York Residents Against Incineration

And another one falls… the Secretary of State has refused permission for the Rufforth Colliery incinerator after a public inquiry. This shows how incinerators are not a done deal just because the Council supports them. The inspector found that the proposed Energy Recovery Facility would “intrude into the openness of the countryside”, create the “potential [...]

On April 20th the Council issued an enforcement notice for the site of the North Selby Mine, demanding that UK Coal clear the site of all buildings and machinery related to its use as a mine. This is to comply with the original planning permission, which required the land to be returned to agricultural use [...]

York Residents Against Incineration welcomed the news announced today of the abandonment of plans for a gasification incinerator at the North Selby Mine site. Science City York is to pull out of the project, which will now go ahead with only the anaerobic digestion facility. This is exactly the right thing to do – perhaps [...]

Plans for an anaerobic digester have been submitted for Selby. The plant, on the former citric acid factory, will compost food waste in closed vessels and burn the resulting gas to generate electricity for sale to the grid. This is the right way to do energy from waste. Why? Because it’s on a brownfield site, [...]

The Yorkshire Post has reported that Amey Cespa will, after all, get compensation from the council tax payers of York and North Yorkshire if the planning application for their incinerator is turned down. Not so long ago, at the lengthy meeting where the waste contract was approved, the chair of North Yorkshire’s Planning Comittee stood [...]

Another incinerator plan has hit the news recently. UK Coal have teamed up with PEEL Environmental and, of all people, Science City York, to build another giant commercial incinerator. Like the Tockwith plan, which you’ll remember was dropped after the site blew up, this is a purely private venure. Their plan is to collect commercial [...]

As part of the “Sustainable Communities Act”, local governments were able to petition Westminster for additional powers. One of the requests that went up from the City of York Council to the Department for Communities and Local Government was that the Government could Bring commercial waste into councils’ targets for increased recycling by making appropriate [...]

The front page story of the Independent today, entitled “Incinerator Britain”, was about the huge expansion in incinerators being planned. They reported that the Chancellor, George Osborne, was the first signatory on an anti-incinerator petition set up in his constituency. That was before he took up his current post, but you’ll remember that the proposed [...]

North Yorkshire Councillors passed the incinerator plans today. The debate took up all morning and went into the afternoon session, with eloquent arguments being made against the incinerator both by campaigners and Councillors. The final vote was 49 in favour of the plans, 19 against with one abstention. The more even results reflected the more [...]

At the Full Council Meeting on Thursday, City of York Councillors voted overwhelmingly to approve the incinerator plans. Two alternatives were put forward – one put by Green Councillor Dave Taylor which sought to delay approval until the competion of DEFRA’s waste strategy review, and one by renegade Lib Dem Councillor Christian Vassie to try [...]