Campaigners march against landfill

Dogs, horses, vintage cars and tractors also took to the streets for The No Laybrook Landfill Parade on Saturday.

Not only were residents battling the current planning application by Cory Environmental but protesters also demonstrated their opposition to the practice of dumping rubbish into holes in the ground throughout the country.

MPs Nick Herbert (South Downs) and Francis Maude (Horsham) also represented the strength of feeling and urged campaigners not to give up.

Mr Maude said: "This can be stopped. There is nothing inevitable about this landfill. This fight doesn't end here, it doesn't end in a week's time when the consultation period ends, it doesn't end when the decision gets made by West Sussex County Council.

"This is a fight that goes on until we win it. So all of us who live in the area, all of us who represent residents in the area, we're utterly determined to see this through, to fight it to the end."

The No Laybrook Landfill Parade started in Ashington and travelled along the proposed lorry route, the B2133, to the Laybrook site.

At the parade, Mr Herbert said: "Across the country, people are saying that they don't want rotting rubbish dumped in the ground next to their communities.

"Worldwide, countries and cities are changing the way they deal with rubbish and going green.

"In countries like Germany and the Netherlands, they're barely doing it any more because they've got the technologies which they've invested in to treat rubbish, not just as something you dump in the ground but as a resource for materials and for energy.

"It's a national shame that Britain is still the dirty man of Europe, so far behind our European peer group countries, still thinking it's OK to dump rotting rubbish in the ground and it's not OK."

After the parade, Jean Locker, Thakeham Village Action's Chair of the No Laybrook Landfill Campaign, said: "This protest parade clearly showed the overwhelming opposition to a rotting rubbish landfill here at Laybrook.

"The fact that so many people were prepared to demonstrate on a lovely Saturday lunchtime, many not from the local area, showed the depth of feeling against landfill here at Laybrook and anywhere.

The county council should now have got the message that landfill is not wanted and not needed, not at Laybrook or anywhere."

Thakeham Village Action reminds everyone that there is just one week left of the consultation. Residents can write to the county council, by letter or email - to Planning Services at West Sussex County Council, The Grange, Tower Street, Chichester PO19 1RH or [email protected], quoting reference WSCC/048/09/T.