Peterborough City Council has been handed tough building targets to meet the needs of a city which is expected to swell by 40,000 people by 2021, and must extract three million tonnes of sand, gravel and clay from the ground each year for the next two decades.

To meet the challenge, the authority is planning to extend existing quarries in Maxey, Thorney and Whittlesey by a total of 550 hectares, or 5.5 million square metres.

Details of the proposals are being unveiled along with plans for a number of recycling and waste disposal sites across the Peterborough in public consultations beginning in September.

What do you think about the plans?
Comment below, email us: news@ peterboroughtoday.co.uk or telephone the newsdesk 01733 588719.
-------------------------------------

The council is also leafleting every home in the city about its planned £38 million household rubbish incinerator in Fengate, Peterborough.

Senior minerals and waste planning officer Sue Marsh said the extra quarrying was one of a number of measures needed to accommodate the city's expansion.

She said: "Peterborough is within a growth area and there is a considerable amount of extra housing projected between now and 2026.

"We have to make sure enough construction materials can be excavated to enable that development to take place, and to do that we have to identify locations where this excavation can happen."

The proposals, part of the council's minerals and waste plan, are to extend quarries in Maxey, near Market Deeping, Pode Hole, near Thorney, and Kings Delph in Whittlesey for building materials.

They also include the extension of Middle West Farm quarry in Thorney to provide material for the A1073 bypass, currently being built between Eye and Spalding.

Information roadshows
Incinerator plans

• Saturday, September 6 – Queensgate.


• Wednesday, September 10 – Dogsthorpe Community Centre


• Thursday, September 11 – Cathedral Square.


• Saturday, September 13 – Serpentine Green shopping centre, Hampton


• Quarry and waste disposal plans


• Tuesday, September 9 – Eye


• Wednesday, September 10 – Dogsthorpe Community Centre


• Thursday, September 11 – Wansford Community Hall


• Monday, September 15 – New Link, Lincoln Road


• Tuesday, September 16 – Manor Leisure Centre, Whittlesey


• Thursday, September 18 – Queensgate shopping centre.


• Monday, September 22 – Maxey Community Centre


• Tuesday, September 23 – Serpentine Green shopping centre


• Thursday, September 25 – Peterborough Regional College

---------------------------------------


Other plans for the expansion of rubbish disposal facilities have been drawn up, not just for dealing with Peterborough's waste – five per cent of the waste to be managed in the area between now and 2026 is expected to come from London.

The plans include extending the existing recycling centre in Dogsthorpe, and building new recycling facilities in Storey's Bar Road, in Fengate, Saxon Pit and Kings Dyke in Whittlesey and the Hamptons or the Ortons areas of the city.

Existing quarries in Thornhaugh, near Stamford, and Star Pit, in Whittlesey, are also being earmarked to take commercial and household landfill waste.

The planned city incinerator in Fourth Drove, Fengate, referred to by the council as an "energy-from-waste plant", would generate power from non-recyclable waste. It would also be used as an alternative to the Dogsthorpe waste centre when it is filled and closed in 2013.

Both public consultations will include a number of roadshows.