How Charles Trent Is Driving Ahead In Vehicle Recycling: Plans Fit For A 21st Century Industry

Vehicle Dismantling, Vehicle Recycling

We are proud to announce plans for the largest project to be undertaken in our 90+ year history.

The information we’ve provided highlights our main proposals, current project timescales and feedback following the Public Consultation held on Thursday 25^th October 2018.

The Need For Redevelopment

Our ultimate aim is to recycle 100% and to achieve that we must modernise our facilities.

Currently, we have several warehouses and storage facilities located throughout our Poole site that hold different parts removed during the dismantling process. However, these storage solutions are inefficient for the scale that we currently (and plan) to operate to.

The Main Proposal

The main proposal is to demolish our existing warehouses and bring all our operations under one new building. Moving the dismantling of cars from outdoors into the new building will reduce noise on site.

This new indoor facility will be a reverse manufacturing centre for car recycling, including having its own vehicle production line, and parts storage.

The dismantling of cars will be partly automated with machines separating the parts and conveyor belts moving the parts for recycling.

Our new facility will be open 24 hours a day, which is no different to our current operational allowance.  The significant factor is that the main elements of the operation will now be inside the new building and will thus not be audible outside of the site boundaries. We will operate two shifts in order to increase the number of cars we are able to recycle, however there will be no traffic movements to site at night.  Having two shifts also means we can increase our workforce by a further 50-60 staff, thereby benefitting the local economy. The processes and operations have been assessed by acoustic engineers who confirm that operations within the building will not be discernible outside the site boundaries.

What The Building Will Look Like

The building will provide a single large covered working and storage area within a structure which is 12m high up to the eaves and which covers approx. 8500 sq m.  The proposed colour palette of the building is blue to blend into the sky.

Location

The proposed development lies in an existing Employment Area, as designated in the Borough of Poole’s Core Strategy.

The new building will be situated on the least sensitive part of the site furthest from residential properties. It will enclose many of the existing activities that take place in the open or within buildings which are currently closer, or adjacent to residential properties. The building will not be visible in the immediate streets because of frontage development but there will be instances where it will be visible, for example gaps between buildings. It is an industrial building within an industrial area and, due to the setback, it is well within the site, so will not be prominent.

Vehicle storage

The only aspect of our business that will not be in the new building is vehicle storage.  Currently, some of our vehicles are stacked neatly in a state-of-the-art car stacker while others are placed on top of each other, which can look messy. This new building will free up land and enable us to stack all our vehicles in the more modern and cleaner way. The car stacking does not require planning permission but is shown as part of the overall reorganisation and improvements to the operations.

At the public consultation, residents requested screening on the side visible to the residents. This request will be met using a camouflage style netting (see image provided).

Respecting the local environment: Key Points

• The process would be much cleaner as it is all under one roof.
• Forklift movements on site will be reduced by 25%.
• Moving the dismantling of cars from outdoors into the new building will reduce noise on site.
• There will be no traffic movements on site at night.
• Although there will be an increase in productivity, we are proposing to re-route traffic coming to our site via Calluna Road, with the aim of reducing the current impact on St George’s Avenue.
• This solution to reduce the impact on the local road network is being developed and a transport plan has been commissioned (the results of which are expected at the end of November 2018).
• Our cars will be stacked no more than five cars high to reduce the visual impact.

Proposed Timescales

Below are the current high-level timescales.  Planning surveys, such as topographical, noise and drainage are being undertaken at the site. The output of these will be summarised in the planning application, along with the output of the Public Consultation. Once submitted, the council are likely to take 13 weeks to review the application and come to a decision.  If the application is granted, build will start.  In the interim, temporary buildings will be erected, starting on the 12^th November.  This will take approximately 3 weeks.  The temporary buildings will enable us to empty the existing buildings on the planned development site and create more space.  These temporary buildings will be removed upon completion of the new development, should planning permission be granted. The 5-car racking, with screening, will be installed w/c 12^th November.

Marc Trent (Managing Director) Statement

“Charles Trent has always been at the forefront of vehicle recycling since the mid-1990s, when we first introduced computerisation, modern warehouses and fully concreted surfaces. These innovations were a stark contrast to the fairly primitive industry processes used to extract parts and recycle end of life vehicles. Since then, only small changes have been introduced until now. Charles Trent are about to embark on a multimillion pound project to bring to life a world-class vehicle recycling facility. This facility will take 18 months to build and will be fully operational by quarter 2 in 2020.”

Project updates

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