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And in Greece, but here it's an elite sport....

Our Parish population is circa 600, with 9 the number of councillors. Last Summer there were just 3 of us trying to keep it going - the numbers having dropped from 7 after the NP was finished (it took its toll on a few), and due to some frictions with the Clerk. I stood down toward the end of the year when 4 new councillors were coopted. I'm not sure what will happen next month when the new council is due for election. I agree the Planning process is frustrating in the extreme at times - we have a very wealthy individual in the village, a noted architect who sits on advisory design review boards and always seems to get his grand schemes approved, funny that.

if so at 68 you were doing 4900 in 3rd, is that above your normal rev limit? 

Village population only 260 ish. We had 4 people stand for election this time for 7 places.......  The AD plant is "just over the border" in an adjoining, much more populous parish.  All access through our parish though as the roads from their end are so small the heavy traffic cannot get through (though it gets tried fairly often!).  They think the plant is fine as they don't see it or it's traffic.  The new industrial estate in our parish is being counted towards their employment land target too so they are really laughing! It's the dishonesty of the whole process that pisses me off.  Consultants paid big sums (sometimes on success bonuses!) to twist the facts or invent new ones and produce so much BS that no one has time to read them properly, least of all the few planning officers left who haven't moved on to become poacher in the same areas they were recently gamekeeper.....

Float heights checked when elec fuel pump fitted.  Thanks Tom will do.  As as far as I can see 3rd at 5500 is about 76mph.  https://richyrichracing.com/tools/gear-ratio-speed-calculator-for-standard-triumph-drivelines/

I was on our Parish Council until recently. PC's are only consultees in Planning matters, but their view should have some weight, especially if you have a Neighbourhood Plan that this development does not comply with and/or it opposes inappropriate industrial scale development. We spent 4 years developing our NP - bloody hard work, but worth it in the end, at least in the short to medium term I think. IMO it's still worth writing as an individual too.

Yes, letter written today on behalf of the parish council. But I (and others) been doing it for 5 years on this project and others.  No notice is taken...... We are just nimbys..... pointing out inconvenient truths. I’m a believer in farm biogas, where the scale fits the farm and the majority of feedstock is waste. This isn’t that. It isn’t run by the farmer either, but a company that ultimately answers to rich venture capitalists. The farmer merely leases them the site and is contracted to supply it - he has a tiger by the tail and has to just hang on for the ride or it will eat him. Very dishonest industry - too many rich subsidy miners!

I hope you will be making those points in the planning /consultation process. Other concerns would also be just how green is a biogas facility if all/most of the feedstock has to be shipped in by diesel guzzling HGV?

I may have mentioned this before, but we have a biogas plant nearby. This is an “on-farm” one that runs on chicken litter, manure, silage, maize and dairy waste. It was granted permission on the grounds that it is about 1MW ( fair size for a farm one) with a permitted feedstock of 22,000 tons PA, 19,000 of which comes from outside the farm itself. It was pretty obvious when built that it was bigger than 1MW, so not a huge surprise that they’ve come back for permission for more feedstock. It was a surprise that they want nearly 70,000 tons though, 66,000 to come in by road, with nearly 60,000 to come out again as digestate. Obviously this would create a lot more heavy traffic. A lengthy report has been produced with a breakdown of numbers where the overall totals for the various feed types are divided by vehicle payloads to calculate the number of movements.  These figures make interesting reading. They reckon they can get 18 tons in a farm trailer and possibly they can- physically. However, on the public highway, the maximum gross trailer weight is 18.29 tons - and the trailers themselves weigh between 5.5 and 7 tons..... so legally they can get about 13 tons on. That’s a 37% difference and reduces apparent trip numbers by the same amount. They've pulled the same trick with the HGVs though in a slightly less ambitious manner. So perhaps more than just sloppy..... Overall this tactic (lying brazenly) reduces vehicle movements from 13, 000 pa to 10,000 pa. The site is accessed via one, single track lane 1km long, which is also a public highway linking two villages and various other properties. Their “harvest time” traffic flows work out at one vehicle every 3.5 minutes by their reckoning or 2.7 minutes by mine. That’s in both directions..... on a single track lane......  Would be nice to think the planning authority might pick up on this, but previous experience suggests not. Similar dishonesty has been employed for this project from the outset. Also for other large industrial developments locally also. When pointed out, it brushed off, explained away (unfortunate error, mis-print etc) or simply ignored. We are indeed living in the post-truth age.....  

I’ve heard that tax evasion is one of Italy’s more popular national sports.... but that is Olympic standard. No wonder Italy is bit skint.....