Questions reman over Manvers waste plant fight, say campaigners

Members of Dearne Valley AIM have been fighting the plans for an incinerator on Bolton Road, Manvers, which would have resulted in around 250,000 tonnes of household waste from the three boroughs being burned to create electricity.

But despite the BDR Partnership—made up of local authorities Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham—ditching incinerator plans to go with energy partnership 3SE’s state-of-the-art Mechanical Biological Treatment plant last week, the group insist that “questions remain to to be asked.”

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Increased traffic created by lorries bringing waste to the site and a shortfall of waste are among its concerns.

At 3SE’s proposed MBT plant, which could be operational by 2015, recyclable materials will be extracted from grey bin waste before residual waste is converted into a sustainable fuel for the Ferrybridge power station in West Yorkshire.

3SE—itself a partnership between Shanks Group plc and Scottish and Southern Energy plc—estimate that the 25-year agreement will be worth £750 million.

BDR has secured £77.4 million in government funding to help fund the scheme.

This week the Dearne Valley AIM group said that they were “very pleased” that BDR had ditched plans for the incinerator scheme proposed by rival bidders SITA Lend Lease.

But committee member Sue Sharpe said: “There are still issues that BDR need to address, including traffic volume flow implications and the lack of suitable infrastructure to support it, which will increase the carbon footprint if not addressed.

“There are also questions about operating under capacity in building this facility which we assume the operator will have to deal with by supplementing with waste from other sources.”

A spokeswoman for BDR said that contractual talks with 3SE would continue in the coming months, with final award of the waste treatment contract expected to take place later in the year.

The MBT plant will also have to receive planning consent from Rotherham Borough Council before it can be given the green light.

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