Westbury Town Council has agreed to appoint a legal team to represent the council in the event that the planning application for a waste incinerator in the town is ‘called in’ for further scrutiny.
Councillors also approved the use of Crowdfunding, whereby small amounts of money are raised from a large number of people, to contribute to the project.
Wiltshire Council approved NREL’s plans for a waste incinerator to be built, in June, despite large-scale opposition from Westbury and surrounding towns and villages. A decision is expected soon by Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Michael Gove MP, as to whether he will ‘call in’ to reconsider the decision.
At a meeting of the full town council on 1st November, Westbury councillors agreed to set aside £20,000 from earmarked reserves to cover legal fees, as well as setting aside up to £70,000 to cover the costs of a legal team (a solicitor, barrister and expert witness) that is required when participating in the Planning Inspector process. The town council is also hoping that other local councils, who have submitted their objections to the planning application, will also offer a contribution.
However, one resident who spoke in the public forum of the meeting, questioned whether the legal fees are too high for a ‘small’ council such as Westbury to spend.
He said, “I was flabbergasted to discover that you, a small council, are prepared to spend £90,000 on trying to get rid of the incinerator. My question then, is that a sensible figure given the small amount of funding town councils are given?”
Cllr Mike Sutton, later in the meeting said, “I’ve heard it said that ‘can we afford the money from our limited funds?’ – I would argue it’s the opposite, can we not afford to spend this money for the reputation of the council and the town.
“I think the whole town is expecting Westbury Town Council to support the 2,300 people that objected to it [the incinerator]. There is the money there from the earmarked reserves and eventually from the rolling capital fund, so I think it’s a no-brainer. This is of course all dependant on the application being ‘called in’, if it’s not called in, then there’s no expenditure because there’s nothing to fight.”
When asked by cllr Ward Jones if any of the surrounding town councils that ‘boldly objected’ to the proposal had contributed to the legal fee fund, the town clerk, Deborah Urch said, “We’ve been contacted by four councils, of which one has offered us £100 – other councils are waiting until we confirm the type of costs we might have, even though we have said this is the worst-case scenario; they want to know what the scope of the project is, so they can go back to their council. But certainly, we’ve had support from four or five councils.”
Cllr Jones added, “I want to reassure people that we have actually taken note of who else in the process has objections and the areas that they are concentrating on, so we are not going to duplicate anything if we go down this road.”
