Battle over 
huge green energy plant 
 joined

Developers 3AD3 Ltd are proposing to build the 5.1MW plant about half-a-mile from Leven at Little Catwick Quarry in East Yorkshire. The anaerobic digestion plant would convert 128,000 tonnes of waste, including commercial and domestic waste, animal slurry and glycerol, a by-product of bio-diesel production, into a methane-rich biogas.

Most would be injected into the National Grid, providing “green energy” for thousands of homes, with a “small element” powering a combined heat and power plant on the site.

But residents in Leven say the industrial-sized plant on land north of Yarrows Aggregates site, off the A165, is too close to their homes. They claim it will not only produce noxious smells, but could present a hazard, after an explosion destroyed a large processing tank at an anaerobic digestion plant in Shropshire earlier this year.

More than 150 people attended a public meeting called by Leven Parish Council.

Chairwoman Patricia Ablett said: “We are talking industrial-size, the type of thing that should be at Saltend. They tell us all the waste will be delivered and stored in sealed containers to ‘minimise potential odour’ – we think it is going to stink. The food stock will come in six days a week, 24 hours a day, it will be non-stop.”

Planning permission was granted last year for a much smaller 500KW plant.

Coun Ablett added: “This site sits in the middle of four villages, Leven, Catwick, Brandesburton and Long Riston, but the impact of such a development would have far reaching consequences for many surrounding communities.”

No one was available from the developers yesterday but their plans state the waste and gas “will be processed in accordance with much higher commercial industry standards increasing environmental security”.