Energos has been given green light to build an incinerator close to Knowsley Village

May 7 2009 by Richard Down, Liverpool Daily Post

PLANNERS last night gave the go-ahead for a £40m gas incinerator on the edge of a Merseyside village, despite massive local opposition.

Around 150 Knowsley Village residents barracked the developer Energos’s managing director, Knowsley’s planners and officers at the council’s Huyton Suite, as evidence was put before the committee.

But, despite the vocal opposition, 12 of the 20 committee members voted to allow a 24-hour-a-day waste “gasification” plant.

Tony Ely, of Ridinghill Road, spoke on behalf of objectors.

He said: “May I remind councillors that Knowsley Council, in October, 2007, said it was their clear view that there are no suitable sites for a waste incinerator in the borough. Energos has ignored this.”

He said that Lord Derby’s estate had also objected to the plan because their agricultural land was likely to take the majority of the fall-out from the planned 50- metre high chimney.

Other residents shouted out from the packed public gallery about their health and safety concerns.