Villagers in East Yorkshire protest against concreting over farmland to store waste wood to feed incinerator

Locals are worried about dust, pollutants, noise and light pollution, as well as the prospect of hundreds more HGVs on the roads and whether the plant at Tansterne could end up burning household rubbish.

It comes after plans for up to four more gas and oil wells at High Fosham, two miles away, were approved, despite protests. Objections to that focussed on the increase in HGVs on narrow country lanes, but waste wood destined for Tansterne will also have to be trucked via local villages, before being stockpiled, processed and eventually burned.

Neil Watts, from Sproatley, which is on the route for the trucks, has been putting up posters and banners and is arranging a public meeting. He said: "For the first three years we believe it will be something like 200 to 300 HGVs through the village a day during construction, and after that at least 150 a day to feed it. At the end of the day health is going to be affected.

"Where I sleep is 20ft from the side of the road and I'm going to be stopping my grandchildren playing in the garden because of the fumes."

The hybrid application, which covers 100 acres in total, has attracted more than 200 objections so far.

Applicants GB Bio is seeking planning permission for a biomass and waste wood storage and processing facility, including a processing building with 5,472m2 of floorspace.

There will be a total of 186 large storage bays and 211 small bays, each 5m high along with lagoons - including a reedbed lagoon which the hardstanding will drain into "ensuring that any contamination is removed".

They also seek outline permission for vertical farms, where crops are grown in vertically stacked layers, hydrogen production and storage, battery storage and carbon dioxide storage on the remainder of the site.

GB Bio claims it will create a "high quality, sustainable ancillary bioproduction park that increases the efficiency of the existing biomass plant and provides local jobs".

However locals say the plant, which was commissioned in February 2018, is an eyesore and has never run successfully.

In 2019 27 workers were made redundant when the operator went into administration.

Parish councillors in Aldbrough invited the applicants to an event in February, but the offer was declined - nor did anyone come from East Riding Council.

Chair Sharlah Cantwell said people had been shocked by the scale of the plans, which would bring no benefit to the village.

She said: "It hasn't fired for a long time. They did get it going then something went with a turbine.

"From what we've been told the actual biomass plant isn't going to produce any more electricity and what's worse is they are practically concreting over 100 acres of land which floods anyway and is surrounded by ditches.

"Our concern is covering it in waste wood is the pollution aspect, the run off and what's going to blow off and it's a third of a mile from Aldbrough.

"Why can't it be processed on a brownfield site? Why does it have to be piled up and processed here?

"It's over industrialisation of the countryside. Could its use change in future to clinical waste, household waste?"