Welcome to Eggerwatch
The aim of the Eggerwatch website is to share experience and knowledge between communities with an Egger timber-processing factory. The site supports the efforts of local residents, planners and environmental regulators in all the many countries where Egger operate. Eggerwatch may also be useful to communities with timber processing plants owned by other operators. The site aims to be constructive, accurate and fair.
Few citizens in Europe can now claim to have no chipboard products in their homes. But the site has to reflect the inevitable conflicts of interest between, on one side, Egger, its workers, and others who benefit financially from its operations and, on the other, the rest of the local community – who reap no benefits and may suffer substantial adverse effects. Timber processing generates unpleasant and sometimes dangerous environmental discharges which must be strictly controlled for public health and safety. The factories may also create problems: for example heavy lorry traffic, monopolisation of major industrial sites, noise, landscape despoliation, loss of tourism potential, and degradation of nearby residential and business areas. Attending to these has no benefit to the manufacturer’s financial bottom line. But of course they need to pay attention if their activities, and particularly future developments, are to be acceptable to local communities. Local councils, environmental regulators, and planners are caught in the middle of such conflicts. There is benefit for everyone in learning how best to manage these conflicts. Informed and persistent advocacy of residents views and statutory environmental control effectively enforced can succeed in making timber processing factories less of a problem.
We try to reserve the formal Pages of the website for in-depth factual report and useful documentary sources. Comment and opinion should be confined to the Comments or Blog section, so that opinion and fact are separated (unlike in most contemporary “newspapers”!). Please add your comments on existing posts. If you want to make posts of your own please join as indicated under the Admin heading.
There is a two-fold benefit to contributing; you will probably feel better if you’ve recorded something that is bothering you, (the likelihood is that someone connected with Egger in Austria will read your comments) and the growing collection of comments will form a unique record of the situation. Please tell us if you feel there are inaccuracies or unfair and/or abusive comment. Illegal or abusive comment will be removed.
Initially the site will contain a disproportionate amount of material about events in the UK, particularly at the town of Hexham in Northumberland, UK, which houses Egger’s biggest UK operation. This is because there is a long (and we believe instructive) history of planning and environmental regulation, and public interaction, about the chipboard-making factory in Hexham. We hope that contributors from other towns and countries will in due course make available their experience which validates or contradicts experience in Hexham.
This web site is maintained by people who are or have been affected by Egger’s developments over the last few years. The aim is to monitor Egger’s activities, seek appropriate environmental regulation, and ensure that the statutory conditions imposed on them by authorities are complied with.
Why Egger?
The Egger Group is one of the largest and most rapidly growing manufacturers of chipboard in Europe. A privately owned international timber processing concern with factories in many countries, they have far more resources than either the local community or local planners and regulators. They can seem a daunting force to influence, oppose or control.
The Egger factory in Hexham has a long history of environmental and planning regulation, much successful and some less so. Recent expansion of the factory has created new problems for the local community. We suspect there will be similar experiences – some good, some bad – at Egger factories elsewhere. Documenting the various experiences provides a way of identifying the best way forward – for everyone – while seeking to resolve local issues. Focusing on one large group allows comparison while remaining manageable for voluntary site managers.
Egger say they wish to behave responsibly, there is evidence that they often do, and across the group they have enormous technical expertise which can be brought to bear to solve problems. But sometimes it takes planning, regulatory and citizen pressure to achieve an adequate response.
That’s the reason for this site.