A planning decision on an incinerator energy development at Flixborough has been delayed yet again, with the deadline for a decision moved back to spring 2025.
It is the fifth time a decision on the proposed North Lincolnshire Green Energy Park has been delayed. The project, not limited to just the incinerator, is too large to be handled at council level and will require the final say from a government Secretary of State.
It is estimated the proposal could create up to 257 jobs and a £5.7m boost to the local economy. The incinerator would be capable of converting up to 760,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste into 95MW of electricity.
The planning inspectorate made its recommendations on North Lincolnshire Green Energy Park in August 2023. It was to be then decided on within three months. But a decision has been repeatedly delayed, and in October, a fifth delay was announced.
Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, told Parliament: “I have decided to set a new deadline of no later than 14 March 2025 for deciding this application.” He said this was to allow “sufficient time” for the government department to consider and consult interested parties on a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) note to be published before the year’s end on infrastructure capacity for residual waste. Such waste is non-recyclable, or black bin, waste.
Besides the incinerator, North Lincolnshire Green Energy Park also involves a carbon capture storage system linked to the incinerator, a concrete block manufacturing facility, plastic recycling, hydrogen production and storage, and battery storage facilities. There would be a visitor centre, 65 acre wetland area, and the reopening of a 9km single track rail line would reconnect Flixborough Wharf to British Steel’s Scunthorpe site.
The energy it is estimated the incinerator could produce, would be enough to power the equivalent of 221,000 homes. There is opposition to it, though. This includes not only pressure group UK Without Incineration Network (UKWIN), but also scores of nearby residents, from the likes of Flixborough and Burton-upon-Stather, who objected to it in a 2022 consultation.
North Lincolnshire Green Energy Park’s director Colin Hammond wrote to the planning inspectorate in September noting the “significant delay” already in a decision. Noting other energy waste facility decisions recently made elsewhere in England, he added: “We trust that there will be no further delay to the current determination date of 18 October 2024.”
That has not occurred, leaving all parties to wait a further few months for a verdict. Provided DEFRA’s much-awaited note on residual waste infrastructure capacity is published in good time.
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Original artice: https://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/all-about/scunthorpe
