Campaigners accuse council as incinerator signs disappear

Workers at North Yorkshire County Council were sent out to collect the signs that had been put up around villages close to the site between York and Knaresborough which is earmarked for the development, which would create the first recycling plant of its kind in the country.

Protesters have now accused the council of adopting totalitarian principles mirroring those in George Orwell's book, 1984, which famously painted a bleak picture of a political party's attempts to manipulate and control society.

David Drury, the parish clerk for Little Ribston, discovered two signs had been removed from his village early on Thursday before he went to collect them from the council's depot in Starbeck.

According to Mr Drury, a total of 18 signs have gone missing in the area in recent weeks – and he pointed out that other roadside notices had not been removed near Little Ribston.

"It seems the council is intent on smothering any dissenting voices about the scheme to make sure that is goes through smoothly. I'd hate to think that it is a foregone conclusion that the incinerator will be built but that is the way it seems," he said.

"No-one who I have spoken to is against the Allerton Park site being used for recycling. But what every person who I have talked to is against is the incinerator."

Senior officials from County Hall announced yesterday that they had pushed back a decision to award the contract for the running of the proposed waste management plant.

Both the county council and York Council were due to decide next month if the 900m deal should be awarded to the preferred bidder, AmeyCespa. The meetings will now be held in December.

The county council's assistant director of waste management, Ian Fielding, said: "We certainly don't want to stifle debate over the proposed Allerton Waste Recovery Park.

"In fact, we have just taken the decision to take our report on awarding the long-term waste management contract to AmeyCespa to our council members in December rather than October to allow further time to receive and consider comments from residents on the proposal."

But the authority faced further criticism from one of its own members, Coun John Savage, who resigned from the Conservative group on the Tory-led council last month in protest at the plans for the incinerator.

Coun Savage said: "I am shocked and angry that the council is willing to go around and take down these signs – it is undermining free speech, and is akin to something out of 1984.

"We need to have a full and open debate about the proposed scheme – it is such an important decision and will affect generations to come.

"But the council has managed to send out a clear message that it doesn't seem to want to see anything in the public domain that is critical of the proposals."

Opponents who have launched the North Yorkshire Waste Action Group have claimed that a far greater emphasis should be placed on boosting recycling.

The group's spokeswoman, Rosetta Nicholson, said: "Like many campaign groups, we have to conduct our campaign with limited resources...we do not have the vast resources of North Yorkshire County Council and the international waste plant contractors, AmeyCespa. This seems to be a deliberate policy to suppress democratic views."

SITE WATERSHED FOR AREA'S WASTE

The multi-million pound recycling plant earmarked for North Yorkshire will prove to be a watershed in the handling of waste in England's largest county.

Up to 40,000 tonnes of food and organic waste are due to be processed at the plant annually.

It will also use mechanical sorting and anaerobic digestion to produce green energy. However, an incinerator is the most contentious element of the proposed scheme which should save taxpayers up to 320m over 25 years.