Gloucestershire incinerator to be run by consortium

The company to be given the job of building and running an incinerator to get rid of Gloucestershire's rubbish has been named.

At a meeting of Gloucestershire County Council earlier, a consortium of Urbaser and Balfour Beatty was awarded the 25-year contract, worth £500m.

The Conservative-run authority wants an Energy from Waste incineration facility to be built near junction 12 of the M5.

It is hoped that the plant will be operational by 2015.

'Alternative technologies'

The consortium intends to build the energy-from-waste facility on Javelin Park to deal with the county's household residual rubbish - what is left over after everything that can be recycled and composted has been removed.

It will now work with the council to finalise details of the contract which is likely to be signed during summer 2012.

Also bidding for the contract was Complete Circle.

More than 5,000 people signed a petition in 2010 opposing the plans.

Opponents of the incinerator said the council should have looked at alternative technologies and claimed much of the "real consultation" had been done "in secret".