Government caves in over incinerator

MINISTERS have promised to publish the reasons why the Government did not axe funding for a controversial incinerator in North Yorkshire when five other schemes were dropped.

Campaigners were disappointed that the project at Allerton Park, between York and Harrogate, was not among those losing their PFI credits as a result of spending cuts, prompting two MPs to demand to know why.

Environment Minister Jim Paice said: “We will publish the methodology through which the 11 remaining sites with projects were left in the private finance initiative allocation, and through which the others were taken out.”

He spoke out after pressure from Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Andrew Jones and Selby and Ainsty’s Nigel Adams, who both claimed the case for the incinerator is “flawed”.

Mr Jones said: “The proposed incinerator will require 300,000 tonnes of waste a year, yet the household waste generated across North Yorkshire will not reach that level.

“That means that the incinerator will have to take commercial waste; there is nothing wrong with that, but it means that the risk will be with the local taxpayer, and the gain will be with the incinerator operators.”

The waste management plant, which will create 70 jobs, will use several recycling techniques on the same site to handle up to 320,000 tonnes of waste a year, although the most contentious element will be the incinerator.