Waste Management Changes

Monday, 2 May 2016 06:06

County Council is looking at making some changes to their development strategy and waste management policies.

OXFORD COUNTY - Some proposed amendments to Oxford's development strategy and waste management polices have been presented to county council. This presentation took place about 3 months after a public meeting was held in Beachville, where members of the public expressed their concerns about the current waste management policies.

Gord Hough, the Director of Community and Strategic Planning presented the potential changes to council. He tells Heart FM some of the highlights.

"They were amendments that actually incorporated a lot of the sustainability work that was done from the Future Oxford Plan. We also incorporated amendments that were recent updates to the provincial policies statement."

Hough adds some of these potential changes will impact landfills.

"They will effect, to some respect, the future expansion of the county landfill. Any new landfills, we articulated some of the policies that are in there, expanded them a little bit."

Hough says it does NOT ban landfills.

"It doesn't prohibit landfills. It's something you really do through an official plan because of the nature of approvals. But it does articulate better with the community in what the county of Oxford thinks should be reviewed as part of a landfill proposal."

Howard Dejong is a member of the OPAL alliance. He was present at the last council meeting when the proposed amendments were presented. He tells Heart FM what he thinks about the potential changes.

"I'm very thankful for all the hard work they've done on these official plan amendments. It's taken incredible amounts of work in order to make this happen. It's, in my opinion taken a long time but it is well worth waiting for."

These amendments will be debated at the next county council meeting. That will take place on May 11th at the Oxford County Administration Building (21 Reeve Street, Woodstock) in the Council Chamber at 9:30am.