Issue - meetings

Mr Green from J L Thomas updated the group on progress made since the last meeting. Over the last two months, at a cost of about £1million, they have had a new drier installed and when fully commissioned it will provide a greater rate of throughput. A new concentrated odour scrubbing tower has also been installed to the press and drier vapour extraction system. Additionally, upgrading of the control room has been completed and there is now a purpose-built IT system in place to view and control the various plant operations.

Mr Ratcliffe explained that the Company acknowledges the high number of complaints received over the summer and it will make every attempt to identify and implement further improvement works as soon as possible. He explained that there has been a significant improvement to the plant operation processes over the last 6-8 weeks.

The question was raised as to whether there have been improvements to increase throughput which in turn had led to an increase in the volume of material processed? It was explained that the volume of throughput had, to date, remained similar. Improvements that have been made are expected to improve plant reliability and reduce the number of processing hours by means of increased throughput, once the new drier is fully proved.

The question was raised as to whether it is expected that there will be a change in throughput in the future, for example, due to any possible future changes in agriculture etc? It was explained that the Company did not anticipate any reduction in the volume of raw materials processed at the factory.