Battle to halt waste plant taken to Minister

Details of a proposed waste management plant between York and Harrogate have now been sent to the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) after North Yorkshire County Council gave planning permission for the £250m facility at the end of last month.

The Secretary of State for Local Government, Eric Pickles, will now decide if the scheme should go-ahead or whether it will be called in for a public inquiry when an independent planning inspector would consider the contentious proposals.

The DCLG confirmed to the Yorkshire Post that “well in excess” of 500 letters and emails had been sent into the department, the Planning Inspectorate and Mr Pickles himself calling for the public inquiry to be held.

Campaigners have claimed that the county council’s decision to grant planning permission on October 30 was a foregone conclusion after the local authority had already awarded a £1bn contract to run the facility to a multi-national company, AmeyCespa.

But the North Yorkshire Waste Action Group (NYWAG) has maintained that the groundswell of opposition to the proposed waste management facility at Allerton Park is a clear indication that a public inquiry should be held.

The spokesman for NYWAG, Bob Schofield, said: “The evidence that we presented to the council’s planning committee will form the basis of our representations to a public inquiry, if one is held. The arguments will not change simply because it is someone else listening to them. We still maintain that the proposed facility is too costly, too big and too environmentally damaging.

“As a group, we are not opposed to a waste disposal facility being built at Allerton Park, but there are much cheaper and more environmentally sustainable options than the current proposals.”

The county council confirmed details of the authority’s decision to grant planning permission were sent to the Government on Wednesday last week.

The council’s corporate director for business and environmental services, David Bowe, admitted the complexity of the application had caused the two-week time-lag since planning approval was given.

Mr Pickles will now have 21 days to decide the next course of action after receiving the council’s submissions and an update is expected at the beginning of next month.

Mr Bowe said: “We knew that our submission would need to be accompanied by detailed background information and that there were specific requirements from the National Planning Casework Unit we needed to respond to following the committee’s debate and discussion.

“This is a huge application and it took us to 10 days to assemble everything and finalise the submission.”

The plant would be the first of its kind in the country to employ the recycling techniques which are proposed, but the central - and most controversial –element - is the incinerator which would burn 80 per cent of all the waste that is brought on site.

Opponents have claimed the £1bn contract to run the plant for 25 years which was awarded by the county council and York Council to AmeyCespa in December 2010 is far too rigid as new technologies could be developed to supersede the waste plant.

Among the opponents who have written to Mr Pickles urging him to give the go-ahead for a public inquiry are Selby and Ainsty MP Nigel Adams and his parliamentary colleague Andrew Jones, who represents the Harrogate and Knaresborough constituency.

Both MPs have voiced grave concerns that the financial model for the waste management plant, which is earmarked for an existing quarry and landfill site, is deeply flawed.

Campaigners collected a 10,000 signature petition against the plans and also raised fears over the risk to human health from the incinerator’s emissions, although council officials have maintained the plant will not put nearby residents in danger.

Harrogate Borough Council also lodged two formal objections to the county council amid concerns over the long-term financial plan as well as the scale of the proposals, increases in traffic levels and the adverse impact on the countryside.

But planning permission was nonetheless granted by the county council following what is thought to be the longest ever planning meeting in the authority’s 38-year history.

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