Incinerator 'would make area a dustbin', says MP

The incinerator has been earmarked for land at Hillhouse Business Park on Bourne Road

Plans for a new waste incinerator near the Lancashire coast have drawn criticism from the area's MP.

The waste incinerator has been earmarked for land at Hillhouse Business Park on Bourne Road in Thornton-Cleveleys, and would generate energy from burning up to 120,000 tonnes of waste per year.

But Blackpool North and Fleetwood MP Lorraine Beavers has said "enough is enough" and the plans were "just a step too far".

"If this is passed, once again they're making that area of the Fylde coast into Lancashire's dustbin," she said.

The application has been recommended for approval by planning officers at Lancashire County Council, which will consider the project in a meeting on Wednesday.

The council said at this stage it could not comment on a matter subject to an ongoing planning process.

MP Lorraine Beavers said the area already has too much waste infrastructure

The proposed site was previously used as a chemical works by ICI so has a long history of industrial use.

The planning application shows that the plant would process waste and generate electricity and heat on a 24-hour basis, although the applicant said there would be no deliveries on Sundays.

It is estimated the facility would provide 40 new permanent full-time jobs.

While Beavers said she accepts the need to send less waste to landfill, she believes this part of Lancashire is not the place for an incinerator as well.

She said: "Fleetwood and Thornton are full. Fleetwood is already saturated with waste infrastructure, there's the landfill, the waste water treatment plant, and this incinerator would be one too many. We've taken more than our fair share."

She said she had asked council to move back from the proposals.

In April 2024 a planning committee decided permission should be approved, subject to a payment of £12,000 for highway safety improvements.

But that agreement was not signed, so planning permission was not granted.

Since that meeting, new material planning considerations have emerged and must now be looked at by the Development Control Committee.