Sensitive Receptors & other stuff

Went to Day 5 of Cuadrilla's appeal to overturn Lancashire County Council's rejection of their plans to frack for shale gas in Lancashire.

The circumstance is this:

[In September 2015, Cuadrilla lodged four Appeals to the Secretary of State against the decisions to refuse planning permission for both exploration sites, the monitoring site at Preston New Road and against one of the conditions imposed on the planning permission for the monitoring array at Roseacre Wood. The appeals will be determined on the basis of a co-joined public inquiry and heard by a single inspector. The Secretary of State, under section 79 and paragraph 3 of Schedule 6 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, has directed that he shall determine all the appeals.

This means the inspector will prepare a report and recommendations, which will be forwarded to the Secretary of State for determination. Wendy McKay LLB, Solicitor (non-practising) has been appointed by the Secretary of State as the inspector. The procedure to be followed is set out in the Town and Country Planning Appeals (Inquiry Procedure) (England) Rules 2000 as amended.]

More detail of dates etc HERE



I heard a term throughout the planning appeal today that was unfamiliar... it seemed the impact on individual people and communities was coming under the term "RECEPTOR/s".

This really bothers me; it removes the humanity, the truth of living things, the entity beyond the chemical interactions and reduces us to mere reactions (or not, as they would have us believe).

I was sure I was wrong in some way - that this can't be how we are discussed... so a search gave me the ugly truth on a planning site relating to Environmental Impact Assessments - and there we are; you, me, our children, our loved ones, our neighbours - alongside historic buildings:

"...grouping together certain aspects of the environment into broad receptor groups, for example, birds, bats, humans, historic buildings, etc."

Homogenised, sanitised, inhumane, ugly - I know it's a process and requires definitions but this... just seems so bloody damaging to the perception of impacts raised in planning applications and damagingly de-humanises process.

WE the Receptors? No. WE the people.

*The latest addition to our family arrived this week, my great-niece born 14 Feb 16... a little person, full of potential, full of promise and the very essence of why for many of us, our lives are on hold as we strive for her future.