Amey insists their Waterbeach incinerator is best outcome for Cambridgeshire
The developers behind the Waterbeach incinerator plant proposals insist their scheme is the best outcome for Cambridgeshire after the government announced it is to make the final decision on whether it should be built.
Some residents living nearby are still fighting to have the whole project scrapped, and will get to put their concerns to the planning inspectorate when the hearing begins on November 5.
But Robert Jenrick MP, secretary of state for communities and local government, will make the final decision.
The incinerator was refused planning permission by Cambridgeshire County Council on the grounds of the “significant adverse effects” it would have on the local landscape and on heritage site, Denny Abbey.
However, developers Amey lodged a last minute appeal against the decision sparking the planning inquiry which will be held at Shire Hall and is expected to last for 16 days.
Almost 2,000 people have now signed a petition against the plans for the £200million incinerator.
But Amey is continuing to reach out to local residents, the inspector and the wider community to ensure the benefits of their plans are fully understood.
An Amey spokesperson said: “An Energy from Waste, EfW, facility on this site is undoubtedly the best outcome for Cambridgeshire. The proposed facility has strong environmental and social benefits, including local jobs and the potential to supply low carbon heat as well as electricity. It remains a strong proposal which we believe the inspector will support.
“Amey continues to engage with local residents, the Inspector and wider community to ensure that the benefits of this facility are understood by all parties compared to the existing alternative option of landfill, which is acknowledged to have a worse environmental impact.”
Amey, which already has a recycling plant at Waterbeach, says its energy from waste incinerator system is the only currently available sustainable, reliable and affordable way to deliver decarbonised heat at a meaningful scale. It also maintains that new homes won’t be able to connect to the gas grid from 2025 and that alternative energy sources are required to heat 11,000 new homes to be built on land adjacent to its site.
The incinerator, it claims, would generate enough electricity to power 63,000 homes and reduce carbon emissions by more than 35,000 tonnes per year.
However, a spokesman for campaign group Cambridge Without Incineration (CBWIN) said: “Recently the secretary of state for communities has decided to ‘call in’ the appeal which means that after the public inquiry in November, the appeal inspector will send a final report to the then secretary of state for communities and they alone will decide the fate of this industrial burner.”
Last year the group raised money for an independent report about the effects an incinerator would have on the local landscape, which includes Grade I-listed buildings and the remains of the 12th-century Benedictine abbey church and the 14th-century Franciscan nunnery.
The secretary of state has taken up the Waterbeach case as it involves a development considered to be of major importance with more than local significance.
