Newlay Asphalt Ltd and MB Goodwin (Skipsea) Ltd want to build the plant processing up to 100 tonnes an hour of asphalt, on the old RAF Catfoss base half a kilometre from the village of Brandesburton.

The application has attracted 376 objections as well as from three parish councils who are concerned about pollutants such as benzene, cadmium, formaldehyde and arsenic as well as harmful odour, noise, dust and emissions.

An objector told a planning meeting at County Hall in Beverley on Thursday that the number of objections showed the breadth of feeling in the community, and it would have a “very negative and severe impact on the local environment and people.”

The committee heard that generally asphalt plants should be sited a minimum of three kilometres from the nearest dwelling.

However in this case it would be less than 500 metres from the nearest dwelling while the village primary school, church and residential area are less than 1km away.

Operations director at Dewsbury-based Newlay Jamie Brown told councillors locating a plant in the East Riding would cut thousands of unnecessary road miles a year.

They had to follow strict regulations and a live monitoring process, which they had been doing at Dewsbury since 2014 with “no nonconformities”.

He said council officers had assessed the plans as acceptable and urged councillors to follow their recommendation of approval.

However ward councillor Jane Evison said the local farmer was contracted to grow peas and the soil had to be regularly tested, while other businesses on the Catfoss industrial estate included caravan storage, a dog kennel and cattery, and she “felt strongly” that it was not in the right location.

Councillor John Whittle said Brandesburton was a vibrant village, with a couple of nice pubs and was a base for people in surrounding caravan sites, who would suddenly discover a “clanking monstrosity” down the road. He said he was no expert in the field of coating roadstone with bitumen at 100 tonnes an hour, but added: "That's going to be a heck of a racket".

Meanwhile councillor Nigel Wilkinson said they weren’t supposed to allow wind farms within 600 metres of houses and yet they were proposing to put people much closer to a plant producing toxic chemicals like formaldehyde and arsenic.

He said: “I’m concerned that yet again our public protection people have not come and discussed this within this report to look at...we are discussing odour, not toxic chemicals.”

Councillors agreed to defer a decision for a site visit - possibly to Newlay’s Dewsbury site.

They also want additional landscaping and further information from public protection about the impact of the scheme.

Plans for controversial asphalt plant near Brandesburton deferred after pollution concerns raised