Last-ditch bid to stop incinerator 
approval

North Yorkshire County Council has already approved plans for the £1.4bn plant at a site at Allerton Park, near Knaresborough. Now York Council, which is the other authority involved, is expected to sign off on the scheme on Thursday.

It has already been approved by York Council’s cabinet and North Yorkshire county councillors agreed to the plans at a meeting more than a week ago, despite the Government withdrawing millions of pounds of funding last year.

The scheme has been opposed by Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Andrew Jones and groups including York Residents Against Incineration (YRAIN), which has written to all York councillors ahead of Thursday’s meeting urging them not to back the plans.

YRAIN spokesman Richard Lane said: “Residual waste volumes, the amount left after recyclables have been removed, have continued to fall, in spite of the predictions of the project officers. Yet we are going ahead with a huge incinerator planned on the basis that they would have been increasing since 2006.”

Mr Lane claimed York has “no particular need for the incinerator” but added that a previous administration at the city council had tied it to North Yorkshire which did need a new facility as it had waste contracts which are expiring.

The planned facility will deal with household waste and some commercial waste from across North Yorkshire. Both councils would be signed up to a 25-year waste management contract with a private firm, AmeyCespa.