Incinerator debate smoulders on: No update from Secretary of State on proposed incinerator eight months after it was approved

WESTBURY residents are no closer to finding out whether they will have a waste incinerator built on their doorstep, eight months after Wiltshire Council approved the application by Northacre Renewable Energy Ltd (NREL) in June of last year. 

The application was heavily opposed by Westbury Town Council and 17 other local councils, the local MP, and local residents from towns and villages across the region. As a result, demands were made for the application to be ‘called in’ for further inspection by the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove MP. 

The White Horse News contacted Michael Gove MP for an update on whether he will ‘call in’ the application for further scrutiny and to get an indication of when a decision will be made.  

Requests

His department said, “The department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has received a number of requests to call in this planning application. These requests are being considered and a decision on whether or not to call in the application will issue in due course.” 

When the local MP, Dr         Andrew Murrison, was asked by our publication whether Michael Gove is aware of Westbury’s planned incinerator and the backlash the application has received from locals, he said, “No news from Mr Gove but I have spoken to him, and he is aware [of the application]. 

Arla objection ‘could be decisive’

He added, “I believe the Arla Foods objection is particularly powerful and may be decisive.” (See story on page 3).

It was also revealed that Wiltshire Council has not received any further communication from the government surrounding the incinerator application, at a recent meeting of the highways, planning and development (HP&D) committee of Westbury Town Council. 

Cllr Matt Dean, who also sits on Wiltshire Council, said at the HP&D meeting, “Last week I wrote to the case officer at Wiltshire Council who considered the incinerator application, asking if he had received any communications from the Secretary of State, as things had gone very quiet on that front indeed.   

“The officer confirmed to me in writing that Wiltshire Council as an entity has not received any further correspondence from the government regarding the incinerator and they are awaiting correspondence.”

Cllr Gordon King, who is also a Wiltshire Councillor said, “I personally think this is politics at the moment. The government had to host COP 26 in November, and before COP 26 they rolled back permissions for the coal mine in Cumbria – since then, the government seem to be enabling this. 

“I think once Mr Gove has cleared his desk, so to speak, he will start thinking more about energy from waste and the proposal from Northacre.” 

Public inquiry

Cllr Dean added, “I’m not as cynical as cllr King but perhaps not as wise either. I also wrote the week before to Dr Andrew Murrison asking if he had heard anything, to which he replied, ‘not really’ but did go on to imply that he thought it was extremely likely that because of the amount of public interest there would be a public inquiry. I asked him why he thought that, and he explained that he ‘had his reasons’.”