A legal challenge is being launched in a last-ditch bid to stop the highly-controversial £60 million Shrewsbury incinerator being built, campaigners revealed today.

Shrewsbury Friends of the Earth is seeking a judicial review of the decision to give the go-ahed for the burner at Battlefield Enterprise Park. The pressure group claims it would cost more than £2 million a year more to run than current arrangements.

It claims Shropshire Council is ‘failing in its financial duties’ by not reviewing the decision to build the plant.

The incinerator was given the go-ahead this year, after planning inspector John Woolcock overruled a unanimous decision by the council’s planning committee to reject the proposal.

Friends of the Earth said its latest challenge would not be on planning grounds, but would instead focus on financial reasons.

It said that since the deal between the council and Veolia was signed in 2007 to include the building of the incinerator, recycling levels had increased and waste levels had fallen.

It also claims the landfill allowance trading scheme, which would have subsidised the plant as a reward for diverting waste from landfill, is being scrapped at the end of 2012/13.

Group spokesman Dave Green said: “Our figures show that the incinerator would cost over £2 million a year more to run than the current arrangements.

“Shropshire Council pride themselves on being businesslike but what business would carry on with building a new plant without a review when the financial basis is so unsound?”

Friends of the Earth wrote to the council this week to inform it of the intention to seek a judicial review.

Veolia says the incinerator will create enough energy to power 10,000 homes a year. Construction work on the burner is expected to start later this year.

A Shropshire Council spokesman said the authority was yet to receive the letter but when it did it would respond accordingly.