THE company behind the Knowsley waste incinerator, Energos, needs to get its act together quickly if the project is ever to go ahead.

Protesters claim that the plant will pose a contamination risk to public health and to good quality agricultural land.

Energos, on the other hand, says it will not. Local politicians, it seems, tend to agree with Energos and have given the project the go-ahead.

Rather than taking no for an answer, protesters are planning their next phase, possibly involving an application for a judicial review or a legal claim of maladministration.

There are a number of fundamental issues in this increasingly ill-tempered stand-off that do not seem to have been addressed.

If Energos’s claims that the plant is safe and meets all the relevant legislation concerning safety are correct, then the message certainly has not got across to those who argue against the plant. They simply do not believe Energos.

What is more certain is that, as of now, the local opinion seems to be firmly and vehemently against the plant. If that continues to be the case, then it raises all sorts of questions about the nature of local democracy if Knowsley council is adamant that it wants to go ahead. Councillors in Knowsley Village, in particular, must be feeling a little uncomfortable right now.

It has the making of a saga that will go on and on, expensively.

We welcome George Howarth’s offer to raise the matter in the House of Commons, and share his belief that the first priority is to get Energos and the council to take local concerns seriously.

But there is no obviously easy solution. And the waste will have to be disposed of somehow.