Plans for an anaerobic digestion plant in West Cumbria have been given the green light.
Cumberland Council’s planning committee met at the Civic Centre in Carlisle on Wednesday to consider the planning application for a site at Holmen Iggesund Paperboard in Siddick, near Workington.
Planning officers recommended that it should be approved subject to a number of conditions.
Agent Peter Shannon told members that the plant would reduce the amount of waste going into the sea and create renewable energy with no harmful impacts on local wildlife.
Councillor Tony Markley (Solway Coast, Conservative) supported the application and planning permission was unanimously approved by the committee.
The application site is on vacant, previously developed, land to the east of the Iggesund site, directly to the north of the recently approved wastewater treatment plant.
The proposed anaerobic digestion plant would process wastewater containing organic matter from the existing operations.
It will involve effluent water from the pulp mill flowing into the system and being stored in a buffer tank where dosing of chemicals and nutrients is performed.
During the process, the biogas generated is cleaned through scrubbing and then processed through a buffer and burned in a boiler to create steam for the mill operations.
While 55 notification letters were sent to nearby properties, just one letter of objection has been received which raised concerns over potential odours and the filtering of gases at the plant.
But an assessment concluded that its effect was predicted to be either slightly adverse or negligible.
