoming operational is that the weather data is taken from Rhoose Airport.
The gasification facility/incinerator is not being built at Rhoose Airport. It is being built at Woodham Road, Barry, and any school pupil who actually listens in GCSE Geography classes will tell you that the geographic/topographic situation is quite different.
Rhoose Airport is – obviously in order to facilitate planes taking off and landing – in an area of flat, high ground and the wind patterns are going to be significantly different.
The Woodham Road site is on flat land near to the sea and it is surrounded by hills in most directions. Those hills will deflect the wind and the flat land between Barry Town, Dock View Road and Cadoxton often acts as a wind tunnel and the wind can come from either direction, off the sea at the Old Harbour towards Cadoxton or off the sea at Sully in the direction of the new housing surrounding the new ASDA supermarket.
I can tell you that with all confidence because, having been unable to convince the Ministry of Transport I can drive a car, I don’t sit in a nice warm metal box listening to Mozart I drive a 400cc motor scooter and you become very aware of which way the wind is blowing because it can actually buffet a motor scooter and you have to steer to compensate for that.
I’m sure that gasification facilities are very useful but the siting of this one in that particular place is nothing short of lunacy.
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