Campaigners step up fight against incinerator project

York Residents Against Incineration (YRAIN) will be holding city centre street stalls in the run-up to Christmas to rally further support in their battle against the plans.

The latest round of the county council’s consultation over the incinerator, which is earmarked for a site between York and Harrogate at Allerton Park, ended last month.

The scale of the project means that the application is unlikely to be considered by councillors for up to another year to give council officers time to analyse the proposals.

The scheme will involve a series of recycling techniques operating from the same site to handle up to 320,000 tonnes of waste a year, although the most contentious element will be the incinerator.

YRAIN and its sister campaign, the North Yorkshire Waste Action Group (NYWAG), which has collected more than 10,000 signatures in protest over the plans, is currently lobbying central Government alongside Andrew Jones, the Conservative MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, to get the final decision wrested away from the county council to be made by a planning inspector instead.

YRAIN spokesperson Richard Lane said: “North Yorkshire has invested a huge amount of money in the incinerator project and cannot now be objective in deciding the planning application. But they risk wasting a much larger sum of money if they go ahead with the incinerator. A refusal at public inquiry is possibly the only thing that might make the councils think again.”

The county council and York Council both approved plans in December to award the £1 billion contract for the waste management plant to an international firm, AmeyCespa. The application was finally submitted by the developer in September.

Mr Lane said: “Anyone who cares about recycling or reducing carbon emissions should oppose these plans, but so should anyone who cares about council services. With council tax rises capped, other services will have to be cut even harder to pay for this white elephant.”