A special meeting will be held to consider a controversial planning application for a gasification plant in north Cumbria.
North West Regeneration wants to develop an energy from waste facility on land next to the Kingmoor Park Industrial Estate, near the village of Rockcliffe.
The firm has submitted a revised application for the facility, which would be a gasification plant with a 23m flue stack.
The proposed site at units on Kingmoor Park Rockcliffe Estate will heat waste at high temperatures – generally ranging from 1,200°C to 1,500°C, to break it down into a gas named syngas which can be used for electricity generation or refined into other chemicals and fuel.
Villagers are protesting against the plans, and Cumberland Council’s planning committee is due to meet next Friday, June 20, to discuss the application, which has been recommended for approval by officers.
The proposal has attracted 1,218 representations, Cumberland Council said.
It added: “Of these 1,213 are considered to constitute objections, while five provide comments and observations. 775 of the objections take the form of a template letter.”
The Environment Agency had no objection to the application, subject to imposition of a contaminated land condition. Historic England also had no objection and Natural England also had no objection subject to appropriate mitigation being secured.
Rockcliffe Parish Council has objected to the application.
Its objections included:
- There was a lack of information and insufficient assessment within the application package and a call for an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA);
- The adverse cumulative impact of this proposal with existing and other proposed waste developments in the area;
- That the proposal would industrialise the estate and wider area;
- That the estate has never been designated for industrial commercial processes;
- Visual impact – consider the development to be too big, too close and insufficiently screened and that it would have an adverse affect on a large area and harm amenity in Rockcliffe village and the surrounding countryside.
It also objected to the impact of emissions and discharges.
Next Friday’s public meeting is due to begin at 10.30am at the Civic Centre in Carlisle.
