THE Westbury community will get the opportunity to raise any concerns they have about plans to build a new waste treatment plant on the Northacre Industrial Park.
A public consultation will allow concerns to be addressed about the planned facility, owned by Northacre Renewable Energy.
Members of the public and environmental groups have spoken of fears of damaging waste emissions to the air of Westbury from the proposed plant. But the Environment Agency has confirmed that such issues may be raised when the company applies for a permit to allow waste emissions to air under the Industrial Emissions Directive.
Nick Gupta, area director for the Environment Agency in Wessex said, “I am happy to confirm that we are still committed to putting any application we receive for such a scheme out to public consultation. I can also confirm that to date we have not received an application for a permit from Hills Waste Limited for the proposed plant.”
Nick Gupta made the promise in an email to Dr Brian Mathew, Wiltshire councillor for Box and Colerne.
It follows a news story in White Horse News where local environmental campaigners warned of the dangers of the proposed plant.
In a further development, cllr Russell Hawker has cast doubt on the future of the plant.
“The information that I’ve received suggests that it won’t go ahead,” he said at the Westbury Area Board meeting on Thursday 12th October. “The viability is still being looked at and I believe that they’ve been told that to connect to the grid they’ve got to put cables underground all the way to Frome. So it may not happen, I’m not saying that it won’t.”
The power plant, owned by Northacre Renewable Energy – a company owned by Hills Group – has received planning permission to be built on land between the Northacre Resource Recovery Centre and Arla Dairies on Stephenson Road, just over a mile from Westbury town centre. Its main chimney will stand at 60m (200 foot) tall – nearly half the size of the chimney at the old cement works.
The 22 megawatt power station would be expected to operate 24 hours a day and would produce electricity via ‘gasification’; a process involving heating special fuels made from rubbish at temperatures up to 1,600ºC.
Any emissions from the proposed gasification plant would have to comply with the requirements of the Industrial Emissions Directive before the plant could be issued with an environmental permit by the Environment Agency.
Northacre Renewable Energy Ltd has until 2020 to start building the incinerator.
