Borough council withdraws JR over incinerator project to focus on inquiry
A borough council in the East of England has withdrawn its judicial review action over an incinerator that the county council is proposing for its area.
King’s Lynn & West Norfolk Council launched legal proceedings in April over the decision by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Caroline Spelman, to award PFI credits for the £169m project at Saddlebow.
In July it vowed to fight on after being refused permission to bring the proceedings.
The following month Communities Secretary Eric Pickles announced that the controversial project would be called in.
King’s Lynn & West Norfolk has now decided that it will focus on preparing a case against the project when it goes before the Planning Inspectorate. The independent inquiry is expected to begin in February 2013.
Cllr Daubney, Leader of King's Lynn & West Norfolk, said: "The advice of our barrister was to focus our resources on the course of action that would be most likely to give us the outcome that the people of West Norfolk want.
“We have always argued that an independent public inquiry into the planning application would be the most appropriate place for everyone to have their say about the incinerator and would mean that all the considerations would be explored objectively. It is our chance to put as robust a case as possible to the planning inspector, clearly setting out why building an incinerator in King's Lynn is not the right thing to do.”
Cllr Daubney added: “We believe that this is our best chance of stopping this project therefore we have decided to withdraw from the judicial review and focus all our efforts on fighting this battle from a planning point of view.
Deciding to withdraw from the judicial review does not mean that we will not continue to question the decision to awards PFI credits. We will continue to work with parliamentary representatives to scrutinise the detail of the decision as I feel strongly that the financing package, the projected costs and pre-contract agreements made with Cory Wheelabrator require further explanation.”
Philip Hoult