Anger over plans to burn Bucks rubbish in rural Beds

Bedford Borough Liberal Democrats have slammed plans which would see hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rubbish exported from Buckinghamshire to be burnt in a giant incinerator near Stewartby.

Covanta Energy has announced its intention to build an incinerator capable of burning up to 600,000 tonnes of waste at Rookery Pit. Covanta Energy is currently bidding to win the contract for the disposal of Buckinghamshire's waste, and proposes to import waste from Buckinghamshire homes into Bedfordshire to be burnt.

Rookery Pit was selected by Tory-run Bedfordshire County Council as a site for an incinerator in 2007, a decision opposed by the Liberal Democrats. Bedfordshire councils recently submitted a business case to the government for a waste treatment facility based around a proposed 200,000 tonne-capacity waste incinerator on the site.

Local Ward Councillor Tim Hill thundered: "This brazen attempt to ship household rubbish from Buckinghamshire to be burnt in a giant incinerator near Stewartby is astonishing. This proposal would be extremely damaging to the local area, in addition to the wider environmental harm caused by a massive incinerator. The consequences of the plans would include a huge number of lorries clogging up already overcrowded roads. Local people have for years had to put up with waste being imported into the area to be dumped in landfill sites. It is completely unacceptable to expect them to now face the prospect of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste from outside the area being brought in to be burnt on their doorstep."

Fellow Ward Councillor for Stewartby Judith Cunningham said: "With the brickworks' chimneys having just stopped operating, local residents were already extremely concerned about this county's plans for a new local chimney for waste burning before this announcement. Amongst the many flaws in their proposal, Covanta Energy's claim that the heat from the power station will be used is very weak, unless it has secret plans for a new housing development as well. Just like the Tories on Beds County Council Covanta Energy has come up with all the wrong answers: incineration is wrong, the location of Rookery Pit is wrong, and importing rubbish is wrong."

Liberal Democrat Bedford Borough Implementation Executive Member Cllr Michael Headley added: "This disgraceful proposal has arrived suddenly and without any consultation, but the Tories running Bedfordshire County Council shouldn't be surprised. The chickens are now coming home to roost for the Tories. When they made a proposal to build a giant incinerator on the site, they announced to waste disposal firms that this is 'the' location for any giant rubbish-burner. Under these circumstances it is no surprise that a large waste disposal company has come forward with plans to build such a thing. Covanta Energy has even said very clearly that they chose Rookery Pit because Beds County Council had already selected it as a location for an incinerator. However, just as this county's plans to build a giant incinerator there are fundamentally flawed on environmental grounds, so are Covanta's plans to build an even bigger one on the same site for Buckinghamshire's waste as well."

Covanta Energy has stated that it will 'probably' still go ahead with a planning application for the facility even if it fails to win the contract for the disposal of Buckinghamshire's waste. Due to the size of the proposed plant the application would be determined by the government, taking the decision out of local control.