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You are here: CIWM  >  Publications  >  Latest News  >  Stewartby Incinerator Approved By Commissioners

Stewartby Incinerator Approved By Commissioners

17 October 2011

The Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) granted development consent waste firm Covanta for its application for an energy from waste (EfW) generating station to be located at Rookery South Pit

The decision, made within the statutory three-month period laid down in the Planning Act 2008, is the first to be issued by the IPC and follows a six-month examination of the application by a panel of three Commissioners.

It is expected that the incinerator will generate around 600,000 tonnes of waste a year.

The decision, however, has been met with huge opposition from residents, Bedford Borough Council and Central Bedfordshire Council, Campaigner Dave Cooper said he felt deflated at the decision. He said: "I feel really angry at the moment. I can't say it came as a massive surprise, a lot of people did think it was a done deal.

"They may have won the battle, but they have not won the war. As far as we are concerned they have no customers and they don't even have anyone to build the thing yet.

"This is not over, we now need to go away and think about what out next move will be."

Commenting on the decision, Friends of the Earth's Planning Campaigner Anna Watson said:
"This is the first decision based on the new National Policy Statements - and predictably it's rubber-stamped a deeply damaging development.

"Although this plant pumps out high greenhouse gas emissions, the NPS doesn't allow its climate impact to be properly assessed - it even classes polluting incinerators as 'renewable' power plants although they emit more carbon than gas-fired power stations for the energy produced.

"This damaging decision will give the green light to waste companies to put in more applications for resource-hungry incinerators across England and Wales."

Sir Michael Pitt, Chair of the IPC said: "The role of the IPC is to examine applications for nationally significant infrastructure projects, and to make decisions or recommendations on whether development consent should be granted. Today the Commission has completed its first examination of an application, and done so within the timescales prescribed in the Planning Act. The decision, and all the evidence considered by the Panel of Commissioners in reaching their decision, is publicly available on our website."

The Rookery South application has taken just over a year from acceptance to decision and was taken by a Panel of three Commissioners appointed to examine the application.

The decision, and all the written evidence considered by the Commissioners, can be viewed on the IPC website, which also has recordings of all the oral hearings held.

In this case the development consent order is made in the form of a statutory instrument, and it needs to go through Parliamentary processes before the Order comes into effect.

www.infrastructure.independent.gov.uk

www.HYPERLINK "http://www.covantaenergy.co.uk/"covantaHYPERLINK "http://www.covantaenergy.co.uk/"energy.co.uk

Darrel Moore