A Hampshire MP calling for fire services across England to be included as consultees in planning applications for industrial lithium-ion battery storage facilities has been backed by the county’s chief fire officer.

Basingstoke MP Maria Miller has put forward a private members bill over the issue of safety regarding industrial lithium-ion battery storage, which also calls for provisions to grant environmental permits for the storage.

During a recent meeting (July 25) of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Authority (HIWFRA), members agreed to publish a new policy for fire safety that aims to educate, inform and work responsibly with members of the public and when prosecution is needed, to be fair, consistent and proportionate.

The policy describes how the authority will deliver fire safety to fulfil statutory requirements under fire safety law and how they will inform members of the public to make them aware of fire safety.

Over the issue of fire safety, chairman Cllr Rhydian Vaughan asked officers about Ms Miller’s bill and the progress it had made.

Chief fire officer of HIWFRA, Neil Odin, said: “She [MP Maria Miller] has a Private Members Bill in the process for consideration. Her Bill was asking for lithium-ion to be included in the Cobra regulations, now control of major accident hazards regulations.

“Those regulations, if included, require the direct consultation of all local authorities organisations.

“The problem we have with lithium-ion is that it does catch fire, which sadly has been very difficult to extinguish because of the type of reaction inside the battery.

“If you put water on it, you contaminate, and if you don’t, then you contaminate because the smoke enters the atmosphere.

“Certain places which are chosen for these developments, we would argue are not appropriate, so they are perfectly okay in some areas, but when you put them next to, perhaps, a delicate watercourse or near a piece of infrastructure like hospitals or schools, that could be more challenging for us as fire and rescue services.

“We have the Hobson’s choice of either letting it pollute the air and close down hospitals or schools, or attacking it and polluting the watercourse. So either way, we are going to face challenges from the Environment Agency.”

He indicated that the fire authority of Hampshire is in support of the MP’s work and added: “It seems like we may be getting some progress in terms of actually getting some sense of becoming a statutory consultee in terms of this particular provision, but general planning rules still do not include us in terms of statutory consultation but when it comes to this lithium-ion it may well be included in some amendments somewhere, but it probably won’t go as far as the cover regulations.”

Councillor Sally Goodfellow from Southampton City Council indicated to members that residents had concerns over whether the cause of a fire at Southampton Docks last week (July 29) was due to lithium-ion batteries or vapes not being disposed of correctly.
“I’ve been bombarded with images of the smoke and people concerned about the toxins within whatever is with the waste down there”, she said.

Last year, Maria Miller’s bill was read in the House of Commons for the first time. The bill aims to ensure that industrial lithium-ion battery storage facilities are correctly categorised as hazardous so that the Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive and the fire and rescue services would be statutory consultees when planning applications are considered.

Her statement to the House of Commons said: “Current regulations do not require battery storage planning applications to be referred to the Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive or, indeed, the fire service.

“Planning permission is being granted near nurseries, hospitals, houses, rivers and even industrial chemical manufacturing plants. In my constituency, a battery facility has been granted planning permission on Basing Fen, metres away from the headwaters of the River Loddon, close to a hospital and near the town centre.

“A battery fire can produce a cloud of dangerous gas—hydrogen fluoride, methane and carbon monoxide. If the vapour cloud from a battery fire meets an ignition point, it can explode.

“We need lithium-ion battery storage facilities, but they must be seen correctly for what they are: highly complex, with the potential to create dangerous events and hazardous substances.”

The second reading is set for November 24, 2023 and after that it will pass a committee stage, a report stage, and a third reading. If it goes further, it will be presented in the House of Lords.