CLAIMS that a county council has made a U-turn on its no-incineration policy have been strongly denied by the authority's leader.
Green Party member James Abbott, district councillor for Rivenhall, believes an environmental report commissioned by Essex County Council to accompany its Draft Waste Strategy confirms that the authority is planning a waste incinerator for the county.
Mr Abbott is concerned it could be built at Rivenhall Airfield because it is used as an example site for a solid recovered fuel plant (SRF) in the council's outline business case for private finance initiative cash.
He said: "It confirms what Essex Green Party has been saying all along - that the energy plant' is in fact a waste incinerator and that a plant of the size being suggested by the county council would typically cover 6,600 sq metres and have a chimney stack 70m high.
"The plant being suggested by the county council is also discussed in its PFI outline business case bid to burn 255,000 tonnes of municipal waste a year."
But council leader Lord Hanningfield said: "The county council's position has not changed; there will be no mass burn incineration in Essex.
"This is just pure political scaremongering by Cllr Abbott.
"We are exploring the option of PFI credits because of government requirements, and this is not an indication that it will be the final option for financing or an indeed of any site location.
"The only thing that is fact is the planning permission has been granted at Rivenhall for an anaerobic digester plant, for any kind of energy from waste plant to be built the full and proper planning processes would need to be gone through.
