BUILDING a 150,000-tonne waste processing plant in one of the country’s most deprived areas will stifle its regeneration, a planning inquiry heard yesterday.

Crucial house building schemes in the area have already been put on hold in Garston partly because of the plans, it was claimed.

And Liverpool City Council says home buyers are more likely to look elsewhere if the scheme goes ahead.

The claims were made at the first day of a crunch public inquiry into plans to build the plant near Garston Docks.

Waste processing firm Jack Allen Holdings wants to send 150,000 tonnes of rubbish to the site each year.

Domestic and commercial waste would be sorted and “baked” at high temperatures at the site. Clean metals and plastics would then be recycled and organic material would be turned into fibre to use as fuel.

But Liverpool city council’s development control team leader, Mark Loughran, told the inquiry: “This application has already had an adverse impact on the interest that individuals have shown in investing in homes in the local area.

“This effect will be confirmed if planning permission is granted.”

At the start of the four-day inquiry at Garston Urban Village Hall, Mr Loughran said Garston is not only Liverpool’s most deprived area, but also tops UK lists of deprivation. Regeneration projects in the area were relying on cash from two crucial house building schemes, he added.

But the Church Fields Project and works at Dingle Bank have been put on hold because of the recession and the “spectre of this application”.

Mr Loughran said the plans risked making the Dingle Bank homes “virtually unsaleable for residential use”.