£120m incinerator plan hits legal hitch
Plans for a £120 million rubbish incinerator near Cannock will go back before planners after a paperwork error meant they were vulnerable to a legal challenge.
Plans for a £120 million rubbish incinerator near Cannock will go back before planners after a paperwork error meant they were vulnerable to a legal challenge.
Staffordshire County Council has confirmed that the planning application for the incinerator, which will be built at Four Ashes Industrial Estate, will be re-considered by the new planning committee at the county council to remove a technicality which could leave the planning permission susceptible to a legal challenge.
Waste bosses at the council say the error in the original decision came to light after a member of the public complained to the council about the way the decision to build the incinerator was written.
According to recent legal rulings for major planning schemes, applications such as incinerators must include all the relevant planning regulations and explain how the project conforms to the law.
The council's document did not include these details but the council said that the approval for the incinerator, granted in November last year, was safe and returning it to the committee was a technicality.
The Four Ashes Incinerator will handle an expected 300,000 tonnes of waste a year from Staffordshire and neighbouring authorities.
It is aimed at helping to reduce the amount of rubbish going into landfill and will generate enough power for more than 25,000 homes as well as supplying hot water to businesses.
Friends of the Earth say the county council will struggle to fulfill its obligations as recycling will limit the amount of waste going to the burner.
The group claims the contract with the private operator will tie the council to supplying waste to the incinerator instead of concentrating on recycling.
Ian Benson, project director at Staffordshire County Council, said: "The planning application will be returning to the planning committee in the autumn due to a paper work hitch.
"The committee will revisit the paper work to ensure technical details are included in the published decision. These were not included in the original decision and did not comply with recent judgements which meant the plan could have been vulnerable to a legal challenge."
