Covanta given green light to burn in Bedfordshire

The first ruling of the Infrastructure Planning Committee, set up to rubber stamp large infrastructure projects irrespective of the wishes of local people has recently announced its decision to allow a proposal by Covanta to build a 585,000 tonne a year incinerator at Rookery Pit in Bedfordshire.

Despite the best efforts of the local community the proposal was given the green light, overruling the massive opposition it had encountered locally and flying in the fact of recent studies which show that residual waste in this country is falling not rising. Quite how Covanta plan to fuel this massive plant is still open to speculation, much as it is with the Middlewich proposal, but it brought forward nonetheless the standard backslapping from Malcolm Chilton who was quoted as saying “While every major capital project is likely to have some level of opposition, the community at large should take comfort from the fact that all the issues raised have been taken seriously and independently examined in the most thorough way possible.” In other words we’ve now got a green light to dump on your community so shut up.

This is not the end of the matter though as it is still open to legal challenge as it must be ratified by Parliament and in particular by Eric Pickles who has to ensure that it doesn’t contravene European Law.

CHAIN for one hope that this isn’t the end of the matter.