A meeting of the full council on Wednesday saw almost two thirds of councillors rejecting outright the proposal by New Zealand company Global Olivine. A further 10 councillors voted to recommend the proposal subject to changes being made, with one abstention.
” The council has decided in principal to reject the proposal. “
– Peterborough city council spokeswoman
Global Olivine and its UK partner company Peterborough Renewable Energy Ltd (PREL) had wanted to build the 250 million waste incineration plant at the Fengate Industrial Estate.
The decision of the council to reject the plant will now be put before the council's cabinet, before a response is formulated for the Secretary of State.
A spokeswoman for Peterborough city council confirmed: “The council has decided in principal to reject the proposal, this recommendation will now go the cabinet.”
Proposal
Global Olivine, which had a bid to run Norfolk's waste disposal services rejected last year, had wanted its Peterborough plant to be capable of treating up to one million tonnes of material each year. This could have included energy crops, but plans were for most of the input material to be waste from the local region, including hazardous waste, over a 30 to 40 year period.
The plant would have been built on a 56,000 square-metre site on the busy industrial estate, with eight combustion units generating a total of 126MW of energy – enough to provide 16% of the region's power needs according to PREL.
Just before Christmas, the councillor in whose ward Global Olivine wanted to build the incinerator wrote to his fellow councillors urging them to reject the plant. Among his criticisms, he said the plant was proposed for the “wrong place” (see letsrecycle.com story).
Despite the council's rejection of its proposals, PREL told letsrecycle.com it still holds out hope the plant may still be built.
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Chris Williams, managing director for the company, said: “This is just stage one of the proceedings. We are disappointed that some issues were not brought up, but not all the councillors were in favour of dropping the proposal, so there is hope.”
Peterborough's cabinet is expected to meet later this month to discuss the decision of the council.
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