Shropshire Council officers back Shrewsbury incinerator

Shropshire planners are being recommended to approve controversial proposals for a £60 million waste incinerator on the outskirts of Shrewsbury.

Backing for the scheme at Battlefield has come from Shropshire Council officers in a 171-page appraisal which will be presented on July 26 to a special meeting of the authority's strategic planning committee.

The report concludes that while the proposals are "not fully consistent" with the Shropshire Waste Local Plan, they represent a "potentially acceptable" solution for cutting the amount of rubbish going to landfill and helping the to recycling targets.

But today campaigners fighting the scheme said a number of "serious anomalies" had been found in the appraisal and they would be issuing a formal rebuttal.

Veolia Environmental Services, the council's waste contractor, lodged plans for the energy-from-waste plant with the authority last year.

It claims it could generate enough power to supply 10,000 homes and reduce the amount of waste going to landfill to just five per cent.

The report says the choice of the incinerator as the "preferred waste management technology" has been justified following a detailed appraisal of other solutions.

It recommends that the council permit the development, subject to the signing of a legal agreement and various planning conditions.

But the application will have to be referred to the Government Office for the West Midlands as the scheme "does not fully accord" with the waste plan.

Miriam Walton secretary of the Safe Waste in Shropshire group, said: "We will be issuing a formal rebuttal. We are quite horrified by how many mistakes there are in the report."