The proposed Tamworth Organic Recycling Facility was reviewed by the Northern Regional Planning Panel at a meeting held 23 September 2020. The public meeting was held via teleconference and opened at 4:15pm and closed at 7:10pm.

The Panel determined to approve the development application and provided the following reasons for the decision:

• the proposal is permissible in the RU1 zone and is consistent with relevant zone objectives;
• the proposal will be socially and environmentally beneficial because it will remove a significant volume of materials from the waste stream and process them into useful products. In this regard the proposal is consistent with the relevant waste strategies, particuarly the NSW Waste Avoidance and Recovery Strategy 2014-2021, the Northern Inland Regional Waste Strategy 2017-2021 and the Tamworth Regional Council Integrated Waste Management and Resource Recovery Strategy;
• the site of the proposed development is suitable for the intended use. It is sufficiently close to Tamworth to be reasonably accessible, has direct access to major roads, is large enough to enable the development to be well separated from neighbours and is free from environmental constraints;
• the proposal has been rigorously assessed in a process that has included two independent peer reviews. A suite of conditions has been imposed to ensure that the new facility will operate in a satisfactory manner and that the Stage 2 component involving the receipt and processing of offal and dissolved air flotation sludge will only operate if a successful trial is completed beforehand;
• the proposal is well designed and incorporates all safeguards needed to ensure that potential environmental impacts will be either avoided or effectively mitigated;
• the Panel has carefully considered all issues raised by objectors and believes they have been resolved by the design and siting of the facility, proposed management measures and / or conditions to be imposed. There are no residual issues that would cause unacceptable impacts sufficient to warrant refusal of the application;
• for the reasons given above approval of the application is in the public interest.

Further information on the project can be found on the Panel’s website here.

Next Steps

Council will now need to make a final decision about proceeding with the development. If the proposal is approved by Council, the Waste and Resource Recovery division will engaged the services of experienced consultants to commence works on the next phase of the project. This phase will include development of the Tender and Contract documentation ready for Tender release, expected to be early 2021.

A copy of the Panel’s Determination Report can be found under the document library section.