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Protesters petition council over innovative incinerator
PROTESTERS donned gas masks and protective clothing to petition councillors who yesterday visited a site earmarked for the first power plant of its kind in the country.
Villagers living close to the former airfield at Tockwith in North Yorkshire have long been campaigning to halt the controversial proposals for the multi-million pound energy plant.
Members of North Yorkshire County Council's planning committee carried out a site visit yesterday. They are expected to decide whether to approve the scheme later this month.
If approved, the development would use 60,000 tonnes of waste each year to generate enough electricity to run about 10,000 homes.
Plans for the 24m energy-from-waste unit at Tockwith, between York and Harrogate, have provoked widespread opposition among villagers living near the site.
Protestors have voiced concerns that the technology remains unproven as the power plant at Marston Business Park would be the first of its kind in England. They also claim the operation could jeopardise public health.
The chairman of Tockwith Residents' Association, Paddy Gastrell, said that the proposed plant would create a "toxic cocktail of poisonous chemicals", and urged county councillors to block the proposals.
However, BCB Environmental Management, the company behind the scheme, has insisted that the plant's emissions would be cleaner than the air in any UK city.
Initial plans were revised after the Environment Agency, which is responsible for granting an operating licence, was concerned that the proposed plant's 82ft chimney stack needed to be higher.
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 11 February 2012
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