THE health risks of Scottish Borders Council creating a £5million waste transfer station on contaminated land at Easter Langlee must be identified and assessed before any works can commence.

And any remedial measures arising from that study of what is currently the region’s main landfill site on the outskirts of Galashiels must be agreed in advance of construction.

These are the recommendations of two of the council’s senior environmental health officers. In a new submission to SBC’s planning department, amenity and pollution officer David Brown and contaminated land officer Gareth Stewart say the proposed change of use at the site – from waste landfill to waste transfer – is “potentially contaminative”.

“It is the responsibility of the developer [SBC] to demonstrate the land is suitable for the proposed use,” states their joint report.

The pair do not object in principle to the council’s impending planning application for the Transfer Station, but state that, as a condition of consent, a scheme containing details of how potential contamination can be tackled must be submitted and agreed in writing.

“The reason is to ensure that the potential risks to human health, the water environment, property and ecological systems arising from any identified land contamination have been adequately addressed,” states the report.

The council has set aside £5.15m in its capital spending programme for 2017/18 for the construction of the WTS – on land just to the south of the landfill operations - from where 52,700 tonnes of residual household and commercial waste will be transported for treatment outwith the Borders.

The planning application for the transfer station is due to be considered by the council’s own planning and building standards committee in April and the contract for construction – for which tenders closed last week – is likely to be awarded to the successful bidder in the summer.

In its role as developer, the council has already received two reports from a firm of private consultants. They claim the noise relating to the new development will have a “low impact on the nearest receptors [residents]” and that “there is no risk of significant odour pollution”.

If all planning conditions are satisfied, the WTS should be up and running by May next year – three months before the landfill capacity at the dump, which has operated since the 1970s, is exhausted.

The switch from waste landfill to waste transfer has been driven by the Scottish Government’s impending ban on all biodegradable waste going to landfill by 2021.

It was a decision specifically informed by the costly collapse in February, 2015, of a 2012 contract between the council and New Earth Solutions (NES) for a £21m incineration-based advanced thermal treatment (ATT) plant at Easter Langlee.

The demise of that deal with a company which has since gone bust forced the council to review its options ahead of the 2021 deadline and to write off from its reserves the £2.4m it had spent on the abortive procurement process.

The annual cost of running the Transfer Station is estimated at over £5m – roughly the same as the council currently spends on its waste treatment.