A CHESHIRE oil refinery has been given the lowest possible environmental compliance rating by the Environment Agency.

The Stanlow refinery complex in Ellesmere Port, operated by Essar, was given the F-rating in 2019, posing ‘an unacceptable risk to human health, quality of life or the environment’, according to government guidance.

However, both Essar and local councillor Graham Heatley say changes have been made to ‘resolve’ the problem — and Cheshire West council says it has no concerns for the safety of residents nearby.

Cllr Heatley told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “You look at the figures and perhaps they are not where we would like them to be. Essar always work well with the community. They have been very, very good at contacting the community with an incident.

“It is strange that if there was information like that it would have been good to hear from the Environment Agency.

“It is disappointing but I know they are working to resolve it.”

The site’s poor performance means Essar will have had to have paid 300 per cent the usual fee to the Environment Agency — with environment policy magazine ENDS Report analysis estimating the company would have paid roughly £820,000 last spring. 

Usually, sites with an environmental permit pay what is known as a ‘subsistence fee’ to the Environment Agency annually, but this figure increases if operators are found to have performed poorly with environmental permit compliance.

Essar’s Stanlow environmental compliance score was 208.3 for 2019 — far above the threshold for an F-rating of 150.

It was one of just 44 complexes to receive such a rating from the Environment Agency of more than 13,000 assessed.

The Agency has not disclosed the reasons for Stanlow’s poor performance.

An Essar spokesperson said: “From an Environmental perspective, 2019 was a challenging year, which included the impacts of a national grid outage which led to the complete loss of the electrical supply at Stanlow. 

“However, the changes put in place since have already delivered an improved performance in 2020 which we remain committed to building on going forward.”

Additionally, a spokesperson for Cheshire West and Council said: “The Council prioritises the health and wellbeing of all our residents. We have no information on this matter that suggests that we should have concerns for residents living near Stanlow refinery in Ellesmere Port. 

“The Environment Agency (EA) is the regulator responsible for the site and we, as a local authority, expect the EA to take appropriate measures if necessary to ensure there is no impact on the health of residents in the future.”