The company planning to build the Westbury incinerator has been taken over, with the new owners affirming their intention to proceed with the construction of the controversial facility which they aim to be operational by 2028.
The new owners say they are in ‘serious discussions’ with a major engineering, procurement and construction contractor for the project.
Qair says it will use about 243,000 tons a year of non-recyclable waste to supply up to 24 megawatts of electricity. The project was granted an Operational Environmental Permit in June 2022 and secured planning permission from the Planning Inspectorate in February 2023, despite significant opposition from the local community.
Councillor Mark Bailey, chair of Westbury Town Council’s Incinerator Monitoring Group, said, “The news that Qair have taken over a majority stake in NREL, whilst unwelcome, does not change anything for the council, who continue to oppose the building of an incinerator in Westbury no matter who is in charge.
“To this end the council wrote last week to the new Secretary of State at DEFRA, Steve Reed, asking for confirmation of the Labour Party’s stance on incineration and requesting that they commit to ending the building of all new incinerators.
“We have also urged them to publicly support an increase in recycling to reduce the need for an increase in incinerator capacity in the future and to move to a more environmentally sustainable way of managing waste going forward.”
The Hills Group set up NREL and remains a shareholder in the company. They will play a key role in supplying waste to the facility.
Louis Blanchard, CEO of Qair, said, “We are pleased to partner with Hills and recognise a significant opportunity to enhance our base load power capacity. Qair looks forward to working closely with Hills and to start building this new asset, which will bring value to the Wiltshire area.”
Local MP Andrew Murrison said, “I’m not surprised Hills is exercising its ability to sell off NREL following the general election.
“I got a commitment to stopping the building of new incinerators into the Conservative manifesto. Had we won, the asset Hills is now selling would have been worthless since the burner would never have been built.
“I now have to lobby a new set of unsympathetic ministers to end waste incineration and to focus on reducing, reusing and recycling waste.”
