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Campaigners are celebrating a victory for 'people power' after council officers recommended rejecting a £50m proposal to extend the city's incinerator. Their advice is set to be followed when councillors vote on the proposal next week. Environment Correspondent SEAN KIRBY reports

Decision day on the proposal to expand Eastcroft incinerator finally comes next week, almost a year after plans were first announced.

And, as reported exclusively in later editions of yesterday's Post, the recommendation of council officials is that it should not go ahead.

Environmentalists, residents near the site and their supporters have been vocal about site owner WRG's £50m plan to increase the plant's waste burning from 150,000 to 250,000 tonnes a year.

They said more incineration would mean more direct air pollution, affecting health, and other environmental problems such as more lorries around the city centre.

Lynn Victor, a Sneinton resident on the Eastcroft incinerator community liaison committee, said: "After such a long time, it's a great relief.

"The reason the officers have given might be something that would prevent it being re-applied for. I wouldn't like to go through all this again."

The city council has received petitions with a total of almost 3,000 signatures on them, as well as 158 individual objections.

It seems likely waste giant WRG's expansion hopes will be thwarted by a combination of business need and people power.

Elected councillors at a development control committee on Wednesday will have the final say. The advice of planning officers is to turn down expansion. Councillors are free to ignore that but, with all three main parties having previously publicly opposed the incinerator plan, this is unlikely.

Jon Beresford, a member, said he was delighted by the officers' recommendation.

"This is fantastic news", he said.

And he said he felt that public pressure had played a part in the council's final recommendation.

"If you look at the city and council's joint waste plan, it says the expansion of the waste plan would be regarded favourably. When the proposal first came out, the city council seemed in favour of it," he said.

"It's only recently due to publicity and campaigning that we've seen the main political parties speaking against it."

The officers' report says that, in general, WRG's expansion plan cannot be rejected for its likely environmental impact.

The Environment Agency granted the firm a new operating permit in December and the city's NHS primary care trust says negative health effects would be "small".

But it finds a bigger Eastcroft does not fit in with how the council wants to see Nottingham's east side develop. WRG's planning application argues the incinerator has been part of the cityscape for more than 30 years, seemingly without putting off investor interest nearby.

But, say council officers, times have moved on. Rather than an industrial landscape, the area around the canal and London Road is now seen as "one of the most important and prominent approaches into the city".

There is also the concern that 30 months of work to expand the incinerator would slow development progress nearby.

"Rather than development that would enhance the canal corridor and improve links with the city-centre, it is likely to result in lengthy lead in times for development in the vicinity of Eastcroft incinerator," says the report.

Conservation group Nottingham Civic Society supports this stance, saying an enhanced incinerator is not part of the vision of drawing Nottingham's east side back into the 'mainstream' life of the city.

The report says the expansion "would not properly reflect the concerns and interests of communities".

It adds: "Although it might reflect those of some waste collection authorities, waste disposal authorities and some business interests, the proposal would be at odds with the strong local opposition from residents."

Lobby group Nottingham Against Incineration and Landfill (Nail) was set up in 2002, two years before WRG's expansion plan was announced, and has been at the forefront of opposition to it.

WRG says that even if half of all household and commercial waste was being recycled locally by 2010, when the extension is due to come online, there would still be around 1.8 million tonnes of waste left over within 35 miles of Eastcroft requiring treatment or disposal.

And much of that would have to go into landfill.

"WRG hopes that city councillors will see the broad need for this facility and vote in line with policies set out in the waste local plan," a spokeswoman for the firm said.

sean kirby