Council faces JR after granting planning permission for energy from waste plant

Residents in Plymouth have threatened the City Council with legal action over its decision to grant planning permission for an energy-from-waste plant in the North Yard at Devonport Dockyard.

Leigh Day & Co, the law firm acting for the claimants, has written to the local authority calling on it to address the concerns of campaigners from PlymWIN.

The law firm said it would apply for an injunction stopping works on the site and then a judicial review if Plymouth’s response was unsatisfactory.

Leigh Day & Co claimed that the planning permission was flawed for two reasons. The first was that it breached the EU Habitats Directive for failing to undertake the correct Appropriate Assessment for a project that was likely to have a significant effect on sites of a European site of importance;

The second ground was that the council had adopted an “unlawful approach” to Incinerator Bottom Ash (IBA), the ash left as waste at the bottom of the incinerator.

Under the current proposals the IBA would be transported to Whitecleaves Quarry. However, Leigh Day & Co argued that Plymouth was “wrong under EU law in its understanding of the treatment of IBA and its understanding that the IBA could and would be recycled”.

Leigh Day & Co partner Richard Stein, who is also working with residents in Cornwall campaigning against an incinerator at St. Dennis, said: “The EU regulations, which we allege the council have breached, are there for a reason. They safeguard the communities and the environment in which they live and which the council is democratically responsible for.”

A spokeswoman for Plymouth said: "We have received a letter on behalf of PlymWIN and are considering its contents."

PlymWIN is an offshoot of the anti-incinerator campaign group IIW (Incineration Is Wrong).